Wheel Dia. on Athearn PA Loco's

Model Railroader Electronics and DCC
1

Hello, I am re-motoring all my older Athearn blue box locomotives, all pre-DCC. I am looking to replace the atearn half axle wheels with NWSL nickel silver wheels. I have sent an e-mail to Athearn and also NWSL as to what the correct diam. wheel is and whether they have them in stock. I do see numerous half axle wheels but just don’t know that dia. I believe I was told a few years ago they were 40" diam.

Can anyone help with this question. I want to replace all the wheels befoe I actually install the new motots. Thank you

Jim

2

it depends on the locomotive really, and what they’d have shipped with (i.e. prototype).

3

Get a digital caliper for your tool box for future measurements. Makes measuring wheel sets very easy.

You can get decent one at Micro Mark.

Any modeler should have one in their tool box.

For some years I had a cheap dial caliper made with plastic and fiberglass that did really well.

Rich

4

According to the following link, http://www.thedieselshop.us/AlcoPA.HTML#TechData, the prototype PA’s had a wheel diameter of 42 inch.

I have a pre-split-axle Athearn PA. I just threw a scale across the wheel and it does appear to me to be 42 scale inches. Although I can’t be 100% certain, I suspect that Athearn would have used the same diameter for the split-axle models.

Regards

5

Use the Contact section of the Athearn web site to get the answer to your question.

Check the Technical Support and Product Information box and submit the question.

They almost always answer within 24 hours.

http://www.athearn.com/About/Contact.aspx

Rich

6

I already did that, along with a few other sites, days ago, no answer!!

7

Thanks much, I do appreciate it!! Time to order a few packs of NWSL NS wheels.

8

I have more than one digital caliper, so how do I convert this to inches?

9

All of the Athearn BBs had 42" wheels and that includes the PAs. The only difference between PAs were the metal trucks vs plastic, the metal ones had the extended axles because they had outside bearings, the plastic trucks bad flush/short axles. You can always cut the extended axles with a Dremel and a cutoff wheel so they don’t rub on the inside of the sideframes.

10

I’m assuming you mean “convert to scale inches”?

See: http://www.urbaneagle.com/data/HOconvC.txt