On the question of bearings..... According to the book "Sleeping Cars of the Santa Fe" (Flick, et al), many of the earliest trucks on streamline passenger cars (at least on the ATSF) were delivered with an ASF roller bearing design with a housing that is very similar to a friction bearing housing (pp 192-193 for those that have the book). I would suspect this might well be true for other roads with high speed trains.
