I’ve got the mainline installed for my DCC 5x10 HO layout, without the Tortoises installed but can run things around with my 1 loco and 3 cars (yea!). So, pending work such as bridges (versus a yardstick), hills, etc I decided to order some more freight rolling stock. With the old Athearn blue box now gone except as found at shows, etc, from what I’ve read so far I’ve concluded that Accurail and Bowser kits (I want to avoid RTR) and perhaps a few others are good candidates for my fleet so I ordered quite a variety of those today in the 40’ range (no 50’ plus more modern types).
I want to have metal wheels, so I’m a bit confused on the approach to upgrade. Part of this comes from trying to improve my grandson’s Bachmann set with metal wheelsets from his LHS (not sure what brand) and some would not fit (too tight) so I’m concerned about what will or won’t fit what. I’ve looked over a 6-page doc on freight trucks, and conclude I probably need 33" wheelsets for what I’ve bought. I gather that complete trucks might be twice the cost. So, here’s some related questions:
a) for the Acccurails and Bowser 40’ type cars, what will or won’t fit right? I saw a note elsewhere that Intermountain 33" fit the Accurails and can be had for about 60 cents per axle, so any other alternative recommended? Will those fit the Bowsers also (I presume those kits have plastic wheels)?
b) What will / won’t fit the couple of old Roundhouse mid size hoppers I have?
c) I have a Proto 2000 stock car kit that looks like a step up from the above and comes with metal wheels. I gather they are discontinued but see a few types on eBay (stock cars & maybe one other not long car). Is there another brand you recommend looking in the range of what’s mentioned above? I’m not inclined at this stage to get into difficult or extremely delicate kits.
d) Oh, and what about the Bachmann set items? What metal wheel sets should fit them rig
IIRC, both Bowser and Accurail come with metal wheels. Most trucks (and I’m assuming you know that this is the entire wheel, brake, and suspension assembly under the car) come with wheels that have a little pointed axle hub at each end, which fits into a cone shaped indentation in the molded truck assembly. While most freight cars will be running or scale 33" wheels, the difference between a 33" wheel and a 36" wheel in HO scale is 0.03", which is unlikely to be an issue for anyone except a purist, and certainly shouldn’t cause any issues with operations or fit on the trucks.
If all you want to do is change the wheels, they should pop out of the axles, to be replaced at your convenience (Micromark sells a tool called a Truck Tuner, which is a great device for cleaning up those cone shaped indentations in which the axle points ride). There is usually no need to change the entire truck out. This wheel type has been the industry standard for items made for the North American market for some time now, and I’d be more than a little surprised if you have ones that DON’T fit that kind of wheel. I think that your issue with the Bachmann cars that you referred to above isn’t that the wheels aren’t standard but that the quality control stinks, and the Truck Tuner tool referred to above might solve your problem there. What you’re changing out should be just the two wheels and the axle connecting them.
I bought several bulk packs of Walthers Proto 33" wheels (20 wheelsets) a while ago, and have used them for every wheel changeout on my fleet that I’ve ever done. I don’t see the big packs now, but these are the same wheels. Intermountain wheels are the same design, and should work on just about any car you have.
To actually change out trucks, the best method is to simply match the attachment method (the best ones mount with a screw, and yes, these are usually standardized.&n
I won’t claim to be an expert here, but my suggestion would be to purchase the packs of Proto2000 33 inch wheel sets from Walthers/LifeLike. They have enough for three standard cars with two trucks. You have a choice of two styles: ribbed back or smooth back. For you, either will do (prototypically or for ease of use).
As for the Bachmann trucks, there is a tool available from Reboxx or MicroMark called the Truck Tuner. It is a small reamer that is tapered to fit the shape of the axle points on both ends. One end is smooth and the other is notched to cut and shape the trucks so the wheel sets fit properly.
You insert the Truck Tumer into the truck and rotate the tool applying very pressure to the truck sideframe. One or two turns are usually enough. Flip the tool over to shape the other sideframe of the same axle. Repeat for the other axle location.
I had problems with new wheel sets in a Trains Canada 40’ boxcar. The wheels wouldn’t even turn. A quick treatment with the Truck Tuner and it almost rolls too freely. I’m a believer.
Only the Accuready RTR cars come with metal wheels, the kits are still all plastic, Proto 2000 wheels fit them just fine. Boswer/Stewart kits also are plastic wheels. P2K wheels fit those as well. P2K wheels also work well with Athearn blue box kits.
