The US Patent and Trademark Office has completed scanning all US patents
(over 70 million pages, nearly 4 terabytes!) and they are available online
at http://www.uspto.gov/
Unfortunately, patents earlier than December 1975 are only searchable by
patent number and classification, and not title, inventor, asssignee, etc.
I have been able to find some of the patents issued for the Pioneer Zephyr
and other shovelnoses, and the Pendulum car design:
The Budd-Michelin railcar:
http://patft.uspto.gov/netacgi/nph-Parser?patentnumber=2129235
Welded lightweight truck structure:
http://patft.uspto.gov/netacgi/nph-Parser?patentnumber=2132001
Carbody, underframe and articulation construction:
http://patft.uspto.gov/netacgi/nph-Parser?patentnumber=2171425
http://patft.uspto.gov/netacgi/nph-Parser?patentnumber=2231846
http://patft.uspto.gov/netacgi/nph-Parser?patentnumber=2185976
http://patft.uspto.gov/netacgi/nph-Parser?patentnumber=2185977
http://patft.uspto.gov/netacgi/nph-Parser?patentnumber=2266722
Engine bed frame, integrating engine mount and truck bolster:
http://patft.uspto.gov/netacgi/nph-Parser?patentnumber=2185988
The "shovenose" design. These are particularly interesting to me, because
they show that, far from being a styling exercise, the shovelnose design
developed by Col. Ragsdale and Albert and Walter Dean included stucture
(the engine assembly was supported directly on the power truck bolster),
aerodynamics, debris protection for the lightweight and low-slung power
truck, engine cooling and accessibility, and other features in an
integrated design:
http://patft.uspto.gov/netacgi/nph-Parser?patentnumber=2256493
http://patft.uspto.gov/netacgi/nph-Parser?patentnumber=2256494
Car body for a self-contained railcar:
http://patft.uspto.gov/netacgi/nph-Parser?patentnumber=2197708
"Tractor Unit", an intermediate design between the first and second
generation shovelnoses, never implemented:
http://patft.uspto.gov/netacgi/nph-Parser?patentnumber=2185974
"Tractor Unit" again, the EA design:
http://patft.uspto.gov/netacgi/nph-Parser?patentnumber=2185975
The Pendulum Car suspension design (including its use on an articulated
train, as in the early prototype):
http://patft.uspto.gov/netacgi/nph-Parser?patentnumber=2225242
All patents except the last were assigned to the Edward G. Budd Company.
There are probably other patents I have not found yet.
The page images are individual Group 4 compressed 300DPI TIFF. This is
not a natively-viewable browser format, but there is a free plugin
available at http://www.alternatiff.com/ You do need to register it to
install, but it has no spyware, popups, ads, etc.
The patents above are cumulatively 14MB or so. The patent site is
occasionally busy, so you might need to be patient to retrieve the images.
I have downloaded the images, collated and produced a single PDF for each
patent. Over the weekend I will put the PDF's up on the ProtoTrains
website (patents are public documents) and keep them there as long as the
traffic doesn't get too big (I only have 2000MB/month allowed on my
website)
Best regards,
Randy
Randy Gordon-Gilmore ,----.___________ ______________ _________________
ProtoTrains // = = === == || == == == = || == == == = == =|
Rio Vista, CA, USA /-O==O------------o==o------------o==o-----------o==o-'
zephyrus@r... http://www.prototrains.com
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