I’m looking to replace the wheel sets on the lead truck of the above mentioned PFM model as the factory install ones look way undersized to me.
Would kinda like spoked wheels but am unsure as to their diameter "thinking 40’’
Have been looking at a few suppliers such as Bowser, Greenway products etc. but really have not come across spoked wheelsets ,Precision Scale has single axle lead trucks with spoked wheels in several sizes and thats what i’m leaning towards right now.
Might you know of any other suppliers of this type wheel set.
Our David P. Morgan Library collection includes a couple of Great Northern dimensional diagram books for steam locomotives. Both of them show 30-inch pilot wheels on the class G-3 4-8-0s. There’s a photo of a Great Northern class G-3 4-8-0, no. 764, in the “Model Railroader Cyclopedia, Volume 1: Steam Locomotives” that shows disk rather than spoked wheels on the engine truck. Spoked wheels wouldn’t necessarily be wrong, especially for particular engines at particular times, but you could use solid wheels if you had to.
Ragnar, I tend to agree with your inclination to obtain Precision Scale wheelsets and go from there. I can’t personally say I’ve ever seen a G3 with spoked lead wheels, but I suppose it’s possible they did have them at one time. I also agree that the pony wheels do look small, though I’ve never measured them.
Yep’ have to say that after going through all my GN. books none of the G3s I can see have the spoked wheels’ then again they seem to me to be photo’s from the late 40s& early 50s’ nothing earlier.
Just thought a few must have had them at one time in their earlier years,heck I’m finding pictures of F8s with spoked wheels in what looks like in the late 40s ‘lol’ either way “spoked or disc” these factory wheels have got to go.they look to be something off a matchbox car with flanges’ …and me with no micrometer grrrr!
Tell ya what. I won’t be home till tomorrow night, but I have a decent pair of calipers and I’ll measure the wheels on my 748, and let you know what I find. Iterestingly, the Overland GN E-15 has a pilot truck with wheelsets of one spoked and one disc. Now that’s odd!
“Back in the day” Kemtron had lead trucks with 26", 33", 35" and 36" wheels. They also had spoked and solid wheels 26", 33" 36" all with blunt, pointed, or flush axles.
I wonder who owns the Kemtron tooling and die work.
Have you checked with Northwest Short Line? They have a rather large inventory of various size wheel sets, perhaps they have some spoked pilot truck wheels in the size you’re looking for.
I have measured the lead wheels on my G-3, 748, and find that, using my calipers, they measure out to 28 inches in diameter. A bit small, but I can live with a 2-inch discrepancy-based on Andy Sperandeo’s comments about the G-3 coverage in the Cyclopedia. I wouldn’t want to install much larger pilot wheels anyway, too much, because much larger and they’d overwhelm those little 55-inch drivers.
Wow’ 28" huh’ wouldnt have thought they were that close to the prototype,think I’ll leave them for now’ your right about overpowering the drivers visauly speaking.there are i believe some nice looking spoked 28" wheels around, may turn out to be a interesting little project lol