If these are the majority of your cars, get the truck tuner tool from Micro Mark. The Reboxx one is to short to work properly with Accurail and Bowser trucks. Or Athearn. See the thread on this very subject
Good source of P2K wheels is MB Klein, Modeltrainstuff.com. They have about the lowest price around on them. 33" would be the most usual size, new modern cars with 100 ton trucks would run on 36" wheels. SOlid back is the more prototyically correct unless you model mostly prior to WWII, but I’ll admit, the rib-back ones do look more interesting.
Far as up grading Bachmann, you must use the Truck Tuner. I have up graded quite a few and used the PK 2000 wheels. Far as the ribbed or none ribbed wheels, I did not care.
One tip I will give you on using the tuner. Try to take the same amount from both sides. Other wise you could have this happen.
A truck like that will be a picking machine! If the flanges do not look straight across from each other, flip the wheel set. Old timer taught me this and the trick works a lot!
I recently (within the last 2-3 years) converted all of my freight and some of my passenger rolling stock to metal wheels. (I also converted to sprung trucks, but that’s another story, for another time.) in the process, I learned a few things that sorta surprised me. First of all, I learned (much to my surprise) that almost every manufacturer has a different axle length for their wheelsets, and sometimes, a different axle length for each type of truck they make. Second, that all replacement-wheelset manufacturers are not alike.
There are mainly four manufacturers of wheelsets for replacing the stock ones that come with your rolling stock: Kadee, Intermountain, JayBee, and Reboxx. Of the four, Kadee’s wheels are of sintered metal, with Delrin axles. They roll well, but the porous quality of the sintered wheels causes them to pick up dirt and “crud” from the track very quickly. The other mfrs have wheels of turned nickle silver on nickle silver axles. Intermountain and JayBee (AFAIK) have only one axle length, which means they either fit or they don’t. Reboxx has axle lengths to fit each kind of truck that is or has been made, almost, but they only make the “Code 88” tread width wheels (tread width of 0.088", as opposed to the more common 0.100" width.) The narrower treads look better, IMHO, but have their own issues, such as being as bit harder to get on the track, and dropping into the over-wide frog point gaps in our turnouts. (For the record, I have converted to all Reboxx wheels, but that’s me. Others will swear by Intermountain, JayBee, or Kadee).
All of the freight cars you have mentioned will have 33" wheels. The only 36" wheels you would need would be for any passenger cars you may acquire.
One tool you should acquire for this project is a decent digital caliper. It will be invaluable in finding the correct axle length. Measure the length of the axles yo wish to repla
I use Intermountain metal wheel sets exclusively, 33" for freight cars and 36" passenger cars.
These wheel sets will fit any HO scale truck that meets NMRA sytandards.
I also use the Micro Mark Truck Tuner which should be an essential part of your tool box.
If you use the truck tuner correctly, the reaming process will be flawless and the wheels will be perfectly in gauge. Once you have completed the truck tuning, the wheels will spin very, very freely.
I hate to disagree with you, but 0.03" CAN be an issue. That’s .030" which is almost the gap on an old set of spark plugs. Dividing it by 2 (radius vs diameter) giving you .015" of coupler offset can be a problem with scale sized couplers. The standard-sized Kadee coupler head should work fine even with this much offset.
I’m interested in metal wheels mainly because a LHS shop guy recommended them, I put a metal wheel truck (maybe Atlas?) on an Athearn BB caboose (one of my 3 current cars) and it really rolls nicely, and I’ve gleamed my new track and it seemed many posters on the track cleaning subjects recommended metal wheelsets. I don’t necessarily want to buy whole new trucks at about $6 per car and like the idea of the $2 improvement (to cars averaging $10). I’ll order the MicroMark truck tuner and some Proto 2000 and Intermountain wheelsets for starters to see how the Accurail, Bowser & Roundhouse kits respond to them.
I’ll also look for other kits (CV, Athearn BB at shows, etc) to try.
Ah, the old sales pitch. [:-^] I’m not saying don’t use metal wheels, but keep in mind that it’s the axle/sideframe interface which determines, to the greatest degree, the truck’s rolling qualities. I do have a number of cars with metal wheels, and while their rolling qualities vary, they’re all noisier than their plastic counterparts. As for track cleanliness, I haven’t seen any difference between metal and plastic. The truck tuner is a good choice for either type. [swg]
Wayne’s experience with plastic wheels surprises me. Early on, I replaced all of the plastic wheels on all of my freight cars with Intermountain metal wheels. The plastic wheels left black sticky streaks on the rails which, in turn, were picked up on the metal wheels of the locomotives causing erratic performance due to intermittent power. The plastic wheels don’t roll as freely or as truly as metal wheels. And, as for noise, hello. The prototype is very noisy, and the metal wheels contribute greatly to that noise. If you want to run your layout like your watching a silent movie, wear headphones or ear plugs.
