Endless Cables for Engine Servicing and Y3 Ball Joints

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Hello everyone, I have two questions that I’m curious if someone knows the answer to. 

In Alex Schust’s “N&W in West Virginia” (picked up in the gift shop in the Bramwell visitor’s center last month), the section on Bluefield servicing facilities improvements makes note of an endless cable that pulled locomotives through various stations, including the wash rack. 

That answers a never-fully-formed question about how the hostler stayed dry when moving an engine through the wash rack, but it raised another one; how and to what was the endless cable connected to on the locomotive? The coupler? Any convenient item on the frame? A dedicated staple or tab?

The second question was spurred by an article in a 1925 N&W magazine I was reading last night. The subject was machining a ball and socket for the joint between the front and rear engines of Y3’s. The purpose was to replace the simple pin connection in order to improve curving. In the past, I’ve read that all motion other than side to side (pivoting) was not considered a good thing, so the ball and socket surprised me. Here’s my question; was this approach used on later Y’s? My father’s Y6 erection drawing appears to show a normal pin, so maybe the ball and socket was a passing fad.

Matt Goodman
Columbus, Ohio, US