The Home Machinist!

I have some castings marked Bowlus Engineering Inc. Nice aluminum truck castings. Who were they, where, and what all did they make?

Google is your friend.

http://www.amtausa.com/fam.html

Near the end of the page history URL above it's mentioned,
“…He later made precision-built model trains and he headed Bowlus Engineering Inc. up to his death in 1967.”

John

Thanks John. I didn't see that one in my searches but it also doesn't say any more than you pasted from the site. Answers a little of who but still kinda curious what all they may have made/marketed.

Bolus in about 1965 or 1966 went into partnership with Winton Brown to sell his truck castings. After Bolus's death Winton Engineering went into partnership with Railroad Supply. After about a year or two they had a falling out and Winton Eng. took the steam locos and went back to selling them himself. RRSC retained the patterns for the Bolus trucks. As I recall there was a Blomberg diesel truck, and High Level (Santa Fe) 2 axel trucks for coaches and 3 axel trucks for the dinner. The molds were very fine and produced some very nice castings. RRSC had all three trucks in their catalogs for a few years then seemed to drop the 3 axel ones as there wasn't any demand. When RRSC came behind in their payments to the foundry the patterns wee held and from what I was told there was quite a pile of finished castings. After some years the foundry re melted the castings and that was the end of it. There is still a demand for the 2 axel trucks for modern streamlined coaches in 1.5"/1.6" scale but there aren't many for sale.
Cary Stewart

Hi All
As I recall there were only a few of the passenger trucks produced . The six wheeled trucks turned up at the cabin fever auction a few years back .A friend of mine has the four wheeled trucks. These truck samples were acquired by Edgar Kruckeberg from Omar Mulligan. The pictures of the trucks are in some old RR Supply catalogs.

Is it common to use aluminum for the trucks, or would the casting just be an outer casing with a steel bolster, pin, rocker assembly and inside bearings?

They don't let me out much, sorry.

OK here it is

This is one of three locomotives produced by Bowlus Engineering. It is now owned by PLS member Mike McDivitt. Mike tells me that he removed the original Bowlus drive because of its poor performance. It now has a Eaton transmission and Tol"o"matic gear boxes on the drive wheels.

What I have is a kit for the Modern 4 Wheel Trucks I believe to be complete but I have to check. These will be for sale if anything is interested, feel free to PM me. Thanks!

When I was a Boy Scout in Burbank, California, in the 1960's we had a Scout Fair to attend. Being an Air Explorer Post, we had a display of Van Nuys Airport and lots of aircraft related items. One of these was the actual spinner of the Spirit of St Louis which was loaned to me by Hawley Bowlus. Lindbergh sent it to the Ryan Company and the entire plant at the time signed the inside. Somehow it ended up with Hawley.

Years later I'm at a Society of Industrial Technology conference in Washington, DC, in the Smithsonian's Silver Hill facility where I casually mentioned I had had the original spinner in my possession at one time (if you look at the Spirit hanging in the Air & Space Museum, the spinner is not engine turned like the rest of the metal work on the cowling). They poopooed the idea.

Well I got to thinking what happened to it, and my fear was that the family dumpstered it when Hawley died. I was very pleased to see it in a display case next to the Spirit the last time I was in Washington, with a tag that proclaimed "Gift of the Hawley Bowlus Family"!

John

From the Wiki on the Spirit of St Louis: H. Bowlus is on the right side of the Indian Swastika.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Spirit_of ... Cone_1.jpg