HO Metal Wheelsets

I have read several of the older posts as to the merits of metal HO wheelsets made by Kadee, InterMountain, P2k & JayBee. It’s kinda like “which car is better? Dodge, Ford or Chebby”. Seems like the price is about the same with some shops having the price edge toward IM and P2k. Are any of them made in the USA other than KD’s? I prefer to try to keep as many of my hobby dollars going to American made stuff as possible. Thanks, Roger Huber

Roger,

Kadee, Jaybee, and maybe Intermountain/ReBoxx are made in the USA. Price wise, the ‘bulk packs’ of Intermountain usually are the best price. The 10-12 count ‘blister’ packs are way too expensive.

My ‘standard’ wheel sets are I-M 36" and 33" metal wheels. They drop into just about everything(old Athearn ‘Blue Box’/MDC/Accurail)… The Kadee and P2K wheel sets have an engineering plastic axle and the ‘point’ does wear down after a while, causing poor rolling performance. That is why I like to use the I-M wheel sets with metal needle point axles.

As long as you are planning to change out wheels, get yourself a Micro-Mark ‘Truck Tuner’ to ream out the plastic truck side frames - It makes a world of difference.

Jim

Hi,

When I converted I did a fair amount of research. It came down to Intermountain in bulk. If you check out Ebay you will often find deals for the 33 and 36 inch packs. It was a bit hard to spend a lot of money on a big pack (forgot how many), but was well worth it after the fact. So far I’ve converted 190 freight cars and 21 passenger cars, so you can see thats a lot of wheelsets.

I liken this decision to my transition to KDs in the early '70s. That too was an expensive proposition, but after the fact it was a very positive one to have made.

I don’t know where they are made, but Intermountain wheels work the best in the largest number of different trucks.

I get superior free rolling results by installing Interemountain wheels in Kadee sprung/equalized metal trucks.

Exhaustive testing showed this to be the best combo out there. But beware, other will tell you how expensive it is or that it simply can’t work - but 700 freight cars can’t be wrong, and I’m not the only one doing it.

A search of this fourm will provide a wealth of discussion on the subject.

Sheldon

I decided to go with HO metal wheelsets also after reading a variety of posts. Having at that point only 1 loco and 3 freight cars (one with metal wheel trucks I had added), I reviewed the various threads I could find. WIth a number of freight cars kits recently received, I ordered a MicroMark caliper, the truck tuner, and some 33" IM and P2K wheelsets. I also printed out the nifty wheelset axle chart on the ReBoxx site that shows the kit manufacturer’s axle length and the recommended ReBoxx item axle length.

http://www.reboxx.com/Documents/Wheelsets/33%20Application%20Chart.pdf

I’ll offer my initial learnings not as rigorous testing (insufficient data, etc) nor as an argument for what is best, but simply what I observed and where I was surprised. I did a rollout test down a grade on my main track, seeing how far the trucks (w/o car) would roll out onto the flat section:

a) the 2 Roundhouse kits plastic wheelsets (after the truck tuner) rolled less than either IM or P2K metal wheels. I thought the P2K might be a better fit as they measured about 0.007" shorter than the Roundhouse axles, while the IM axles were 0.017" shorter (potentially on the loose side). But the IMs rolled out significantly better so I went with them. Realize I only had 4 trucks to test on the 2 cars.

b) the (now 2) Bowser kits I opened had plastic wheelsets that rolled out well (better than Roundhouse but not as good as the metal wheels on the Roundhouse). I put IM in the trucks to go metal wheels, and they rolled out well. The IM wheelsets axles measured about 0.018" less than originals.

c) I opened 2 Accurail kits with plastic wheelsets. The original trucks (after using the truck tuner) rolled out significantly worse than any other original I tested. I don’t know whether this is consistent with other Accurail ki

I’ve had very good performance with my Proto 2000 wheel sets. I like the fact that the tread is a polished silver just like the real wheels on RR cars. I’ve found they fit well and have given me zero problems. I haven’t bought any in 6-7 years as I guess I stocked up on them and still have a good supply. I’ve put them on Accurail, MDC, Athearn, Branchline, Red Caboose, Intermountain C&BT Shops and all the other freight cars I own, so they fit everything and roll well. At the time that I was stocking up on wheel sets to change over to metal wheels, Proto 2000 wheels were the best price I could find.

