The railroad industry employs a variety of auto-rack railroad cars for transporting newly-manufactured vehicles such as automobiles, vans, and trucks. Auto-rack railroad cars, known in the railroad industry as auto-rack cars, often travel thousands of miles through varying terrain. Auto-rack cars can have one deck, and often are compartmented, having two or three decks. Each auto-rack car typically has multiple vertically extending doors at each end of the auto-rack car. Newly manufactured vehicles are loaded into and unloaded from an auto-rack car for transport by one or more persons (each sometimes called a “loader”) who drive the vehicles into or out of the auto-rack car (when the respective doors are open).
For example, as shown in
One problem relating to certain known auto-rack cars such as auto-rack car 10 involves the doors and associated door locking assemblies of these auto-rack cars. In certain of these known auto-rack cars, each end of the auto-rack car includes two separately openable doors that are respectively hingedly connected along opposite vertical edges of a door frame. This enables the doors to swing outwardly from the transverse plane of the door frame (relative to the tracks) to provide access to the interior of the auto-rack car. In certain of these known auto-rack cars, each door includes a plurality of connected sections. Each section is hingedly attached to an adjacent section by one or more vertically extending hinges. More specifically, in many of these known auto-rack cars, each door includes a first section hingedly connected to a vertical edge of the door frame by vertically extending hinges, a second section hingedly connected to the first section by vertically extending hinges, and a third section hingedly connected to the second section by vertically extending hinges.
For example, as shown in
In certain of these known auto-rack cars, each end of the auto-rack car also includes multiple door locking assemblies for each door. More specifically, in certain of these known auto-rack cars, two vertically extending door rod locking assemblies are attached to each door (including a first or outer door rod locking assembly and a second or inner door locking assembly). Other such known auto-rack cars only include a single (inner) door locking assembly attached to each door. Each door rod locking assembly includes an elongated lock rod rotatably attached to an exterior side of the respective section of the door by a plurality of vertically spaced apart brackets. The lock rod is rotatable about a vertically extending axis that is slightly spaced from the outer surface of the door to facilitate rotation of the lock rod. Each door rod locking assembly also includes a handle attached to and extending transversely from the lock rod to facilitate selective rotation of the lock rod.
For example, as shown in
In certain of these known auto-rack cars, certain of the door rod locking assemblies include an upper cam structure including an upper locking tongue or finger that transversely extends from the lock rod. Upon suitable rotation of the lock rod, the upper locking tongue of the upper cam structure coacts with an upper tongue receiver (secured at the top of the door frame) to provide a useful mechanical advantage to close the door and secure the door in the closed position. Likewise, certain of the door rod locking assemblies include a lower cam structure including a lower locking tongue or finger that transversely extends from the lock rod. Upon suitable rotation of the lock rod, the lower locking tongue of the lower cam structure coacts with a lower tongue receiver (secured at the bottom of the door frame) to provide a useful mechanical advantage to close the door and secure the door in the closed position.
For example, as shown in
In certain of these known auto-rack cars, certain door rod locking assemblies only include a lower cam structure including a lower locking tongue or finger that transversely extends from the relatively short lock rod. Upon suitable rotation of the lock rod, the lower locking tongue of the lower cam structure coacts with a lower tongue receiver (secured at the bottom of the door frame) to provide a useful mechanical advantage to close the door and secure the door in the closed position.
For example, as shown in
In certain of these known auto-rack cars, the lock rods are made of steel tubing, the handles are made of steel, the upper cams are made of steel, the lower cams are made of steel, and the tongue receivers are made of steel.
During use or operation of certain such known auto-rack cars, such locking assemblies are sometimes subjected to various damaging impacts or forces. For example, during the coupling process for two such known adjacent auto-rack cars, one or more of the opposing respective couplers (such as coupler 90 shown in
In such cases, the damaged inner door rod locking assembly cannot be easily, quickly, or efficiently repaired because the entire lock rod, lower cam, and upper cam that are formed as one integral member need to be replaced. More specifically, when this damage occurs, the damaged auto-rack car must be taken out of service and brought into repair shop. This known repair is done in a repair shop (instead of in the field or in a railroad yard) partially for safety reasons due to the height of the auto-rack car. This process takes the damaged auto-rack car out of service for repair and is thus time consuming, inefficient, and costly.
Accordingly, there is a need to solve these problems.
Various embodiments of the present disclosure provide an auto-rack railroad car door locking assembly splice that solves the above problems by enabling a damaged door rod locking assembly of an auto-rack car to be easily, quickly, and efficiently repaired in the field or in a railroad yard. The present disclosure thus eliminates the need to take such damaged auto-rack cars out of service for repair in a repair shop. Various embodiments of the present disclosure provide an auto-rack railroad car door locking assembly splice that enables the easy, quick, and efficient replacement of a damaged lower cam structure and/or a damaged lower portion of the lock rod of a door rod locking assembly. The replacement of the damaged lower cam structure and/or the damaged lower portion of the lock rod of the door rod locking assembly can be performed using the door locking assembly splice of the present disclosure without the need to replace the entire door rod locking assembly. Various embodiments of the present disclosure also provide an auto-rack railroad car having one or more doors and one or more auto-rack railroad car door locking assembly splices described herein.
