Can someone explain the difference and pros/cons advantages/disadvantages?
Original Post
TheDude23112 posted:Can someone explain the difference and pros/cons advantages/disadvantages?
The so-called "Bettendorf Freight car truck" was initially available with plain bearings for the axle journals (distinguished by those obvious 'flip-up' covers at each axle journal box). In later years (1950s) the cartridge type roller bearings began to be installed, and can be distinguished by the rotating "three-bolt" rotating end-covers on the cartridge type roller bearing.
If one is modeling in the steam era, i.e. prior to about 1958, most freight cars still had the plain bearing, oil lubricated Bettendorf trucks, or maybe Andrews trucks, or even the Barber freight car trucks (all equipped with plain bearings). By the late 1950s and early the roller bearings became MUCH more popular, and gradually the old, oil lubricated plain bearings were replaced and fazed out. In today's "modern era" all those plain bearing oil lubricated journals are illegal for interchange service, and EVERYTHING is now roller bearing equipped, both freight and passenger.
