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Figure 8.—A 2-wheel Bissell truck installed on the Pennsylvania Railroad’s No. 91. This engine originally an 0-8-0 Winans Camel built in February 1854, was rebuilt by John P. Laird in 1867, at which time the Bissell truck was added. Note that Hudson equalizing lever was not used. (Smithsonian photo 46806-k)

The British journal Engineering, in an article otherwise friendly to the inventor, expressed some skepticism as to the real merit of Hudson’s invention.¹⁵

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

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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.

First known use of the truck was on the British Eastern Counties Railway No. 248, a rigid-frame 2-4-0 built by Kitson in 1855. The leading wheels of the engine, as originally constructed, were attached to the frame in the same manner as the drivers and thus had [p128] no lateral freedom. For the test the front pedestals, which held the journal boxes of the leading wheels, were cut off and a Bissell pony truck was substituted. About a year later Alexander L. Holley reported on the success of the test.¹⁹ The 248 had operated 17,500 miles, at speeds up to 50 m.p.h., safely and satisfactorily. The engine not only rode more steadily but showed a remarkable reduction in flange wear. The road was so pleased that by 1866 they had equipped 21 locomotives with Bissell trucks.²⁰ Several other British lines followed the example of the Eastern Counties Railway.

Figure 10.—The Hudson-Bissell truck permitted the introduction of Mogul and Consolidation type freight locomotives. This drawing shows a typical installation for a Consolidation of the 1880’s. Item A is the equalizing lever which connects the truck to the springs of the front driving wheels. From figures 891–3 in J. G. A. Meyer, Modern Locomotive Construction, New York, John Wiley, 1904, p. 543.

At first Bissell’s 2-wheel truck received wider application in Europe than in this country, because most American roads, despite the interest in developing heavier freight locomotives, continued to depend upon the 4-4-0 as a dual-purpose machine. It was not until after 1870, when Mogul and Consolidation types appeared in greater numbers, that the 2-wheel truck became common in the United States.

The first use, known to the writer, of the Bissell pony in this country occurred in November or December of 1859 on the Memphis and Charleston Railroad. D. H. Feger, master mechanic of the railroad reported, eight months later, that since the locomotive had been fitted with the Bissell truck “she