Differential Steel Car Company

The Differential Steel Car Company was located in Findlay, Ohio & began production of rail haulage equipment in 1915.  The company was bought out by Trinity Industries & the plant was shut down & demolished within the past decade.  We do dot have builders records of this manufacture and are always looking for additional information.  We do know that Consolidated Coal Company did purchase some of their locomotives. 

The Differential Steel Car Company was famous for several reasons. 

The highest being the dump cars & larry cars.  The Differential Steel Car Co. built trolley type dump cars for streetcar use, air operated side dump trains for ballast used by the railroads & Larry Cars to move the slate from the coal prep plants to the massive gob piles that are a reminder of what used to be there today.

The next very innovative feature was the axless trucks used on the Larry Cars, Coal Cars & their Mine Locomotives.  The selling features to this concept where great so we are not sure why more were not built. The standard problem on mine locomotives is the solid axle design.  The problem occurs on turns when the radius generates a shorter distance on one wheel vs the opposite wheel on the other end of the axle.  This produces wheel slips and is very hard on wheels & track. Below you can see the diagram indicates that the truck design is in a way self steering allowing constant tractive effort on the turns. 

This section includes MINE LOCOMOTIVES, COAL CARS, 

MINE SUPPLY CARS and LARRY CARS