I've noticed that Railway Mechanical Engineer magazine often referred to driving box journals as crown bearing types.

There's an alloy called Bearing Bronze and has been for a couple centuries now. Of course we also have sintered nonferrous and various polycarbonates to choose from for different appications. A babbit lining or a babbit liner poured out on the road to limp back home - there's a lot of blacksmithing heritage bound up in it.

True, that. The term “journal brass” has been around so long that rather than fight it, I go with the flow. I assume it’s because the alloy of bronze used looks very much like brass as opposed to what people think of when picturing bronze. I will mention to the uninitiated that the big chunk of metal is actually bronze, not to correct, but as one of those interesting little railroady factoids to clutter your brain.

I just found it interesting that the term “friction journal” popped up in the ‘20s. I still have maybe 250 more drawings to go through so I may find an even earlier reference. It’s been an interesting project to do while being temporarily laid up. There should be somewhere around 1,000 drawings & diagrams, all of them in very good shape considering they’ve been folded and stored in cardboard boxes for decades. The Pennsy’s engineering department used very good paper for their blue prints and blue lines.

jayrod,

Can you share the source for the drawings you are cataloging? Are they just Pennsy drawings, or are there drawings or tracings from outside suppliers?

I can appreciate what you are involved in, having identified and cataloged over 1,000 drawings used to build the USATC Consolidations. It's tedious but also rewarding rewarding.

These are all drawings from the PRR engineering department. Most of them came out of the old Crestline OH loco & car shops. Lots of locomotive and tender component drawings and a large cache of equipment diagrams.

"Brass" and "Friction Journal" used in 1911:

https://www.google.com/books/edition/Jo ... frontcover