I recently bought a brass locomotive and at its’ listing where I bought it, it was discribed as having “Wheel Wear”. The locomotve arrived this afternoon and I have run the loco and inspected the wheels and can detect no notoicable wear on the diameters of the wheels. There is some play between the axels and bearings on the drivers (this could be loose fit between the bearings and the locomotive’s frame). So, what is meant by “Wheel Wear”?
Most brass locomotive wheels are made of brass that has been plated with nickel. Wheel wear is what happens as the nickel plating wears off of the brass on your wheel treads through use. I have one well used brass loco that you can see the brass on a couple of wheels.
When purchasing brass I pay attention to the amount of wheel wear since I intend to run what I buy. I want to be the one to wear off the plating!! Many collectors consider wheel wear to be an indicator of condition and won’t touch a loco with wheel wear if they are looking to collect only “mint” models. Most good sellers will mention anything that remotely looks like the loco has been used in the interest of full disclosure to avoid misleading a buyer who is looking for models that haven’t been run.
BTW: drivers can be re-plated but it is a hassle as they must be removed from the loco.
Not a brass expert,
Guy
NP2626,
Guy is absolutely correct. “Wheel wear” on a brass model reflects the amount of use it had gotten before you took ownership. In most cases, this means many logged on scale miles, but I know from first hand experience that plating can wear prematurely depending on the quality of the plating process. One brass locomotive I had shed plating like a birch tree sheds its’ bark.[:'(]
Fortunately, that was an exception. I’ve noticed on some of my Division Point steam that the tires are not plated brass, but could be bare nickel silver. No plating to wear off. Great idea. Some of the newer brass may be going this route, but I don’t know: I haven’t felt the need to part with a couple thousand Lincolns![;)]
Looking at it another way, bare brass has better adhesion than plating, so you’ll be able to pull more cars up your ruling grade. [:)]
Joel
O.K., thanks for your input. The divers do show some wear by your definitions. I am a Northern Pacific modeler and will use this loco. It is a NWSL Q-6 Pacific, nicely painted; but, I will be adding DCC & sound to it. I got it for $239.00, which is a good buy, in my opinion. Again, thanks for your help!
In today’s exploding new brass market, that is indeed a great buy. Good luck putting breath back into her (in a metaphorical sense!)
Joel
I just last Sunday bought a Max Gray DRGW challenger from Dan Glasures Brass Trains .com
It too had some wheel wear and they let you know right up front even posting pictures of the drivers. On the other hand this model was made in 1962,its 53 years old …what would I expect. LoL. Seeing as I intend running this engine wheel wear is no concern.
I’ve been grading old brass locos for a friend of mine who has been selling estates on eBay. I rate wheel wear in three grades:
No wheel wear: Looks new or never run.
Some wheel wear: Looks like it’s been run with some surface scratching, stains/dirt, etc. Most of the brass I’ve seen have this designation.
Heavy wheel wear: The N-S plating is worn off. If I see brass treads, it gets this designation. These are engines that have, generally, been run for hours and hours.
Paul A. Cutler III
In some cases a brass steam locomotive wouldn’t pull much of anything until there WAS some wheel wear although perhaps not to the point of seeing bare brass on the treads.
Dave Nelson
I gather that the purpose of the plating is to increase wear resistance and provide a more accurate/scale appearance of the wheel treads. It would stand to reason then that once the plating wears through, wear will increase (brass being a softer material than the plated surface).
Some years ago, there was an article in MR. The author saw an O scale Big Boy at a hobby shop for a really attractive price. The clerk said that the locomotive’s former owner kept it on a piece of track on his fireplace mantel, and for many years, only pushed the model back and forth along the rails. The wheels developed flat spots, and clunked when the Big Boy was operated under power.
While the plating certainly gives a more prototypical appearance, I’d guess that the main reason for it is to lessen the need for cleaning the wheel treads - anyone with older steam locos, with the non-plated brass drivers which were once the norm, will know what I mean.
Brass, when clean, is a great conductor and brass-wheeled locos on brass track ran extremely well when both track and wheel treads had been recently cleaned. However, brass oxidises readily, and that oxide is a poor conductor - a good reason for plated wheels and nickel-silver rails.
Wayne
Wayne,
Did I hear brass track mentioned and brass wheels???
Wish they made a CMX track cleaning car in the late 50’s.
Old photo, three level, brass code 100, parents basement, 1959.
Take Care! [:D]
Frank
Yeah, my first layout was a 4’x8’ with Atlas brass flex on fibre ties. Turnouts were also brass, from Atlas, but were in kit form. Locomotives, a Pacific from John English and a Tyco “Little Six” both had non-plated brass drivers and my A-B-B-A set of Globe F-units had one Lindsay power truck in one of the B-units, also with brass wheels. An hour or so with some really fine wet/dry sandpaper had everything running like clockwork, and it was usually still pretty good a day or two later. Any longer, though, and everything needed re-cleaning. [banghead]
Ah, the good old days. [:P]
I still have the Pacific and the switcher, along with most of the cars used on that layout, and the cars are still in use on my current layout.
Wayne
Well, you’ll be happy to know that that’s only $32.07 in 1965 dollars. As I recall, the NWSL Q-6 was up in the mid 50’s when it was released. So much for “investment grade” brass.
Andre
NWSL said they stopped with brass in the 70s.
Not only brass with plated drivers. I have some older BLI locomotives with plated drivers that have the plating wore away. The Blueline M1b and the Paragon I1sa have worn through the plating. All my brass locos have wheel wear. The MB Austin F3 2-6-0 had the plating flake away in strips. The only loco not showing brass is my Sunset 2-10-0. I replaced the drivers with Greenway products drivers that have a NS rim.
Pete
That would only apply to quite small brass engines. Brass engines are relativley quite heavy and have decent traction right out of the box.
If you were to compare the weight of say a BLI URSA Pacific with a PFM URSA Pacific, the PFM model is almost twice as heavy.
A nice looking engine, you got a bargain, the current estimated value is almost twice what you paid.
Great deal on a very nicely detailed engine, FYI the engine was made in 1965 in a production run of 500 engines.