Definition of a chassis ... Or frames ... Or something ... ex-82045 The way ahead?

On page 1 of Cox's paper on Loco Frames to the ILocoE in 1948:
"Both plate and bar frames could then, as now, be designed to form satisfactory foundations for the locomotive chassis, but the early development of the British locomotive in the direction of inside cylinders and narrow firebox between the frames, favoured the plate type which by the 1850s became the established choice and has so continued up to the present day."

The word is also used four times in the ensuing discussion.

 

the chassis is surely the underframe fitted with running gear.

 

Its interesting. I haven't found the word used in Holcroft or Cook, but few instances where it would be appropriate. Obviously they would have known the word, but didn't find a use for it in their writing. Who uses it in the ILocoE discussion? Which lines are they from? I can imagine the word having more use in wagon shops.

 

This is all very well, but what confuses me even more is the difference between buffer beams (locos) and headstocks (wagons). Anyone?

Edit: I suppose I should add frames vs. solebars!

 

Headstocks v buffer beams no idea...…… Frames v solebars, frames have hornguides for axleboxes, whereas solebars have if 4 or 6 wheel will have axleguards and bogie stock will have.....bogies.

 

At some point it becomes the 'bottom end' as in the oft-quoted bottom end overhaul. My mental picture is that the frames are just that, the bottom end is the complete locomotive below the boiler, and the chassis somewhere between the two as a stage during construction. There are a lot more hits for 'rolling chassis' than there are for 'rolling bottom end'!

 

And some locos, particularly in the US, have a Bed.

 

That is intriguing, because bogie stock started out in the USA and made its way over here.

 

Reading Holcroft, normal GWR practice seems to have been to lift the locomotive off the wheels before the boiler was removed, and not to rewheel it until after the boiler had been replaced, so a rolling chassis would very rarely have been seen, which probably explains why I haven't seem the word used in a GWR context.

 

Is it a coach, carriage, car or truck?

 

On the solebar / frame question, isn't the solebar the side parts of the frame? And I seem to recall the "frame" of a coach/carriage/car (delete according to taste) is often referred to as the "underframe", as distinct from the body frame, thus enabling the body of the aforementioned vehicle to be lifted off it whilst still retaining it's own integrity.

Has the terminology used in railway modelling (which sometimes has differences from the real thing) have a bearing on what things are now called on the real thing. Modellers have long talked of a loco chassis, and a loco body, which are very distinct things modelling-wise, but we don't talk of a 12in to the foot steam loco as having a "body", but has the modellers terminology of "chassis" carried over through the numerous volunteers whose previous experience of railway terminology was from the likes of "Railway Modeller"?

The "rolling chassis" has long been used in road vehicles - indeed it was once the case that some manufacturers would supply a rolling chassis for a coach builder to put a body on. The chassis might even be driven from one factory to the other without a proper body.

Steve B

 

Yes, I was thinking more broadly about other examples of different words for the same thing in English thing. You would talk about a passenger or freight car in North America. Coach and Carriage seem interchangeable but we always talk of Carriage and Wagon in the UK. It is Wagon in many European languages to refer to carriage/coach.

We talk about Diesel Railcars but Steam Railmotors, and more historically Breaks vs Brakes

 

And "car" is used to refer to the carriages in a multiple unit - and, I seem to recall, the carriages on the Ffestiniog.

And also waggon and wagon - the Ffestiniog (previously, and still legally I think, the Festiniog) also seems to have a thing about this one.

Steve B

 

The use of carriage and coach has been some confusing to me some times, which of them are for passengers vs. freight?

 

Carriage and coach both refer to passenger carrying vehicles, personally I use both

 

Buffet/Restaurant/Griddle car rather than Buffet Coach or Carriage. Are Pullmans cars because they have their origins in North America?

Is Rev Awdry to blame for people using trucks not wagons?

What defines a van? Ie brake van, parcels van, covered van...

Although things will talk about the carriage of goods but they could be taken in a wagon, truck or van.

A CCT is a truck and a GUV is a van...

 

It's a minefield out there

 

I know but I don’t want to give any rivet counters a stroke by using the wrong term. Mind you those terms are probably wrong too.