Railroad car truck suspension system

Claim 1

A vehicle suspension system for use in conjunction with a railroad car, or the like, comprising, in combination: a truck assembly having side frames disposed longitudinally with respect to a car body supported thereby, said car body being pivotally supported by the truck assembly, and resilient means cooperative with the truck assembly for preserving substantially uniform parallelism as between the car body and the riding surfaces upon which the truck assembly is carried, said resilient means comprising a crossed lever assembly interconnecting sprung and unsprung elements of said car whereby parallelism of these elements is operatively preserved throughout the load range of the suspension system, said crossed lever assembly comprising a hollow hub assembly integral with crossed levers, the hollow hub assembly including concentrically disposed component hubs located at a common intersecton of the crossed levers, radially adjacent surfaces of said hubs being bondedly interconnected by an elastomeric collar, said elastomeric collar being operationally stressed in torsional shear in resistance to load deflection of outwardly extending ends of said levers, the upwardly extending ends hingedly supporting said sprung elements, downwardly extending ends of said levers being supported by said unsprung elements.