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Did Central Locomotive Works use their brass CLW RS-3 AAR Type B Trucks also on their brass CLW U-25B?

I own a CLW U-25B Kit for the top half of the U-25B, but not the lower half. 

It seems that AAR Type B Trucks could be installed on both CLW RS-3 and CLW U-25B Kits, but I can't find any Internet pics of these completed CLW Kits to compare.

It seems that real life RS-3 AAR Type B trucks have a different look and do not seem as long a wheelbase between axles as U-25B Trucks from what I noticed in the Diesel Spotters Guide II... is this correct?

 

Thanks, Steve

Cincinnati, OH

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Yes, CLW did an RS-3 Kit with AAR Type B Trucks and they also used those Trucks on the Alco FA-1/FA-2 Kits.

It seems during the 1970s there was a lot of copying of cast Brass parts between different 2-Rail O Scale companies. Copyright laws that applied to reproducing Brass parts were not enforced between O-Scale manufacturers as they struggled to keep up with the demand for Brass models in a variety of scales.

There also seems to have been many parts made by several company and then relabeled/sold with another Companies label.  This way, smaller companies manufacturing efforts with smaller product runs were not bogged down re-making costly parts for Brass models like the RS-3 that had been sold by competitors for many years.

I believe I read somewhere that AAR trucks for use with Westinghouse traction motors had a different wheelbase than the same sideframe utilizing GE traction motors.  But that could be for the type "A" trucks.  Can't remember where I read that exactly, or which truck it pertained to.

The guy who bought the CLW tooling has AAR type B trucks for sale on the bay right now if you are interested.

Jim

Last edited by big train

The CLW U-25B AAR Type B Trucks appear to have a slightly different INSIDE construction than the Kemtron AAR Type B Trucks used on ALCO RS-3s.

A brief comparison of ALCO and GE measured Lengths and wheelbases for these AAR Trucks shows only minor differences. 

It seems unlikely that CLW made a modified set of AAR Type B Trucks that differs between RS-3 and U-25B Kits CLW made.

 

Regards, SteveU25B 8

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