Jim

Thanks for pointing out the potential problem with plastic axles. I have converted all of my rolling stock to metal wheels but I have to admit that I have used mostly P2K because I got them at good prices. I did not give any thought to the wear that will eventually occur with plastic on plastic.

I am not about to panic as far as changing out all the plastic axles, but as the cars age and testing proves that they are not rolling as well then I will definately install InterMountain (or other) wheelsets with metal axles.

Thanks for the heads up! From now on when I buy wheel sets they will have metal axles.

Dave

I’m of the opinion that the negligible wear on the plastic axles will allow them to far exceed my lifetime and probably exceed my grand daughters, who is 12 years old. If anything, I think metal axles going into plastic side frames will wear the bearing surface in the side frame quicker! Even so, I think the truth about wear in this instance, is a non-issue and would never of considered it as important to making a purchase!

It’s a tough engineering palstic, and slippery. It iwll be many years before they wera, in fact I’d expect the metal wheels on the metal track will wear faster than the plastic axles woudl ever wear out. I’ve used almost exclusively P2K wheels for years now, none have worn out. The only bad wheelset I ever had was actually in a P2K kit, not in a pack of wheels, that was cut clean through the middle of the axle - how THAT happend I have no idea, since all the parts were sealed up in their baggies. The nly cars I have that do not have P2K wheelsets are Branchline kits which already come with metal wheels, a coupel of Kadee cars I have, which come with metal wheels, and a repainted ‘train set’ Life Liek caboose that has Reboxx wheelsets because of an odd axle length. Most of my cars are Accurail and Athearn kits, and they all take P2K wheels just fine. I did noice one recent Accurail kit I got had very poor rolling trucks, despite the use of the tuner tool. Dunno if this is a minor quality slip or I just got a dud, never had a bad one before, and other recently purchased ones were fine. ANd it was only in one side of each truck - one wheelset would roll perfectly, the other would not.

–Randy

FWIW about half of my cars still have plastic wheelsets, and I’ve recently begun changing those over to metal wheels using Intermountain HO “Semi-scale” wheelsets. For some reason in recent years I’ve started to notice how grossly oversized / thick most model railroad wheels are and it really takes away from the realism for me. (Take a look at the May 2012 RMC cover for example.) I use Kato Unitrack which has a much narrower profile than other code 83 track, so I think that makes the problem even more apparent. So far the “Semi-scale” wheels have worked fine without needed to make any changes to track or turnouts etc.

I agree based on my experience. I have some cars still rolling on the same Kadee wheelsets and plastic axles for well over 20 years that work as well now as ever. I also have plenty of P2K, ExactRail and Intermountain wheels. Wear hasn’t been an issue with any of them.

They are not all the same. JayBee for example has a larger diameter axle than IM. Don’t forget North West Shortline Wheelsets nwsl.com. Many of the newer trucks are better suited for the thinner axles and some(like Athearn BB) are better suited for the thicker axle and so if you mix them improperly the car height won’t be correct. The truck truer seems to best suited for the larger axle size as well.

I use IM, JayBee and NWSL. I’m not crazy about the plastic axle on some others, particularly since I want as much weight as possible at the wheel. Also I don’t think they are equal in their profiling–you can check this with a caliper.

