Has anybody replaced the center plates on any CN heavyweight coaches? I have one six axle car that needs new center plates to mate with the bolsters. The bolsters have replacable mating plates as well.

Thanks!

Ryan Scott

rscott@gsmr.com

Not sure I understand, Ryan.....are you replacing worn plates on both the car and truck bolsters or are you needing to replace the car plate to adapt to different trucks? Could make a large difference.

dave

irondave@bellsouth.net

> Not sure I understand, Ryan.....are you
> replacing worn plates on both the car and
> truck bolsters or are you needing to replace
> the car plate to adapt to different trucks?
> Could make a large difference.

> dave

I need to replace the plate that mounts to the carbody, as the mounting ears are cracked. I'll replace the plate that mounts to the truck if necessary, depending on what is available. Just wondering if someone has already run this road.

Ryan

rscott@gsmr.com

Harold Frye and I did many of these on 1937 and 1942 "Canadian flyer" lightweight 5180-series coaches. As I recall, these were riveted on with 6 hot rivets in the original. Evidently there was a problem, because lots of them had loose rivets, busted ears, or had the rivets replaced with Huckbolts. I suspect the problems were poor surfacing of the cast body bolster under the plate (not flat, hence broken centerplate castings) or rivets working under braking load (rivets carry the braking load in shear). Our solution was to weld, machine, and heat-treat the broken centerplate, and then bolt it back on with a layer of epoxy to compensate for imperfection in the carbody casting. The CN recipe for welding and heat-treating these castings is reproduced in the T.R.A.In. passenger-car manual, Volume I. So far as I know, this repair has worked fine.

The centerplate on the truck bolster has similiar problems, but as I recall the horizontal movement was managed with shims, and there may have been a layer of rubber-canvas insulation (Fabreeka) somewhere under the plate that prevents use of very tight threaded bolts. If threaded bolts are used to hold the centerplate, it is important that all surfaces be flat. I once had the weird experience of leaning on one of these trucks (I did a lot of leaning in the course of passenger-car repair) and feeling, more than hearing, a tiny but nasty-sounding ringing crack. Inspection showed that this was a freshly-repaired centerbearing ear breaking off again due to being tightened against a less-than-flat truck bolster. Oh well, back to the annealing furnace.

Pay attention to the layer of shims under the truck centerplate. At first we couldn't figure why CN/VIA had put one or two inches of steel under each of these centerplates. But in the course of repairing the carbodies, we discovered that the vestibules had sagged downward due to buffing forces by 1-5/8 inches at the pulling face of the couplers. Lo and behold, the trucks had 1-5/8 inches of shims under the centerplates, to bring the coupler centerlines and diaphragm step plates back to standard height. This is independent of the shimming under the equalizer seats that compensates for wheel wear. It is easy to level your trucks and restore the coupler height by measuring and adding up the wheel thickness, spring height, equalizer and coil spring shims, and centerplate shims. This requires you to add fractions, but based on what we found in some of these cars this is more than some of the railroad carmen could do. Then throw in a centerbearing lubricant sheet, lower the carbody back down, check the final heights, and boogie down the rails.

Many heavyweights have carbody ends that are deformed downward, due to inherent weakness in the big casting that includes the end sills, draft pocket, and body bolsters. Over 40 years' service, hard couplings bent the body ends down. The early CN lightweights were built like heavyweights in this regard. Which CN cars are you working on?

Aarne Frobom
The Steam Railroading Institute
P. O. Box 665
Owosso, Michigan 48867-0665

#522 and #523, both built 1935 for CN. These came from the Potamac Eagle up North, according to the records. This car has just four bolts.

Ryan

rscott@gsmr.com

I am with Aarne on this one. Had to weld repair and heat treat the center plate casting on our 1954 Army kitchen car/baggage when we did the 40 year overhaul. We huck bolted it back on, for the most part follwed the same procedures that Aarne describes.

Steve

> Harold Frye and I did many of these on 1937
> and 1942 "Canadian flyer"
> lightweight 5180-series coaches. As I
> recall, these were riveted on with 6 hot
> rivets in the original. Evidently there was
> a problem, because lots of them had loose
> rivets, busted ears, or had the rivets
> replaced with Huckbolts. I suspect the
> problems were poor surfacing of the cast
> body bolster under the plate (not flat,
> hence broken centerplate castings) or rivets
> working under braking load (rivets carry the
> braking load in shear). Our solution was to
> weld, machine, and heat-treat the broken
> centerplate, and then bolt it back on with a
> layer of epoxy to compensate for
> imperfection in the carbody casting. The CN
> recipe for welding and heat-treating these
> castings is reproduced in the T.R.A.In.
> passenger-car manual, Volume I. So far as I
> know, this repair has worked fine.




SZuidervee@aol.com

These various solutions to center plate problems are interesting.

On our B&M cars here at Strasburg, we have been plagued over the years with excess snubber, hanger and pin wear caused by the old, bowl-style center plates dancing a fandango on their way to Paradise. This past Spring, on the Car 68 (Hello Dolly) rebuild, we burnt off the old center plates and replaced them with a 12" freight male on the car frame, and a steel slab machined female on the truck bolster. Riding between the two is a 0.25" aluminized bronze washer.

So far, everything looks good. The new snubber surfaces are polished but not worn, and I don't see any of the usual signs of hanger and pin wear.

This solution is not for all of the B&M cars as some of them have cast-on center plates, but it should work for the majority.

Steve

Strasburg Rail Road
ssweaver@paonline.com

This has been a very interesting and useful thread.

We have four ex-CN commuter cars built as first class coaches by CC&F between 1919 and 1923, and another one built by CC&F as a first & second class coach in 1923.

One of the ex- first class coaches has a center plate needing replacement.

In this case, the crack is our fault- while lifting the car for road transport, one of the hired crane operators jumped the gun and raised his end of the car too far before the other guy had even started. This jammed the center plate in the "bowl" on the truck bolster. causing the casting to snap. Luckily, there was no damage on the truck.

Remember this if you're lifting passenger cars or diesel units!

Fortunately we were able to acquire a brand new matching part from CN at the time and it is carefully stored until we get to work on the coach.

This thread has provided some excellent tips on installation. I'll be putting a print of the messages in our file for this coach, for future reference.

Best of luck with the repairs on your coach, Ryan!

Steve Hunter,
Cardinal, Ontario


http://www.magma.ca/~sfrm/
s.c.hunter@sympatico.ca

The Northwest Railway Museum has several ex-Spokane, Portland and Seattle coaches. They have the old bowl-style center plates. While replacing couplers on one of the cars, we performed a routine inspection of the bolster castings and found a crack on both ends of the car. We removed the plates from the carbody and had a firm in Seattle machine new matching bowls out of a 6 inch thick plate. The replacements were $1,200 each but allowed us to keep the original design. Acquiring newer-syle plates on short notice and making the modifications to accept it would have cost at least as much. The new plates are fastened with threaded bolts and have performed without incident for two years. The most difficult element of the project was installing such a beautiful piece of machining where no one can see it!

http://www.trainmuseum.org
rra@trainmuseum.org