Self steering railway truck

Claim 1

A load-carrying railway truck having a longitudinal axis in its direction of travel and including a load-bearing structure; a pair of live-axle wheelsets each comprising a pair of wheels solidly mounted on an axle and supporting the load-bearing structure through axle bearings mounted on each axle, load-transmitting means for each axle bearing including an adaptor means seated on the bearing and having flanges straddling the bearing, and an elastic element between each adaptor flange and the load-bearing structure, with each wheel tread being profiled to a high effective conicity to generate steering forces by the conical tread independently of the wheel flange and the elastic elements providing constraints against longitudinal movement of each wheelset with respect to the load-bearing structure which are lower than the steering forces whereby each wheelset is substantially self-steering; and means interconnecting the wheelsets to couple yawing movements of each wheelset in opposite sense to the other wheelset, the interconnecting means comprising a first extension secured to an adaptor on the first wheelset, an identical extension being secured to a diagonally opposite adaptor on the second wheelset, an anchor means extending diagonally across the truck pivotally connected to the free ends of the first and second extensions; each of the elastic elements comprising a first member resilient in the lateral and longitudinal directions of the truck and an elongate second member having an arcuate surface in vertical load supporting engagement with the first member, each elastic element being disposed on an adaptor flange with the principal axis of the second member parallel to the longitudinal axis of the truck whereby each elastic element provides a resilient constraint in a direction transverse to the longitudinal axis of the truck which is lower than the resilient constraint in a direction parallel to the longitudinal axis of the truck.