In various embodiment, the auto-rack door locking assembly splice of the present disclosure generally includes: (a) a hollow cylindrical extension tube having opposing top and bottom ends; (b) a lock rod connection assembly connected to the top end of the cylindrical extension tube; (c) a handle connection assembly connected to the cylindrical extension tube between the top end and the bottom end of the cylindrical extension tube; and (d) a cam assembly connected to the bottom end of the cylindrical extension tube. The lock rod connection assembly is configured to be connected to a severed lock rod such as a severed lock rod of a damaged door rod locking assembly (after the damaged lower portion of that lock rod has been removed) to enable the damaged door rod locking assembly to be easily, quickly, and efficiently repaired in the field or in a railroad yard without having to take the auto-rack car out of service and into a repair shop.
Various embodiments of the present disclosure also provide a door locking assembly splice as described herein that can be used for other shipping vehicles or containers besides auto-rack railroad cars. In various such embodiments of the present disclosure, such vehicles or containers have one or more doors and one or more door locking assembly splices described herein.
Other objects, features and advantages of the present invention will be apparent from the following detailed disclosure, taken in conjunction with the accompanying sheets of drawings, wherein like reference numerals refer to like parts.
The door locking assembly splice of various embodiments of the present disclosure is illustrated in a form of an auto-rack car door locking assembly splice configured to be employed in conjunction with a known auto-rack railroad car such as the auto-rack car 10 described above and shown in
Referring now to
The illustrated example auto-rack door locking assembly splice 100 generally includes: (a) a hollow member such as extension tube 110 having opposing open top and bottom ends 112 and 114; (b) a lock rod connection assembly 130 connected to the top end 112 of the extension tube 110; and (c) a handle connection assembly 150 connected to the extension tube 110 between the top end 112 and the bottom end 114 of extension tube 110. As generally shown in
More specifically, in this illustrated example embodiment, the hollow extension tube or member 110 is in the form of a cylindrical tube that includes a cylindrical elongated wall 120 having an inner surface 122 defining an inner diameter of the cylindrical extension tube 110, an outer surface 124 defining an outer diameter of the cylindrical extension tube 110, a top end 112 having an upper edge 113, and a bottom end 114 having a lower edge (not labeled). In this illustrated example embodiment, the outer diameter of the extension tube 110 is the same or substantially the same as the outer diameter of the lock rod 70a. It should be appreciated that in other embodiments, the outer diameter of the extension tube or member 110 may vary. In this illustrated embodiment, the hollow extension tube or member 110 is made from dom steel tubing; however, it should be appreciated that it can be made from other suitable materials.
In this illustrated example embodiment, the lock rod connection assembly 130 is connected or configured to be connected to the top end 112 of the cylindrical extension tube 110 and to the bottom free end of the remaining portion of the lock rod 70a as shown in
In this illustrated example embodiment, the handle connection assembly 150 is connected to or configured to be connected to the cylindrical extension tube 110 between the top end 112 and the bottom end 114 of the cylindrical extension tube 110. The handle connection assembly 150 includes two spaced apart side walls or plates 152 and 154 and an upside down U shaped connection wall or member 156. The two spaced apart side walls or plates 152 and 154 and define aligned fastener openings (not labeled) for receiving a suitable fastener (not shown in
In this illustrated example embodiment, the cam assembly 170 is connected or configured to be connected to the bottom end 114 of the cylindrical extension tube 110. The cam assembly 170 includes a lower cam structure including a tubular central body 172, a lower locking tongue or finger 190 connected to and transversely extending from one side of the tubular central body 172, a rear lug 192 connected to and transversely extending from the opposite side of the tubular central body 172. This lower cam structure is configured such that (after installation of the door locking assembly splice 100 as shown in
It should thus be appreciated that if a door locking assembly is bent or damaged in use or otherwise as mentioned above, the bottom part of the door locking assembly can be replaced by the door locking assembly splice of the present disclosure. In this illustrated embodiment, the following general steps are taken to replace the damaged portion of the door locking assembly such as door locking assembly 70a. The bottom bracket 200 (see
It should thus be appreciated that the combination of these components thus enables the door locking assembly to be readily and efficiently repaired without the need to replace the entire door locking assembly.
It should also be appreciated that the door locking assembly splice of the present disclosure enables the bottom portion of the locking assembly to be replaced if the bottom portion locking assembly is bent or damaged during use without having to replace the entire door locking assembly and without having to take the auto-rack car out of service for repair in a repair shop.
In an alternative embodiment that is not illustrated, the lock rod connection assembly is configured to be connected to and specifically fit over the top end 112 of the cylindrical tube 110 and/or over the bottom end of the cut lock rod 70a.
It should also be appreciated that the door locking assembly splice of the present disclosure can be used for a top section of a door locking assembly.
It should be understood that modifications and variations may be effected without departing from the scope of the novel concepts of the present invention, and it should be understood that this application is to be limited only by the scope of the claims.
This application claims priority to and the benefit of U.S. Provisional Patent Application No. 62/488,255, filed Apr. 21, 2017, the entire contents of which are incorporated herein by reference.
Number | Date | Country | |
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62488255 | Apr 2017 | US |