Symington-Gould Chrysler Design High Speed Trucks

Vancouver, BC, December 11, 1950, Walter E. Frost, City of Vancouver Archives

In the early 1950s, Symington-Gould Corporation produced trucks to a design licensed from Chrysler. The trucks incorporated design features to mitigate the effects of lateral motion, as well as snubbers to smooth the ride at high speeds. The trucks saw limited adoption, with perhaps the most notable cars to be equipped with them being the 350 cars built by General American in 1950. Not only did the cars use the Chrysler trucks, but they were also equipped with the Duryea Cushion Underframe and Evans 'DF' (damage free) loading devices. After being used in lease service, many were sold to several railroads. GAEX 108025 is illustrative of one of these cars, with green sides, yellow band and stenciling, and black roof and Chrysler trucks. 

1953 Car Builders' Cyclopedia

1953 Car Builders' Cyclopedia

circa 1953, my collection

In late 1952 and into 1953, PFE converted 50 R-40-10 steel refrigerator cars for express service. Upgrades included steel running boards, electric air circulating fans, steam and signal lines, and high speed trucks (the trucks were secondhand from a Union Pacific test on stock cars). The cars were assigned to class BR-40-10. Twenty-five cars, nos. PFE 901-925, were equipped with Chrysler trucks, as shown above on PFE 913.

Replicating these trucks in HO scale is not all that easy. Twin Star Cars (website is no longer available) offered resin castings of the spring portion that nests in the sideframe (shown in the center of the photo above... not that great an image, but they weren't the main subject of the image and it's all I have). Tony Thompson profiled them on his blog. I was fortunate to acquire a couple pairs of Overland brass versions over a decade ago, which, of course, I cannot lay my hands on at this moment after my recent move. However, for those of you who do not have the Overland offerings or Twin Star Cars castings, American Scale Models offers a similar if not identical offering for the steep price of $39.95 (or in O scale for $69.95).  I plan to use my Overlands to model one of the GAEX cars. I will profile that build on this blog. Stay tuned.