If Mr. Hudson’s truck, … be examined, it will be seen that the radius link serves no other purpose than that of carrying the truck along with the engine, and this could obviously be equally done by the pivot or central pin of the truck itself.

It is probable that few builders other than Rogers made use of the Hudson radial link.[16] One of these was John Headden, whose General Darcy, shown in [figure 6], was fitted with the Hudson truck.

Thus, by 1860 there had been perfected and adopted a successful 4-wheel safety truck for 4-4-0’s and 4-6-0’s used in general mixed and passenger service. But as the decade advanced, the need grew for heavy freight engines that could be safely run at speed. Without a pilot truck, the leading driving axle of the freight engine was generally overloaded. While the application of a 4-wheel truck reduced this front-end overload and permitted faster running it materially reduced the traction of the drivers by bearing too great a portion of the total weight. This loss of traction was of course highly undesirable and generally disqualified the use of 4-wheel trucks for freight engines. What was needed was a truck which would guide the 0-6-0’s and 0-8-0’s around curves and yet leave the greater portion of the weight on the drivers. The 2-wheel, or pony, truck met these requirements.[17]

[p127]

Figure 9.—Running gear and truck designed by John L. Whetstone, as shown in the drawing for U.S. patent 27850, issued April 10, 1860.]

Levi Bissell produced the basic patent for such a truck in 1857. Zerah Colburn in September of that year had suggested to Bissell that he develop a 2-wheel truck. Such a device, he believed, would be well received in Britain.[18] He was quite correct, as will shortly be seen.

In nearly every respect Bissell’s 2-wheel truck (see [fig. 7]) followed the idea of the original patent for the 4-wheel truck, which he claimed as the basis for the present invention. The pintle was located behind the truck axle, near the front driving-wheel axle, and the weight was carried by incline planes that also served as the centering device.

A study of the patent drawing in [figure 7] reveals several interesting points. Note that the V’s, and thus the point of bearing, are slightly in front of the center line of the truck axle. It was suggested in the patent specification that the V’s might be placed to the front, rear, or directly over the axle, but in most actual applications they were placed directly over the axle. Note also that the locomotive shown on the figure is obviously a standard high-wheel American type which has suffered the rather awkward substitution of a pony truck for its regular 4-wheel arrangement. It is probable that few if any American types were so rebuilt.

Bissell was granted U.S. patent 21936 on November 2, 1858. British patent 2751 was issued for the same device on December 1, 1858. A few months later, in the summer of 1859, service tests of Bissell’s new truck began in England.