Received an invitation from Moloco to take a Semi-scale or Standard tread wheelset survey. Maybe some forum members can bring me up to speed on the pros and cons so I can make an informed response to the survey.
Regards, Peter
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Semi-scale treads look better on cars where you can see them (tank cars, hoppers, etc.).
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Semi-scale wheels (.088" tread in HO) run just fine on turnouts that are built to the NMRA standards, lie Fast Tracks turnouts.
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Semi-scale wheels don’t work well on many commercial turnouts, diamonds and such that are a few years old (that’s most commercial turnouts from 20 years ago), because the flangeways at the frog are way too wide. I don’t know about newer commercial turnouts.
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On cars where the wheels aren’t very visible from the ends (boxcars, gondolas, flatcars, etc.) standard .110" tread (HO) wheels are fine and will work with nearly all trackage.
The semi-scale wheels are supposedly closer in appearance (scale-wise) to the real ones, but they also exaggerate the overly-wide truck side-frames that are used on most HO scale rolling stock.
I have a friend who uses the semi-scale ones, but to me, they look unusual in the standard sideframes.
Wayne
Appearance wise, I’m in the same camp as Wayne, you are just trading one out of scale appearance for another. At least with the code 110 wheels, the whole truck as an assembly has reasonable proportions.
As for how they operate, they do work fine on trackage that is at least close to NMRA standards - but on many turnouts they do “bump” or “rock” more as they go thru frogs, especially large ones like #8’s, no matter how carefully made.
I don’t use them, I don’t care for either of the conditions described above.
And I don’t use those funny looking semi scale couplers either.
Again, it trades proportion for size. To make the semi scale coupler work with the original Kadee, the semi scale coupler has an elongated proportion despite its smaller size - no thank you - not to mention the reduced side to side gathering range using NMRA standard wheels and track.
Reliable operation first, detail and fine accuracy second in my world.
I hand layed my turnouts and track years ago. Not now except for special situations. I’m very happy with my code 83 Atlas track and turnouts, a few Walther turnouts (slip switches), code 110 wheels and original Kadee couplers.
The new layout will require nearly 140 turnouts - and I already have them.
Sheldon
Already responded to that survey. My vote was for standard.
I have far more important things to be concerned with on my railroad than whether the treads on my wheels are to scale or not. I think this one is about #892 on my list.
I’m far more willing to trade less picky performance tolerances over true scale. Oversized couplers and wheels are more forgiving and I’m ok with that.
Plus it isn’t like our trucks are even close to how the real ones operate in the first place. “Narrow wheel treads” seems oddly out of place when you take the balance into consideration.
Not sure at my age I have a dog in this hunt. But it seems pretty clearly that the days of RTR=beginners or whose who had a low priority for scale is not the case. We are all RTRs now! Like it or not. Modest evidence: RTR used to mean horn hook couplers. Increasingly anyone who likes and uses horn hook has some work to do to install them on new purchases. I suspect the horn hook folks are feeling the pressure.
I think greater and greater scale fidelity is going to be the name of the game. I know more and more modelers who incorporate Proto87 and Proto48 (for the Brits, Proto4) parts into track work. I found that I have semi scale wheels on some of my cars and didn’t even focus on it – and these were USED purchases at swap meets. A friend of mine has converted almost his entire fleet of rolling stock to semi scale and reports not only no problems with his track, much of which he is hand laying to finer standards (many FastTracks turnouts) but interestingly, few if any problems with the older Atlas turnouts in his staging yard, provided he laid them flat. He was pleased and surprised by this.
Painful though this will be for some, I think the NMRA is going to be forced to revisit their standards which are, after all, in most cases from the 1950s or not far different from them. There will always be pressure on them to be compatible with older stuff but at some point you have to and will cut the cord, as the hobby did after WWII when a dramatic and sudden (almost overnight) change from 6 volt to 12 volt forced modelers to either get new locomotives or remotor. And although nonscale thickness of truck sideframes that Wayne mentions is not an NMRA standards issue, I think we’ll be seeing changes there too. It will be driven by the wheels and more modelers wanting to avoid that visual mis match.
