Orders for the Manufacture of Steel Castings for Timken Roller Bearings
Manufacturing orders have been placed for two Coupled Axlebox castings and two Cannon Box castings with William Cook Cast Products of Sheffield, for completion by early November of this year. Each casting set is made up of a top and bottom half. Patterns for each casting set have been successfully used for both A1 Tornado and the P2 Prince of Wales. The patterns shown below have been kindly loaned to B17 by the A1 Steam Locomotive Trust, whose generous help is gratefully acknowledged.
Roller bearings were first trialled by the Big Four during the 1930s when they were initially fitted to locomotive tenders. The LMS then made the first bold move to introduce roller bearings on their turbine locomotive No. 6202, to be followed soon afterwards by a further application on the trailing trucks of five “Princess Royal” class Pacifics. Next, the LNER converted two class A4 tenders to roller bearings, but any further developments were suspended when war intervened. All had proved successful and by 1947 the LMS equipped new build Class 5s with Timken roller bearings on all driving axles and carrying axles. The same locomotives were also fitted with different types of valve gear to provide a broad set of trials in the post war era. By 1948, the LNER introduced Timken roller bearings to a batch of five Peppercorn class A1s (BR Nos. 60153 -7) under construction at Doncaster. These proved successful and forms the basis of the design illustrated and will be used for Spirit of Sandringham.
