There is an excellent book on Carl Breer and two of his partners, published by Johns Hopkins, that covers some of this territory, although without the cool swing-hanger pictures. The freight-car trucks were news to me.

There are a couple remnants of Walter P. Chrysler's involvement with locomotives and passenger-car suspensions.

Chrysler's tool kit from his days as a railroad shopman was for years a holy relic at the Henry Ford Museum, and is now on display at the Chrysler Museum in Auburn Hills. Centrally featured in the tool box are two tube rollers. I imagine the hot rodders and antique-car guys visiting the museum have no idea what they are.

When the Steam Railroading Institute rented a private car (ex-Seaboard?) for the 1991 trip of PM 1225 to Huntington, its three-axle trucks had been retrofitted with bolster anchors bearing Chrysler patent plates. Instead of the usual rubber-mounted shafts, these had automotive universal joints at either end. (These are what the article calls "thrust links.") A good solution providing total freedom of movement with no slop, and a huge improvement over the usual bash plates that limit bolster movement in a Pullman truck. I've never seen another such installation.

I just wish my 2005 Chrysler "Walter P. Chrysler autograph model" Town and Country van had been designed with equal regard for long-lived suspension parts. It eats suspension bushings and tie-rod ends like candy. Carl Breer, where are you now that we need you?

Aarne Frobom
Fabreeka, Michigan

Dave, that was a neat find!

I see Bill is quoted in the article too and next weekend I'll have to take a look at the B&M milkcar's trucks closely. I don't know how many times I've walked by that car and not paid attention to the trucks.