After changing out the plastic wheels for metal ones on all my rolling stock, I find I have a large amount of them. I have made the obligatory “stacked wheels load” in one of my gondola cars, a junk scrap load in another and used a few more for “atmosphere” in decorating yard facilities, I really don’t know what else to do with them. Now, I did sort thru them and selected out the combo ones with one metal and one plastic wheel (could be useful later on) but I am ready to toss the rest. Any suggestions?
The problem with using discarded plastic wheel sets as loads, scrap, and general atmosphere is that they have the oversized wheel treads and flanges of NMRA standards. When you see photos of layouts that use “real” model train wheels in this way they stick out like sore thumbs.
I do know a few guys who are starting to rethink the “replace plastic wheels with metal” mantra because of the noise that the metal wheels make versus plastic. IT is causing them to up the volume levels on their sound equipped locomotives, which in turn tends to up the annoyance level with the sound.
I do keep a supply of plastic wheels near the jig I use to paint freight and passenger car trucks. I paint the metal wheels separately. I insert the plastic wheels during painting just to keep paint out of the bearings. That is the only practical use I have found for them.
That’s pretty much what I do, after painting and weather trucks, I remove the plastic, and replace with metal wheels. I have quite a box full of plastic wheels.
You see them on Ebay, but I’ve never followed up to see if anybody buys them or not.
I never got into the practice of replacing plastic wheels, but I do have some cars with metal wheels. Since my layout is DC-powered, I don’t have any sound to turn-up, although I do wish that I could turn-down the noise which the metal wheelsets make - they sound nothing like the real ones.
I’ve also had no issues with most plastic wheels - if ones were causing problems, I either corrected the issue or replaced them, and the replacements might be metal or plastic…whichever I had on-hand.
I also don’t experience any negative impact on track cleanliness that can be traced to plastic wheelsets.
If I’ve recently been ballasting or adding scenic groundcover in an area, I do clean the track in that area, but otherwise, track cleaning, along with most other stuff on the layout (except trees) gets a visit from the shop vac every year or two.
If you have a lot of plastic wheelsets, you may be able to give them away, but they’re not all that suitable, unaltered, for use as gondola loads or scenic accents.
I do use old wheelsets for loose scrap loads, though, but usually they’re disassembled. Here are some metal wheel rims from Rivarossi wheelsets for passenger cars, along with some axles…
…mostly axles in this one…
Some different wheel types here, along with some wheel centres and truck parts…
I thought about making a few gondola loads like that, but the tread on the plastic wheels are so wide, I didn’t think it would look good, as Dave mentioned.
I asked a local model railroader acquaintance about the plastic wheels when I saw him today at a LHS and he replied- “I can’t give them away!”. I could sell them to some mice for skateboard wheels but all the local rodents are driving these days! [:D]
That’s not a bad idea, Dave. A disc punched out of sheet styrene, with either some holes drilled in it, or rivet decals applied, might make a good-looking manhole cover when set into the “lip” casting.
I have some and they look good. However the adhesive is rather weak and they tend to pull up so I put strong double sided transfer tape on thin styrene and attach them to that, then carefully cut them out.
Durango Press, Walthers and Alexander have cast plastic manhole covers. I have the Walthers ones and have used them but I suspect the surface detail is actually exaggerated in size and depth. Moreover I can’t swear they’d fit neatly into the Rivarossi wheel tire pieces.
Thanks for posting those pics! I have a bunch of plastic wheelsets as well as some plastic with metal axles that are too worn to use or have points that are too rusty to keep and was looking for some inspiration for gondola loads.
As for the plastic vs metal question, a friend of mine gave me a big bag of the Athearn-style plastic wheels with metal axles. I love them and with a track tuner they’re giving me much smoother riding cars than the one-piece plastic wheelsets. I’m sure there are some real advantages to metal wheels but I don’t want more noise and my layout isn’t large enough to look good with consists of longer than 14 cars or so. Freebie plastic/metal combos are working out great for me.
