Ok, A stupid question i am sure for most but a honest one i am asking. Metal wheels on your cars, are there certain types in size for certain cars or can any HO scale metal wheel work on any car no matter the type and maker?
I have many different brands of cars so , can i just buy a good suggested metal wheel and put them on all my freight ,boxcars, etc? What is a good metal wheel universally [:)]
Thanks
Chris
All my freight cars use 33" wheels. My passenger equipment, what there is of it, uses 36" wheels. I haven’t had much trouble with wheels not fitting. In those cases, I go to walthers.com and find wheels that will fit.
Chris,My standard wheel is the P2K 33" wheels…I use these wheels on 70% of my cars…I do not own any auto racks,auto parts or pig/stack cars…
Why 33" as standard? I find 33" seems to be the universal wheel size and .I also found less coupler height problem due to different wheel sizes.33" wheel versus 36" wheel which is 3" taller then the 33" wheel which results in a coupler height difference between cars with either the 33" or 36" wheel.
Yup… go with the metal wheels it’s the best way to improve the performance of your rolling stock, that and of course KD couplers. Both are worth the time and money invested.
Proto 2000 and Atlas are good brands and fit “most” equipment w/o modification. A company, i believe called Reboxx offers manufacturer specific metal wheelsets and a truck reamer to shape the inside of your rolling stock trucks for the axles to have optimal rolling performance. This reamer is also available thru Micro-mark. Most freight cars that I have came with a 33" wheel and the passenger cars with a 36" wheel. A change to metal wheels is an excellent idea as I did this conversion about two years to about seventy five to hundred cars. It makes a big difference in performance and sems to keep the track much much cleaner. Godd luck with your conversions…, John
Jeff and Brakie, Thanks for the info , that is exactly what i needed, 33 seems to be what i might need , bought a set of athearn well cars and wow is the difference noticable!! had them on the track on one part of my layout lightly pushed them and they just about went around one half of that side !
Need metal wheels on all my rolling stock now and yep, i agree with you also
Joe need to invest in some KD couplers also.
In Time, In Time
Thanks again guys.
oh ,by the way jeff i enjoyed your picks in the othes weekend post of your layout looking good
Chris
No there are many different sizes. Not only in diameter of wheels 33" for freight and 36" for passenger (but also 30", 34", and 40" for special applications), but also and possibly more importantly axle length.
At the club we were installing Proto 2000 wheel sets everywhere and then discovered that the axles were too short and the cars were listing sidways and slopping down the track. Sometimes even bad enough that the couplers wouldn’t line up. So now we keep several different brands around to have the one with the right length. I believe we ended up using Atlas “Caboose” wheel sets for most of our equipment after that.
Of course the bigger issue at the club has been the noise. We were converting to metal to help keep the track clean (which it didn’t), but we found the noise is outrageous. There is a big push now by some of the members to go back to the plastic wheels to help reduce the noise level in the layout room. Fortunately, I kept most of the plastic wheel sets if that is what they eventually want to do.
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A 36" wheel is 3" higher than a 33" but the coupler height is only 1 1/2" higher.
[:I] my bad.[:I][:0] But of course.Doohh!
If you have any auto racks, they use 28" wheels.
Victor
Happy Railroading.[swg][swg]
Since we use needle bearings on most car trucks the axle length has a lot to do with car height. Replacing a 33" wheelset with a 36" wheelset with a short axle could lower the coupler height.
I know it doesn’t make a difference, but I think it’s cool that the tires on my Jeep are the same size as the wheels on most freight cars (33" tall)
I have some trailer carriers
looks like there smaller then 28
tiny are there smaller ones then 28
for this type train
Budliner,I believe the front runners and Impact cars uses 28" wheels.