The Westinghouse Friction Draft Gear

Freight Engine Service ALL of the locomotives of the Union Railroad (the Pittsburg terminal of the Pittsburg, Bessemer & Lake Erie Railroad) are fitted with this apparatus, two of these locomotives having a total weight of 167 tons each, with 200,000 pounds upon the driving wheels with a draw-bar pull of 50,000 pounds. Before the frictional apparatus was applied, repairs to draft gear were required about every ten weeks, the cost thereof averaging 83 cents per thousand miles, without allowance for the time the engines were out of service. The Friction Draft Gear has now been in operation about fifteen months upon the two heavy engines and during that time no repairs to the draft gear have been required. This apparatus has been in constant use upon the Pullman private car “ Glen Eyre ” for three years with the most satisfactory results, there having been none of the inconvenient and disagreeable shocks when switching which were of daily occurrence prior to its application. 21