WB&A Train Club
Train Collectors Association
Eastern Division
Mark Your Calendar
WB&A Annapolis Train Show
February 28, 2021
Annapolis Elks Lodge
2 Pythian Drive
Edgewater, MD
Matthias W. Baldwin's Flexible Beam Truck
The “flexible beam” referred to heavy iron beams that were connected to each side of the engine’s frame with a vertical, spherical pin so that they could pivot horizontally and vertically in relation to the frame. The beams on each side of the frame moved independently of each other. At each end of the beams were journal boxes for the axles, and these boxes were constructed to an earlier Baldwin patent with cylindrical pedestals that allowed them to rotate vertically inside the beam. The result was that when rounding a curve one driving axle could move laterally in one direction while the other axle could move independently in the other direction thus adapting the wheels to the curve while at the same time keeping the axles parallel to each other.
TCA's National Toy Train Library
The Library is administered by a professional Librarian.
The library's collection of over 500,000 items includes:
- 1500 research books, plus instruction books, repair guides, and parts lists
- Historical material on many of the toy train makers
- Greenberg Guides and Auction Lists (for self-determination of value, no appraisals)
- Toy train periodical collections
- 20,000 trade catalogs and advertising of manufacturers and retailers, many long gone
- Postcards ranging from the 1850s to the present
- Children's Corner books and toys