Are there any manufacturers that use metal wheels on the rolling stock they sell.
I’ve been on ebay too much lately but I’m not finding much with metal wheels they are all plastic.
Now I do know this much from my experiments, putting metal wheels on help the car roll more freely this cuts down on drag so that my locos don’t have to over work to pull them.
And the metal wheels add weight so I’m confused of why the plastic wheels are on just about everything, I don’t like them and will over time replace all my plastic over to metal.
Who started using the plastic wheels anyway, it just makes NO sense to me?
Obviously, it is a cost saving measure. Many modelers don’t know or don’t care about the difference so putting cheaper wheels on will make their product more attractive to those people. For those who do care, wheels are easily replaced so these people will end up paying more. What’s wrong with that. Those who want a better product will have to pay more to get what they want. If metal wheels were included, everyone would have to pay the same higher price. Why force those who are happy with the cheaper wheels to pay for something that isn’t that important to them.
The cars that come with plastic wheels usually come with so-so couplers as well.
I just built three inexpensive Bowser hoppers (because they were Canada Southern) and probably spent as much or more on Kato trucks and Kadee couplers for them as I did on the kits themselves.
Well, depends, if its a kit, it will have cheaper parts than the new RTR cars with all metal wheels, its a cost saver. Most metal wheels come in the RTR cars, like Ahtearn, Atlas, bachmann, and some RTR Bowser models.
I have some walthers tanker cars with plastic wheels, I tried PROTO metal wheels but the axles are too long and the wheels do not move. What metals wheels do you use on walthers rolling stock that fit well?
Plastic wheels and axles are inexpensive for the manufacturer. Buy metal wheels WITH metal axles in bulk and replace all rolling stock that is lacking. I’m talking not only wheels, but axles too!
I seen an add for 100 wheels sets for 65$ is this the normal price?
I will have to change all my wheels now can someone tell me why I should be changing the trucks as well, after all, they only hold the good wheels in place right???
In some cases, it might be worthwhile to replace the trucks but a cheaper option might be to buy a reaming tool which can be used to improve the inexpensive plastic trucks. I have a set of reaming tools by Micro-Mark but I recently found a hand device at my LHS which is simply called “The Tool” by the Industrial Tool Co. of Kansas City. It fits into the truck like an axle and has one reaming end. You turn that end clockwise while applying pressure from the outside. It shaves the plastic allowing the axles to turn more freely. I like it because there is no guessing. According to the directions, it will stop shaving the plastic when the right amount is removed. I tried it on the inexpensive plastic trucks that came with an Accurail kit and even the plastic wheels rolled much more freely. I went from 3 seconds of roll with one push of the finger to 5 seconds worth of roll. That is a significant difference.
The wheels may not be plastic but most of the trucks I see still are. The trucks can be responsible for as much drag as the cheap wheels and axles, maybe more. The reaming tool improves this regardless of the wheels being used.
I believe it comes down to giving a kit or rtr at a lower cost. And of course this has been around since I started out with kits in the late '50s. Even in the '60s, there were plenty of Ulrich kits that were “less trucks”, and others with “less couplers”.
A minor reason for this may be that there were a number of different couplers out there and there was not all that much standardization. And when the old NMRA coupler came about, the “serious” MRR would replace them with more realistic ones (thank you Kadee!!!).
I well remember the old horn hooks which were the standard for a long time. Almost every piece of equipment came with them and most serious modelers would factor the cost of a pair of KD #5 couplers when buying anything. Apparently some time during my 10 year hiatus from the hobby, knuckle couplers replaced horn hooks as the standard. Unfortunately most of them are so cheap, I still figure in the cost of a pair of KDs. They might as well still come with horn hooks.
Not all trucks use the same axle length, Rebox offers replacements in all sizes. The easiest thing to do, though, is to use the truck tuner in the link below.
From when I started modeling in the late 60’s until about 10 years ago virtually ALL the commercially produced models that included trucks used plastic wheels. Even diesels had some wheels plastic on powered units and all plastic on dummies. That was the big draw of the Athearn blue box engines, they had all wheel drive and all wheel pickup. They were best engines out there for the price. If you wanted metal freight car wheels you had to buy separate after market trucks (such as Kadee or Central Valley).
So the question is not who started using plastic wheels, but who started using metal wheels.
I just replaced my Bachmann McKinley Explorer Set with Micro-trains 1017 trucks and everything was plastic. I was so disappointed that I took them back off. . Except for the coupler, the Bachmann trucks were far more superior to what I got from Micro-trains. I don’t have any experience with other MT trucks, but the 1017 sucks. I’m still going to change the couplers to MT, that is when I figure out what one to buy.