Broken loco driver spokes

[NW Mailing List]

Good afternoon from the other side of the pond.

The move away from spoked wheels in North America in the  1930s was an interesting development including the BoxPok and Scullin drivers. There may  have been some underlying concerns about the continuing use of spoked driving wheels.  I don't recall any reports of driving wheel spoke failures here.

The Merchant Navy and West Country/Battle of Britain Pacific types were built with a patented (BFB)  design of solid driving wheels. Later steam locos built until 1960 retained spokes for driving and carrying wheels. Ironically some water and coal tenders had solid wheels including the A4 Pacifics. 

Phil Mortimer

-----Original Message-----
From: NW-Mailing-List [mailto:nw-mailing-list-bounces at nwhs.org] On Behalf Of NW Mailing List
Sent: Monday, January 28, 2019 1:02 PM
To: NW Mailing List
Subject: Re: Broken loco driver spokes

It would be quite an event for driver spokes to fail. They are part of a 
casting that is held in compression by the tires. Almost seems a tire 
would have to come off to expose the spokes to forces that would break 
them. That said, a poor casting might fail, and we should note that some 
early locomotives had wooden or composite spokes that were far weaker 
than castings.

     WJPowers

On 1/27/2019 9:27 PM, NW Mailing List wrote:
> Not on the N&W, but if I recall correctly there was a story in the old 
> pulp Railroad Magazine entitled "Engine Messengers" that told of a 
> high-wheeled Atlantic being ferried somewhere that underwent a slack 
> action shock or a hard coupling that resulted in broken driver spokes 
> . . .
>
> Ed King
>
> -----Original Message----- From: NW Mailing List
> Sent: Friday, January 25, 2019 4:23 PM
> To: NW Mailing List
> Subject: Broken loco driver spokes
>
> Has anyone heard of broken loco driver spokes being a problem on the N&W?
>
> Jimmy Lisle
>
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