Picked up a set of cast truck frames at a swap meet. I have always hesitated in purchasing a set just due to the fact that the bearing boxes are one with the frames. This puts a serious damper on the flexibility factor. There is enough meat to put in ball bearings, but that means that either the O.D. or the I.D. has to be a press fit, which removes one more factor in the flexibility department. So I set out to figure a way to use oil lite bushings and keep them from spinning in the bearing boxes. 
I wanted to avoid using a pin or a bolt and after my usual "I'll just sleep on it routine." I came up with trimming the flange portion of the bushing and milling a pocket in the frame. I just drilled a 3/4" hole, milled the pocket and dropped the bushing in place. There is plenty of flexibility and the bushing won't spin.
I will drill a small oil hole in the fake bearing box cover, pack felt in the bottom of the drilled hole and drop in the bushing. This will keep the bushing well lubricated and allow for easy bushing replacement when the time comes. I am also intent on putting manual brakes on these trucks.
Besides the truck frames I picked up this year, last year I picked up a good number of cast wheels. Now I just think spoked wheels look fantastic, but on my orginal engineer's car, the wheels were steel and in just four years, I have wore a slight groove in the tread. So, I know that a set of cast iron wheels on an engineer's car won't last very long. What to do ? What to do ?
Do what the real manufactures did, put a steel tire on the cast wheel. I pulled out my 1940 machinist hand book which has all kinds of railroad standards and looked up shrink fits for steel tires on cast iron wheels and sure enough it was in there. The cast iron wheel needs to be .005 larger than the bore of the tire. I'm going to use a propane turkey broiler burner to heat the tire up and then drop the cast iron wheel into place.So, stand by for updates of this adventure.....
