How to get freewheeling rolling stock

Model Railroader General Discussion (Model Railroader)
1

I am amazed at how smoothly and freely the wheels roll on modern RTR rolling stock as compared to the kit built cars, mostly Athearn BB and Roundhouse, that I have collected over the past three decades. I would love to be able to get the old cars up to performance that I get from my newer RTR kits. I bought a set of Micro Mark reaming tools to try to upgrade the old trucks and that has helped some but I still don’t get wheels that roll as freely as the newer stuff. Is there a method that will get these older up to today’s standards short of buying new trucks and/or wheel sets and what is the key to achieving that.

If it is necessary to buy new, what are the best brands for replacement wheels and trucks. I’ve noticed that my best rolling RTR cars are the ones from Atlas. Atlas offers 4 different truck types and is there any difference in performance with them.

2

Try new wheel sets. I’m having good luck with 33" P2K’s. Cuts down on dirty track too.

3

Ream out the truck sideframes with that ‘tool’, and then get metal wheel sets - the P2K sets are good, and the Intermountaion are very good for free rolling(metal axles). The Kadee wheel sets are among the worst rolling(they have an engineering plastic axle(non-magnetic) that is quite soft compared with the P2K axles. BTW, the Intermountain axles metal axles appear to be non-magnetic as well. I really have not tried them as I remove the ‘glad hands’ on my couplers and use ‘skewer’ stick uncoupling method.

Jim

4

I agree with Jim. The tool scours out any flashing or bumpy surfaces in the inner bearing, and it can also be used to broaden the span between the bearings if you give the tool enough turns. This might be useful when replacement, or even the extant, wheelsets have axles a bit too long to run freely.

5

I never had problems with the old Athearn trucks roll ability…I have tons of problem with the MDC truck as far as roll ability.I switch those out to the Athearn truck…Before Athearn’s new RTR trucks with metal wheels I was using 33" P2K wheels in Athearn truck frames as my standard…I now use the new Athearn trucks with metal wheels as my new stanard as I find them extremely free rolling.