I am trying to reconstruct the history of a number of structures in a railroad locomotive and freight car servicing facility and I have some questions some of you may know the answers to related to the servicing of solid bearings.

I have a engineering drawing of what is described as a "Lubricating Oil Tank". It was made in 1949 from the 2,400 gallon oil tank in the tender of a Western Pacific 0-6-0 steam locomotive. Its use is described in the drawing as belonging to an adjacent "Waste Soaking House". I have a photo of the tank and the "waste soaking house" but the photo doesn't reveal a lot about what exactly how it was used (see attached). The drawing of the tank indicates that it had a steam-supplied heater coil, presumably to keep the oil viscosity such that it could easily flow in cold weather. The drawing shows no pump apparatus of any kind, but it looks like there may be one underneath the tank in the photo.

The drawing, incidentally, is from the Motive Power Department, not the Mechanical Department, but many WP drawings of freight car related components came from the Motive Power Department so that isn't very telling.

Obviously a Waste Soaking House was where the cotton/wool waste for solid bearings was immersed and soaked in the lubricating oil used in the journals. What I can't figure out is how exactly this oil tank fit into the operation there.

Was journal oil generally purchased new or was used oil ever used for this purpose? If used oil was used, is it conceivable that it was the used crankcase oil from diesel-electric locomotives? Or might the journal oil, if used, come from some other source? This facility's main purpose was to service diesel locomotive so there was, presumably, a regular supply of used crankcase oil.

The fill hatch for this tank is at the top, which is about 16-feet off the ground. Would 55-gallon drums of oil, whether new or used, have been forklifted up there for unloading, or, if bought new, would oil come in tanker trucks, or tank cars, and be pumped in from ground level (typically)? Again, there is no pump indicated in the drawing, but there looks to be one in the photo. The drawing was from 1949 and the photo from 1955 so perhaps a pump was added later?

Any insight into how this worked, even if your knowledge isn't specific to the WP, is much appreciated. All this solid bearing stuff went on way before my time so I don't know a lot about how it worked.

Mike

Don't know this specific facility, but it is likely that the oil was pumped into the tank in bulk rather than lifted in by small batches. There may be an inlet under the manhole cover in the slab in the photo. The elevated height of the tank suggests it drained by gravity to dispensing hoses in maintenance pits nearby. Only truly threadbare shortlines would use old dirty oil in journals. I'd also assume a supply of saturated waste ready to go was generated and held in the building for repacking purposes, probably using oil from the tank as well. Good luck finding documentation.

dave

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On the left side of the tank at the bottom you can see a large valve with a large hose coiled next to it that was probably used to connect to tank car or truck.

Journal bearing oil must meet AAR Specification 963, which specifies how the oil must wick up through waste or a journal pad to reach the journal bearing service.

The ability of an oil to freely move by capillary action is opposite of what is desired in a crankcase oil, where forming a tenacious surface on moving parts is desired.

I doubt if even the poorest short line would have dared to use waste oil for journal bearings on cars in interchange service -- the potential liability for causing a hotbox would be huge.

When I was Treasurer at WRM, we were paying about $10 per gallon for journal oil in 55-gallon drums.

I'm curious about the shape of the tank. It looks like it could have been an oil tank, inserted into a coal bunker on a steam locomotive tender? The top left corner looks like it could have extended over the water space. Anyone else have the same impression? The railroads were among the earliest recyclers, right?

I get the same impression about that tank. I believe the CNR did the same when they converted a number of their engines to burn oil- fit a tank into where the coal bunker used to be.

The "inches equals gallons" cast data plate can be seen on the right side of the tank; this would have faced the cab of the steam locomotive. It sure looks like an oil tank pulled from a steam tender. The WP was a pretty thrifty road and even made some steam generator cars from 4-8-2 tenders (ex-FEC engines).

There was some discussion in Virgil Staff's book "D-Day on the Western Pacific" of re-refining or purifying used diesel loco crankcase oil for use in plain bearing journals.

