Some midnight entrepreneur has seen fit to relieve us of our journal brasses. Is anyone making the complete brasses new? I know we have several cars with 5x9 brasses but the other size was mentioned to possibly be 4.5x something?

I currently just getting an idea of the cost so we can plan for it when we start using cars. I am sure it won't be cheap....

Wouldn't you have to jack up the car to get them out? Are the local scrap yards aware of the theft and on the lookout for them? They would be hard to miss.

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The cars were put there many years ago, and we just in the last couple of weeks cleared out enough brush to get to the cars. We tried to move one car, and further investigation we realized the brass is gone, not just out of that car but perhaps all of them. That would be up to 64 bearings. No telling how long ago they were actually taken. Honestly, I am not sure they were scrapped, my gut feeling is that it was the old midnight rail supply. (In other words, they were stolen to be used on someone else's railcars)

We have some new brasses in storage somewhere but I doubt we have enough of all the sizes. I am considering trying to make a wooden bearing to at least get the cars mobile again, and reserve real bearings for the ones that may be used regularly.

If no one is making them, that tells me they won't be cheap :/

Sad to think that the RR's probably dumped brand new ones by the pallet, and the old ones went to scrap by the gondola load. Of course if we had a time machine, the list of things we would go back and pick out of the dumpsters is miles and miles long...

Make new brasses out of oak. Then soak them in journal oil for several weeks. Follow the AAR drawings for design and dimensions. They will work fine and are more forgiving of a rough journal. If you moved the car with no brass any amount, the journal is damaged and will not run with a real brass. Stealing brass use to be a big problem. In the railroad shop I worked in we always kept a barrel of wooden brass soaking in journal oil. One time a car with wooden brass got away from us and ended up on a train. Went to the next terminal at train speed with no problem.

Any chance they are still being made in China or India? Of course the AAR material spec issue does come up, but I doubt that any friction bearing equipped car would be used in high speed or interchange service today.

Try Magnus at Fremont, NE. phone 402-721-9540
Long time manufacturer of journal brass.
Still some demand in industrial applications.
Produce traction motor support bearings for the industry.
Alex Huff

Does anyone have a drawing(s) of typical size brasses they can share?

From an old AAR manual

Hope this helps,
Mike Tillger

Mike,
You seem to have a lot of stuff you carry around in your back pocket....

Sorry my scanner is down, but see 1922 Cyclopedia. You can enlarge/download pages.

https://babel.hathitrust.org/cgi/pt?id=chi.098469345

Go to page 807.....

Here are some dimensions for bearings and wedges.

The journal brass problem is not going to go away but will become more pronounced as we move forward. Perhaps we should start thinking about making our own replacements. SAE 660 bearing bronze is fairly close to the AAR spec, except 660 has less lead than the AAR spec has. That can be remedied by adding lead to the metal as it is melted. I'm not even so sure that the differences between 660 and the AAR spec create radical differences in performance. Steel mills have been using 660 for overhead crane bearings for a century, which are built very similar to railroad journals.

The big up front cost is in patternmaking. We would need one pattern for each size. So far I think 5 1/2 x 10 and 4 1/4 x 8 are the two sizes in most demand. I have about 1,000 lbs. of SAE 660 bronze in my metals stockpile (old steel mill crane bearings) and a furnace capable of 40 to 50 lb. per heat. I do not have the ability as of yet to pour the babbitt lining or to do the finish machinework, but I can make the backs.

I seem to recall a LOT of heavyweight coaches used 5 x 9 brasses, so best to include that size as well.

"SAE 660 bearing bronze is fairly close to the AAR spec, except 660 has less lead than the AAR spec has. That can be remedied by adding lead to the metal as it is melted. I'm not even so sure that the differences between 660 and the AAR spec create radical differences in performance."

You dont need lead in the bronze. It was just difficult to get rid of in making bronze in the earlier days. Many alloys in bearing applications states "Maximum x% lead". But better without it. If You can avoid Zink in the alloys it will be fine.

Babitt/whitemetal:
Tin 80 %
Antimonium 11,5 %
Copper 5,5 %
Lead, max or 3 %
Casting temp will be 400 to 425 deg Celsius. Preheat bronze bearing to 250 deg. Celsius.

Ragnar