Richard

I second this with regard to the wheels. I have converted all of the trucks that can take intermountain semi scale wheels to them and have had no problems running them on our club layout. I also put together an unpowered test track consisting of atlas number 4 turnouts code 83 and code 83 flex as well as some code 100 18 inch radius curves. The track was done specifically to include bad s curves different codes of track with no transition between them. Every car rolled through just fine, proto2000, accurail, branchline, Kaydee, blue box, and some others that are not in business anymore. I felt that was the worst combination of track I could put together for testing and if the cars worked ok there they would be flawless on a layout.

When I purchased my first sets of the wheels the manager of the hobby shop told me that a lot of modelers did not use them, semi scale, because of the need to have good track. After that test I wonder how anything could stay on the track that was not good enough for the semi scale wheels.

Thanks for all the info on metal wheels. It’s amazing how much information and how much response one can get here when asking a question. Unfortunately only one answer was for the question I asked as to which wheelsets were made in the USA. Thanks guys! I have previously stuck with Kadee wheelsets, trucks & couplers as I’ve never had any defective products from them since first using them in the early 1960’s. That’s an amazing track record! Unfortunately I need to put metal wheelsets under about 150 new Bowser & Stewart WM hoppers so I bought a bulk pack of InterMountain wheelsets on ebay for a very good price. I already have a few hoppers with them I bought from a friend and they work well. Roger Huber

oldline1, your right! When I joined in, the conversation had already changed to: Who’s best! I likely wouldn’t have made comment on your question on if a Produc is made in the U.S.A.; or, not, as in the U.S., the manufacturing business is truly an international endeavor. So, being positive about whether a product is made in the U.S.A. is difficult to quantify.

Oldline 1

I can answer your question now. Being in need of some wheels , and after reading this thread I ordered up a bulk pack of Intermountain. I just opened it now. The box is full of plastic bags, each with ten axles. each bag is printed with “made in china”. Nowhere does it even say Intermountain, but they look right to me. I opened one bag. All axles measured between 1.000 and 1.004. all were spaced correctly when checked with the NMRA standards guage.

Philip

I noticed the same thing after I opened a new box of 36" wheels - Made in China. As far as plastic axle ‘ends’ - The P2K wheel sets I have on over 150 freight cars have not had a problem. Like I mentioned, they seem to be made out of a tougher engineering plastic than the Kadee axle ends. Also, the Kadee wheel sets have that dark black coating on the wheel tread. It does buff off, but I really like the I-M metal wheels that I now buy as my ‘standard’. I too bought all of those P2K wheel sets when they were $3.99/card at M B Klein(about 10-15 years ago). The price was right. Before that I had fleets of cars with Kadee wheels back in the 70’s. The Kadee equipped cars were basically Athearn/MDC cars that I had detailed/painted/decaled and were sold off as I purchased better cars. As of right now, I am very happy with the performance of I-M wheels - I am ordering bulk packs of both 33" and 36" wheels again(my 33" box is down to 2+ 10 packs…). They perform fine in my Atlas/Athearn RTR/Genesis/P2K/Walthers/Accurail cars…

Jim

I have a little more t

Well, I have used KD wheelsets & couplers since I first discovered them in the 1960’s and have never had any problems with them out of the package or after many years of use. They are by far the best products and company around. I also like the fact that they are made in the USA. KD couplers will always be my coupler of choice. I just bought 50 more Bowser U-channel 55 ton hoppers I need to paint, decal and get running. My custom decals are in & I have enough #148 & #5 KDs to do them but lacked wheelsets. My normal supplier, MB Kleins was out so I asked the question about other American made wheelsets. Not getting the answer I was looking for I decided to buy one of the 100 bulk packs of InterMountain wheelsets. They are really nice and seem to work well in the Bowser sideframes. Yes, they come in 10 sets per plastic bag and are labeled as made in China. They do not have IM anywhere on the plastic bags or the box they all came in. So far they are okay in every way. The price was right but I will probably go for KD’s with future purchases. Everyone, thanks for the help with my question. Roger Huber

GM SD70ACe - this is an English language forum, so I have deleted the German language part of your last post. There are only very few German speaking members here, so posting in both languages does not really make sense.