Quote:
Originally Posted by katy
Railroad cars used to run babbit journals on the axle shafts. The ones I remember seeing were about 8-9" long w/a shaft diameter about 4-4&1/2".
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These Babbitted axle journals were a high maintenance/high problem item. When/if they ran out of oil, the resulting friction and heat was called a "hot box" and would sometimes set the boxcar on fire. So a lot of time and effort was spent looking for a hot box before it caused trouble.