6000 Series L Cars.
Posted by:
Jeff_Weiner
()
Date: September 25, 2015 03:02PM
My impression is that I'm a bit younger than some of the other posters, so all I've known of old L cars were, for the most part, the 6000 "Spam Can" cars.
One thing I have noticed is that, early on, these cars were equipped with resilient wheels, which consisted of rubber pads compressed between the hub and the wheel rim. At least, I gathered that from photos of them as new. Growing up, and riding the L, however, I always saw that they had solid wheels, and I have wondered when the change took place.
I've been told that use of the resilient wheels caused corrugation of the rails, which is consistent with the inboard band brakes and gearing, plus the rubber sandwich being in shear, all causing the wheel rim to chatter when the band brake was applied. The stopping loads would have been larger on an L car rather than on a PCC street car, making this very noticeable. Also, some of our old 600-series trucks have made their way to the undercarriages of Kenosha's PCC streetcars, complete with those solid wheels.
Anyone have any ideas when this took place?