I have a set of A-Line Gunderson’s I built about 12 years ago and some Athearn Spine cars that I would like to put metal replacement wheels on.
What size wheels? 28 inch?
Who has replacement sets? All I can find are 33" and 36"
Or, do I replace the whole truck with …??
Thanks for any help!
I believe the Gundersons run 33" on the end car bolsters, and 36" on the intermediate bolsters. Try going to the A Line web site, should have instruction sheets on the different units. http://www.ppw-aline.com/
Can’t tell you anything about the Athearn spine cars.
I put 28" on mine. It was the only way I could get them to fit under the top braces of a truss bridge.
I did the same on my Athearn Spine cars. I run a 40 car train of those and changed them all to Intermountain 28" wheels. I use mainly Intermountain 33 and 36 inch but use PK2 36" on passenger cars.
Contact the manufacturer for their ‘correct’ size’
No matter what the REAL railroads used, most (including Athearn) models used 33".
It’s more important that cars line up with others. Use a KD. height gauge.
Don
Might recheck that on the 33" on all. The set of Athearn Maxi-III # 5918, that I have, came with 33" ends and 36" intermediates. Seem to couple up fine.
I did the same on mine. 33" and 36". That is what came on them but plastic. They run much better now and the coupler height is correct.
I recommend using wheelsets that fit and are round.[swg]
I happen to have a lot of the cars you’re inquiring about. Here’s what I have learned by using these models:
The A-Line Gunderson cars use 33" wheels on both trucks and kadee #5 couplers comes out on target with a height gauge. This is for both the stack car (stand alone wells) and for the twin stack (5-unit articualted) (http://www.ppw-aline.com/gunderso.htm). The 5-unit twin stack car has 33" wheels on all 6 trucks.
The Athearn spine cars (Impack) use 28" wheels on all trucks and the kadee #5 comes out perfect with the height gauge as well. I use Intermountain semi-scale 28" wheels and have had no problems with them at all , and this is running them on a temporary setup, not a full blown layout.
The Athearn Gunderson husky stack car, uses 33" wheels on both trucks. Again, the kadee coupler comes out right with this wheel size. The maxi-III (5-unit articulated) uses 33" wheels on the coupler ends and 36" wheels in the articulated ends. The coupler ends come out exact on the height gauge as well. The prototype uses 33" wheels on the ends and 38" wheels on the articulated ends (Maxi-III).
Kadee has most of the sizes I’ve suggested: the 28", 33", and 36" wheels. Intermountain Railway Co. also has all the wheel sizes I listed as well as 38" wheels. The difference between Kadee and Intermountain is that the latter has semi-scale wheel tread available (.088), and Kadee only has standard tread (.110). The semi-scale wheels look really nice, and that’s what I have on almost all my rolling stock.
Here’s the Kadee website, the wheel sets are toward the bottom. Since these are more modern cars you have, the smooth back wheels are the correct ones to use.
Here’s the Intermountain