page_title: Paper car wheel
section_title: Concept
hierarchical_section_title: Paper car wheel / Concept
caption_attribution_description: English: Paper car wheels consisted of compressed paper sandwiched between steel plates (note the nuts and bolts on the wheel face) pressed into a flanged rim. The thought was that it produced a better and quieter ride, but they often failed resulting in serious derailments.
context_page_description: Paper car wheels were composite wheels of railway carriages, made from a wrought iron or steel rim bolted to an iron hub with an interlayer of laminated paper. The center was made of compressed paper held between two plate-iron disks. Their ability to damp rail/wheel noise resulted in a quiet and smooth ride for the passengers of North American Pullman dining and sleeping cars.
context_section_description: Paper car wheels were invented by the locomotive engineer Richard N. Allen (1827–1890), who set up a company with his brother-in-law in 1867, producing paper from straw. They damped vibrations much better than conventional cast-iron railway wheels, which transmitted all imperfections of the track into the car above it, making train rides noisy and uncomfortable. Paper wheels were especially used in Pullman dining and sleeping cars, which were built and operated by Pullman, to give passengers in these cars a quiter, vibration-free ride. Due to the composite construction, the wheels would fail faster than the all-metal wheels,   which caused derailments.  The Interstate Commerce Commission, which regulated U.S. railroads, declared paper car wheels to be unsafe, and they went out of use on railroad passenger cars in the United States.
caption: Derailment of a railway bogie with paper car wheels, around 1895
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