Many railroads used a reclaimed oil and reclaimed waste (cleaned and re-soaked) for plain bearing journal boxes. The 1950-70s lubricator pads could also be "re-claimed" in the same facilities used for oily waste.

Howard P.

As I mentioned in the original post, the oil tank came from a 151 class WP 0-6-0. WP built two of these "Lube Oil Tanks" from 151 class tender tanks.

Thanks for all the information thus far. It's clear that used oil from crankcases was not used in journals, unless, as mentioned, it was cleaned and further refined. Even then though, it would have been shipped to a servicing facility in drums or a tank car. It's interesting that this waste soaking house was right in the middle of the diesel servicing area, and not by the carman's shanty, the the RIP tracks, or the yard. I wonder what the reasoning was behind that.

The WP purchased car oil in company tank cars from the Chevron refinery in Richmond. It could be delivered by tank car to the repair facilities. The oil house at Sacramento shops would get car oil in tank cars and empty it into large under ground tanks. Then it was repackaged into drums and shipped by boxcar to the other store houses. As I recall there was six under ground tanks at the oil house, car oil, heating oil , lamp oil, and I do not remember the others. The facility was complete and in tact when the shops were torn down, but it had not been used for many years.

The re-refining plant at Sacramento was only partly there when I worked there. It was my understanding that the facility re-refined engine oil and it was used as engine oil. The viscosity of engine oil would be too high to use as car oil. Also, as Al stated, the AAR regulated what type of oil went into interchange cars. Dick Shideler would probably be the best source of information on this.

Plain bearing cars used a lot of oil. Timkin adds use to say that the converstion to roller bearings could be paid for by the savings in car oil. One time I was working in Oakland yard as a carman during a strike. I was lacing up a train getting it ready to head east. There was one plain bearing car in the entire train. It was an IC box cars with 6 X 11 journals. I was standing there thinking that the car would surely make one more trip, but decided I had better open a lid and see how much oil it had. It was completely dry. I put seven gallons of car oil in that one car. I had to make three trips back to the carman's shack to refill the oil can.

What would be an oil product in used today that would "wick up" like journal oil would?

I seem to remember 90-120w gear oil and STP both, never wanting to stop stringing out like honey.

Is that the property we would look for in a journal oil?

Stickiness might be a good adjective if correct.

Dave,

Thanks for the additional info. I actually have a letter here I drafted today to send to Shideler. He's not on-line so I have to do it the old fashioned way. I thought I'd throw the questions out here first though since I'm on a bit of a deadline on this.

So it sounds like bulk oil (in tank cars) would have not been brought to outlying facilities. It would have come in 55-gallon drums shipped in box cars. BTW, the tank I'm researching and the one I posted the pic of above was in Portola. There was a nearly identical one in Stockton, which we have at the museum now in Portola since the original one there was long ago scrapped. A pic of it is attached.

Mike

Loco 112

When WRM purchases journal oil we just specify AAR M 963 oil. It is still made by most oil companies. It is available in small quantities from some of the specialty oil suppliers. Look in the Train Line newsletter.

You do not want STP in your oil, it will plug up the waste so it will not wick. I do not know what the gear weight equivlent oil is, but in engine oils I think journal oil is about 20 weight. But I would think the journal oil viscosity is tested at a lower temperature than engine oil.

When a railroad car is at a normal speed and the journals has warmed up, there is a lot of oil circlulating around the journal. The oil gets in between the journal and the brass and rolls into the load bearing zone, lifting the brass off the axle. More oil is drawn in and the oil under the load bearing area is forced out the other side. In a proper operating journal bearing, there is no metal to metal contact.

Here is an oil tank that was used to adapt a T&NO (SP) 4-6-0 to oil. This was the engine that was displayed for years south of Monee, IL at the Thompson Vineyard. When it was moved to the Roosevelt Railroad in Georgia as a display item they left the oil tank behind.
More photos here:http://home.earthlink.net/~stevekraus/monee.html
(This is all gone now.)

Well, the main reason not to use oil from crankcases is a railroad doesn't have very much of it. You don't change the oil on a diesel locomotive, unless it is contaminated, burnt or otherwise spoiled.