Somewhere, long ago in a distant galaxy a Wagner Car Co. M-404, Drawbar was found in a hobby shop. This turned out to be a product Wagner had cataloged early in the history of Wagner. It was discontinued when Wagner's supply of parts ran out probably in the late 1950's or early 60's.
Early in the history of trolleys and streetcars instead of railroad couplers streetcars and even interurbans had drawbars. Couplers were heavy and expensive. Drawbars were not.
The picture shows the M-404 Drawbar Wagner had. It came with:
Drawbar support - red arrow,
Drawbar - maroon arrow,
Mounting pins - blue arrow,
Drawbar head - green arrow, and
Drawbar coupling pin - black arrow.
Perhaps the valuable part was the drawbar head. More about the head later. Unfortunately no instructions were included. Then in another distant galaxy also long time ago, far removed from the first galaxy, a Pittman Electrical Developments Co. 1 pr. Radial Drawbar product was found. From what I can ascertain, since Pittman was an older company than Wagner, Pittman had the parts made and was selling them. Eventually Pittman sold all the parts to Wagner.
The envelop contained all the information needed to assemble the drawbars. Everything was purchased including loose parts. Assembly was started using all the parts available.
The drawbar heads were Zamak castings. Back then Zamak was not always the best material to use. It is an alloy of zinc, aluminum, magnesium, and copper. If not prepared to ridged standards over time the alloy would start to disintegrate. As some of the drawbar heads castings were cleaned-up, the heads would fall apart.
This is a photo of a pair of assembled drawbars. The heads are mounted on the drawbar with the heads held in pace with the pins in the kit. Instead of cutting and hammering the end of the pin like a rivet. instant glue was used to hold the pin in place.
As it turned out, there was just enough parts to make drawbars for mounting on the models I had. This photo shows the drawbars mounted on 2 of my models.
If the drawbar head castings, the most unique of the drawbar parts, are not available; then the heads have to be made using square or rectangular brass tubing. After the tubing sections are soldered together, the head would have to be filed into the correct shape.
Better yet would be for someone to prepare the 3D drawings for the "manufacturer" of the drawbar head from a company like Shapeways.
More on drawbars in the next Post. Cheers,
Ed
Thanks so very much for the information and photos on the drawbars Ed. I really appreciate all of your trouble and your time to share so much model traction history. I know many of us are fascinated with both prototype traction history and model traction history. Stay safe.
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