It seems hard to believe now but there were howls of opposition to the NMRA’s RP2
Me too!
Rick Jesionowski
This is the part I’m unclear about:
“I would purchase … cars that come standard with Semi-scale tread (0.088”) wheelsets and am willing to PAY THE EXTRA for them."
Why would I want to pay more for an already expensive item?
And a note with the survey states “even if we implement the Semi-scale wheelsets we would still have Standard tread wheelsets as extra purchased part.”
So somehow the standard wheels also cost more.
Darn, more grumpy than usual today.
That argument seems to be saying that, since the wheel treads are too big, all other parts of the rolling stock (stirrup steps, brake wheels, ladders, grab irons, etc. should also be too big.
The closer-to-scale wheel treads may slightly accentuate the overly thick sideframes a bit, but I think the overall appearance is still better:
The only downside is that I can’t run these cars on the club layout, since it has a lot of old giant-gaps Atlas switches (even some with brass rails!). Not a big deal since I don’t like to handle the rolling stock anyway. Things can get broken off when taking cars on and off the layout. But they run very smoothly on my Fast Tracks turnouts.
I also prefer the “scale” couplers for the same reason - they look better (IMO).
Mark, the comment made by Wayne and myself is not about the thickness of the sideframes, it is about the distance between the sideframes that is increased beyond the prototype to allow for the 110 wheels.
So when you replace the wheels with 88 wheels, the distance from the back of the sideframe to the face of the wheel increases and leaves a noticeably larger gap than the prototype.
If the manufacturers really want to make code 88 wheels look good, they need to make new trucks for them and pull in the back to back dim
The car on the left looks better. It would look even better if it had smaller couplers.
I’ve been replacing my kadee #5’s with smaller whisker #158s.
How many people actually put their heads down on the rails and look at cars head-on?
With a shelf style switching layout, I’d say that I probably see the ends of the cars as much as the sides. Probably a three quarters view most of the time…and a lot of cars are parked at spurs.
If I ran 20 trains of 40 cars each, I’d see the ends about 2% of the time, as a guess.
Has anyone actually compared the outside width of model trucks to the prototype dimensions? On the prototype trucks the journal box extends to the inside of the sideframe as well as to the outside. The inside extension is eliminated on the model to allow for the excess wheel width. This is at least partly why there is a gap when narrower wheels are used.
Mark Vinski
I agree, but I doubt you will see it for awhile. Too many people stuck in thier ways and opposed to change at that level.
I also got the survey, and voted for semi-scale.
Since I have a good library (1940 Car Builders Cyclopedia) and good measuring tools, I did a few simple checks.
The typical HO truck is 3-6 scale inches wider than the prototype measured to the theoretical bearing center line of a prototype wheelset.
Nearly all the HO trucks I measured are 3-4 scale inches wider than the prototype measured back to back, to the back of the side frame main structure at the bolster - NOT to the internal bearing seat extension. Typcally 6’-3"/4" vs 6’-0" on the prototype.
Code 110 wheels measure a scale 5’-9" over the outside of the wheel rim.
Code 88 wheels measure a scale 5’-6" over the outside of the wheel rim.
Prototype wheels measure 5’-3" over the outside of the wheel rim.
So for 3 scale inches, I will stay with the 5,000 wheels that I have, that run better on the track and 140 turnouts I have.
Sheldon
Thanks to everyone for the input and thoughts. My inclination was to check the standard tread box when first opening the survey window, but after digesting all the info and Mark P’s end-view comparison photo I can see the merit in semi-scale.
Thanks again and regards, Peter
Oh.
Thanks for clarifying that, Sheldon! I completely misinterpreted wht you and Wayne were saying!