Steam & Excursion > Anybody care for a chilled cast iron wheel?

A few months ago soneone asked about Cast Iron wheels. They were usually called "Chilled" Cast Iron wheels, and had ribs on the back plate. This one is under the tender of former M. & St. L. 2-8-0 #457, stuffed & mounted really well in a city park in Mason City, IA. Surprisingly, this little engine had an automatic stoker.

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And, here is the whole truck

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thats one well cared for now

Do you have a pic of the engine you'd like to post?

Here MJ.

http://www.trainorders.com/discussion/read.php?10,1999372

Jeff

Id say that cast iron wheels would be out lawed now? With cast iron prone to defects from casting and cracking. Looks like a flat spot would destroy a wheel.

I am guessing that cast iron wheels were outlawed in interchange at least 30 years ago.

Chilled cast iron? Hardly. Wheels are generally made of steel and they machine the tread to the proper contour.

We did buy a lot of chilled cast iron wheels 16" in diameter that were used on kiln cars in the concrete pipe industry. A "chilled" casting is made by pouring the molten iron into a mould that is made from a heavy cast iron slug, as opposed to a sand mould. Pouring the hot iron into the cold mould "chills" the tread and makes is very hard and durable, but it is nowhere as smooth and durable as a cast steel wheel.

Chilled wheels went out after the civil war as far as mainline train service, but they can be found today in some industrial applications.

Been there, done that.

Cast Iron Wheels
Cast iron wheels go back to earliest days of American railroading, the 1820s and way before that in England. According to John H. White, Jr., transportation curator emeritus of the Smithsonian Institutions, they were used even before steam railways. Cast iron lacks the strength of steel. It has excellent compression strength, but is relatively brittle and its strength under compression is considerably less than steel.

Cast iron wheels were never used in Europe to any great extent. In the days before wrought or cast steel wheels, European railroads used wrought iron instead. According to John White, American-made cast iron was of superior quality to that made overseas. It proved satisfactory in U.S. service, unlike the European experience.

White says in 1930 it was estimated 95% of freight and 25% as passenger car wheels were cast iron. According to the 1940 Car Builders Cyclopedia the freight car percentage was down to 82%. The AAR began to ban cast iron wheels in the 1950s and they were completely gone by 1968. However, it is not impossible to find them on unused cars transferred to maintenance of way service Try getting the FRA and the railroads to move an historic car with just one cast iron wheel set.

The outstanding feature of cast iron wheels was the "hard chilled" flange and tread. Chilling produced a high combined-carbon content of 3.5%, almost steel-like silver-white metal. This was so hard only diamond abrasive wheels could cut it. These hard smooth wearing treads were impossible to machine; they could be reshaped only by grinding. Lans Vail says, "They were harder than a landlord's heart".

Other advantages of the chilled iron wheel, whose hardness was only on the tread and flange, included easily machinable hubs resulting in correct wheel fits and lower machine shop costs. The coefficient of friction between cast iron wheels and cast iron brake shoes was greater than that developed by steel. This meant reduced strain on the brake rigging. Chilled wheels carried heavy loads without any distortion or cold rolling of the surface metal.

I was part of a crew that changed some wheel-and-axle sets on a Pacific Electric "Hollywood" car (a streetcar that weighs about 30 tons). The treads of the old wheels had worn through the "chill". I was pointing out the bad spots to a visitor who was wondering why we were doing this process, commenting, "If somebody's teeth looked like that wheel, the dentist would say, 'better get comfortable, you're going to be here a while.'" The wheel suppliers were still making chilled wheels for trolley cars into the 1950's.

The photographed wheel on the M. & St. L. locomotive in Mason City seems to have a date on it of 9-8-47 and that must have been about the end of C.I. wheels. I used to see this locomotive seasonally in service at a nearby sugar plant many years after M. & St. L. went all diesel.

The last that I saw it was about six years ago and it looked like a hopeless mess and would likely soon be headed for the scrap heap. What a pleasant surprise to see these photos. Someone certainly did an excellent makeover job.

A friend of mine who was a Wabash railroader told me one time about finding a defective wheel on the tender of a Wabash M-1 (4-8-2) in the late 30's. He was on the early morning westbound drag freight out of Montpelier, Ohio (an extra) and had taken siding at at Dillon, Indiana for a hot eastbound redball (probably 98). (Dillon was where the Wabash 4th District crossed the NKP Indianapolis-Michigan City line.

Clarence was just a rookie brakeman at the time and decided to do his duty and walk both sides of the train. Anyway, when he got back up the head end, low and behold, there was a chunk missing in one of the tender wheels! He reported it to the engineer (he thinks it was big, Harry Bevier) and was instructed to go up to the tower and call Montpelier. Montpelier dispatched a truck out with a new wheel set. I was surprised that they had the equipment in that time period to do that kind of work on location like that.

I don't know if it was an iron wheel but I suppose that if they would not have detected that problem, they might have met with some unfortunate circumstances on the way to Chicago. Perhaps it would have hung up on a switch or crossing frog or fell apart?



Edited 2 time(s). Last edit at 04/05/11 10:23 by wabash2800.