Rich, my experience with plastic wheels surprised me only after reading all of the on-line comments about how much trouble they were causing for others. When I started in this hobby, most trucks had brass wheels in metal sidefames, and when the new plastic ones were introduced (plastic ones were already around, but not very well done) their rolling qualities were generally superior to the brass ones. The introduction of engineering plastic for sideframes, along with the NMRA’s RP-25 wheel profile made them even better. Most of us were using brass track (on fibre ties) and if you wanted to run trains, you quickly learned that the first step was to clean the track and the loco’s wheels, which were often also unplated brass.
When nickel-silver track became available, the dirty-track issue, as far as my layout was concerned anyway, disappeared. You should keep in mind that I’m operating with DC, and it’s apparently a lot more forgiving as far as current collection is concerned than is DCC. In my opinion, the key to keeping the track and wheels clean is to simply keep the layout area clean. I don’t clean track unless I’ve been applying scenery in a particular area near the track.
When I first entered the HO scale side of the hobby 8 years ago, I purchased a lot of freight cars with plastic wheels. Not knowing any better, I ran freight trains incessantly and began to have problems with intermittent power and locos stalling.
The guys at my LHS were the first to suggest that it could be the plastic wheels on my freight cars. Sure enough, when I checked the metal power pick up wheels on my locos, a few looked like they had traction tires on the wheels. The black gunk was so thick that I needed to use the flat blade of a screw driver to clean that crap off the loco wheels.
Meanwhile, black gunk was all over the rails throughout my layout, and it took considerable time and effort to restore the track and loco wheels to pristine condition. When the entire sorry process repeated itself a few more times, I finally got smart and replaced all of the plastic wheels with metal wheels.
My brother-in-law, a far better modeler than me, had a practice of “notching” all the rails on his layout every 12 inches or so to simulate the clickety clack of the prototype as the wheels passed over rail joints.
Gidday,In an ideal world replacing plastic wheels with metal would perhaps be a given, but when modelling on a budget, well to paraphrase the old saying “There are more ways of killing a cat than shooting it!”
That’s why I run, at least, one “John Allen” track cleaning car in every consist.
To often, in my humble opinion, the good advise such as you, and others, have given in good faith,somehow manages to, over time, assume almost as much importance as one of the “Ten Commandments”. “Do it once, do it right” is a good principle to work by, perhaps though we shouldn’t inadvertently make newcomers feel inadequate, just because, for example, they run BB kits with plastic wheels.
That said I’d suggest that 99.9% of the advise given on these forums is well meant, and taken in context, has value.
With all due respect, I think you may be overreacting just a bit.
One of the great values of this forum is the ability of newcomers to benefit from the experience of more advanced modelers.
If you re-read my initial reply, you will see that, as a newcomer, I started out with plastic wheels on my rolling stock. But, experience taught me that metal wheels were better. Now, how that a
IMHO (as a guy who has been on this Forum for almost a decade), one of the major bennies of the Forum is to allow folks to ask questions and receive (often) a plethora of answers, and then decide for himself which way he wants to go - or not. An OP may find that most of the replies are similar, or are spread all over, or are strongly opinionated (i.e. which DCC is best, etc.).
So I will offer my opinion - and that’s all it is - based on my experience regarding metal wheelsets. And the OP has the option of “taking it to the bank”, totally disregarding it, or somewhere in between.
In any case, I’ve been playing with HO since the early '60s. Over the years I’ve found the Athearn BB kits (most of my cars) had the best free rolling trucks around. On my last layout (1993-2009), in an indoor climate controlled room, I began to realize the plastic wheels would get a hard, almost graphite looking, coat of dirt around the wheels.
Finally I decided to try metal wheelsets. Having a lot of rolling stock, even the cheapest sets are costly. I surveyed the Forum for “the best”, and the majority of folks recommended Intermountain. My biggest hold up was the cost - they ain’t cheap. But I went on Ebay and found that buying in bulk was the best way to go. So I did, getting the 33 inch for my postwar freight cars, and 36 inch for passenger cars.
It’s been about 6 years since the transition, and a new layout replaces the old one. In MY experience I have noticed definite differences from the original plastic wheels. They are:
the metal ws roll easily, even better than the Athearn BB delrin sets. This allows a given loco to pull more cars. But on the downside, “parking” a car on the slightest grade will be difficult at best.
