Toy train guy here. As some of you may know, Lionel Trains picked an obscure freight car truck to use on the major of their rolling stock in the 1970's and 1980's.



Years ago, the truck was identified by the toy train press as being a Symington-Wayne XL-70 truck. Most of the discussion has centered around why Lionel chose such an oddball truck, but very little info is out there on what exactly these trucks were. Google has not exactly been my friend, so I thought I'd try a few questions here.

1) Is the S-W XL-70 identification correct?

2) What railroads and/or carbuilders (if any) ordered these, and were they on a particular run of cars?

3) Was the design considered a success?

4) Have any of these been preserved?

Please shoot me a note at papertrw@aol.com if you can help and/or if I can help anyone out there with any toy train questions.

Todd Wagner
Rochester Hills, MI

Got a little lucky on the internet search, and came up with a "Symington-Gould" truck under a New Haven express car (former troop sleeper, this was supposed to be a replacement for the Allied full-cushion trucks that apparently didn't work too well).

Scroll down for photos:

http://thenhrhtanewhavenrailroadforum.y ... yNFUsWJeSo

Of interest is that I think Lionel was in New Haven territory, and the truck, as interpreted by Lionel, is one converted to roller bearings. Was this version of the truck something the management, engineers, and die-makers at Lionel were seeing regularly?

For some reason, I think the C&O had some of these as well under some postwar gondolas, of all things. That road had a bunch of gons delivered after WW II with a huge variety of trucks under them; I think part of that may have been experiments with new truck designs, and part may have been shortages of certain components, and the C&O took what it could get.

I'm afraid I don't picture such oddball equipment surviving to today.

Wow, I had forgotten how many different types of freight trucks there used to be:

http://www.trainlife.com/magazines/page ... 90-page-60

http://www.trainlife.com/magazines/page ... 90-page-61

http://www.trainlife.com/magazines/page ... 90-page-62

http://www.trainlife.com/magazines/page ... 90-page-63

http://www.trainlife.com/magazines/page ... 90-page-64

Of the unusual types, a couple that seem like they might have survived to the present day would include the National Type B, and maybe the heavy-duty variant with clasp brakes used under hopper cars on the Bessemer. Of course, we already know about a number of cars with Allied full-cushion trucks--something of a surprise, considering how the truck was outlawed from interchange passenger service so long ago.

Unmodified outside brake beam trucks still exist under the 70 ton B&LE hopper at the Conneaut, OH Railroad Museum.

A.C. Gilbert, makers of American Flyer, was in New Haven territory, maybe in New Haven itself. They brought out a series of passenger cars, based on the New Haven's latest P-S cars in the '30s, that became known as the 'American Flyer' cars in both full size and model form. The Lionel plant, ages ago, was in Hillside, NJ, on the Lehigh Valley.