Increasing wheel size on locomotives?

[NYSW F45]

I have several railpower products SD90MAC's that I wanted to upgrade to correct prototype wheel size. Jay-Bee and I believe NWSL both make wheel replacement sets for the 90Mac. If I went from whatever size the stock wheels are now to the 45" wheels that are part of the kit, would there be any benefit in terms of performance?

 

[MGWSY]

I have several railpower products SD90MAC's that I wanted to upgrade to correct prototype wheel size. Jay-Bee and I believe NWSL both make wheel replacement sets for the 90Mac. If I went from whatever size the stock wheels are now to the 45" wheels that are part of the kit, would there be any benefit in terms of performance?

Your couplers would be higher, LOL. If your replacing Athearn Sintered Metal wheels with Nickle Silver ones then that will improve electrical pickup in the long run as Athearn wheels tend to pick up a lot of gunk compared to NS.

 

[NYSW F45]

lol, i know about the coupler part. and yes on my tunnel motor im replacing sintered wheels. The other trucks I have no idea honestly. Will it provide more pulling power or no?

 

[MGWSY]

Wont do much on pulling power, for that you will have to add weight to the engine.

 

[RW&C]

Material differences aside (dunno if sintered vs nickel-silver has more traction), I imagine a slightly bigger wheel will give you a little more traction. Smaller wheels have more force where the treads meet the rail, bigger wheels have less (assuming the same mechanism), meaning that your engine will be more likely to slow slightly and keep traction than power on and lose traction. Of course, this is at the expense of torque, meaning it'll pull less when it does have traction...

Then again, this is a difference of thousandths of an inch, so I doubt you'll notice any difference. Just to see, find the two best-matched engines, upgrade one, and do a pulling contest.

 

[NYSW F45]

well i lost the auction on ebay, 2 boxes of jay-bee 45" wheelsets sold for $30. I was the high bidder at 5 bucks with a few hours left. New boxs on greenway are going for $15. So I might buy 1 box and see. I do need to replace the wheels on my tunnel motor before I send it to mark for dcc. friggin snow storms keep delaying everything for me.