Resilient railway vehicle suspension

Abstract

Abstract A railway vehicle suspension including a truck of the type having a transverse load supporting bolster swivelly supported on the truck framing and resiliently supporting the vehicle underframe for relative vertical and lateral cushioning movements only is constructed and arranged so that tractive forces are transmitted from the truck to the underframe at a desirable level below the bolster and at points laterally outboard of the truck frame without locating draft-transmitting devices in these regions where it would interfere with apparatus such as third rail current collection means. The vertical and lateral cushioning means and the draft-transmitting means comprise pairs of opposing transverse surfaces on the bolster and underframe at both sides of the truck inwardly and upwardly steeply inclined longitudinally of the truck, with similarly inclined flat elastomeric pad devices interposed between them, the normals of the surfaces and pads converging at a level below the bolster so that the lines of action of the resultants of the vertical and longitudinal forces, applied to the bolster through the pad devices, converge at a still lower level to provide the desirable low level effective traction transmission point. Vertical and lateral cushioning movements of the underframe on the truck are accommodated and yieldingly resisted respectively by the resilience in shear and compression, and transverse shear of the elastomeric pads and longitudinal tractive and retardation forces are transmitted from the truck to the underframe principally by the resistance of the pad devices to compression by forces acting longitudinally of the truck.

Inventors

• 👤 Richard L Lich

Bibliographic Details