Wheels?


I use wheels with metal axles and metal axle points since the metal on plastic generates less friction.

To see what I mean, take two trucks. Put Intermountain wheels in one, and put Proto 2000 wheels in the other. Swipe your finger over the axle to spin it. Time how long the Intermountain spins for vs the Proto. The one that spins longer has less friction.
 
Eric;

That is true for unprepared trucks and axles. I have some P2K wheelsets in many cars that I can place on the highest point of the layout, give them a small push, and they won't stop rolling until they hit the staging yards a good 75 ft away.

But what I'm talking about is that metal turning in a softer bearing surface, will wear out quicker than nylon on nylon. I put metal axles into metal trucks, prepared of course, so they roll really well there. I've had metal axles on nylon trucks actually wear almost totally thru nylon trucks. The wear was such that the sideframes were rubbing on the tops of the rails.

I haven't put metal axles into nylon trucks since the 1970's for that very reason. Also nylon on nylon, or whatever space age plastic the trucks are made of have less rolling resistance over a longer period of time than the metal on nylon.

I do have some metal on metal trucks that do roll even better than what I have with the P2K's, but unfortunately Central Valley trucks haven't been made since the 1980's and I can't afford as many as I would like.
 
Ah, I see. I use Intermountains anyway because they're not that much more expensive than other brands (I only swap out Walthers, P2K and plastic kit car wheels).

I would think that metal on metal would need lubrication or else it would wear down (I haven't really tried it long term). Kadee makes decent sprung metal trucks (I have two pairs, still sitting in their packages)

And for trucks that are just very stubborn (such as the ones made in Europe) Intermountain Ball Bearing wheelsets work wonders. I have a Walthers Superliner with metal trucks. The trucks are metal so I can't use a truck reamer tool to scrape out the flash. I've tried everything, regular Intermountains, Atlas, Proto 2000, and none of them would roll very well. I then tried the Intermountain Ball Bearing wheelsets. The wheels were meant for something else, but they didn't fit so I tried them in the Superliner. It worked wonders. It runs away if theres even a slight grade!

The way it works is that theres an inner (core) axle, and an outer (shell) axle. The core axle sits inside the truck and doesn't need to rotate although if it does, it helps the rolling qualities. The shell part of the axle is attached to the wheels, and two housings with ball bearings inside of them. The ball bearings help the shell axle rotate around the core axle so that the truck journals aren't part of the spinning wheels.

The wheels are mighty expensive, but worth every penny. They are insulated on one side so that they can be used for power pickup for lighting (which I will install on Saturday)

Another thing I like about metal axles insulated on one side (Intermountains, Reboxx, new Athearn wheels, Con-Cor, etc) is that if I ever need to use the wheels for power pickup, it's easier to have the wipers engage the axle than it is to engage the back of the wheels.
 
I have been using metal wheels for 5 years now. I can honestly say I had put a minimum of 80 scale miles on my freight cars every time I went to the culb. each lap is about 10 scale miles. I likely went down there 40 times in the past 4 years so that has to around 3200 scale miles total just at the club. I have not had a metal axel poke thry the nylon trucks..... yet. not saying it wont but for a model that is pretty extream in just 4 years use. Now the code 83 main line rails at the club were worn down to code 55 in some spots from the heavy use but that took almost 15-20 years to do that...!
 
FWIW

At the club I used to belong to in Mobile, Al, the mainline was over 80' on one side of the modules and 30' on the ends. This was the layout until 1981, when we built a smaller, more easily transported layout.

Every year, we would set up at the Fair for a run of 10 days. We had to have trains running on 3 mains from 1000 in the morning, to 2200 at night on the week nights and 0900 to 0000, (midnight) on Fri. & Sat.

On the longest main, we always had 3 passenger trains running at once. (Speed matching locos in DC wasn't easy!) One train had Rivarossi cars, with metal wheelsets one each car, another train was Athearn cars with KD 36" wheelsets. The last train was equipped with Central Valley trucks.

We noticed that one year, one of the trains, the one with Rivarossi cars, was slowing down. We at first thought maybe the locos were overheating, but I saw on one car the sideframes were actually rubbing the tops of the rails. We examined the cars, and found that the metal wheelsets had actually "rubbed" their way to the top of the trucks. The journals on the inside were worn almost all the way through. We replaced the train with another that had CV trucks.

To prevent this from happening again, we changed our club standards to be that metal axles should not be used on trucks with nylon sideframes. Interestingly, we even found many freight cars, like the Athearns and MDC's were having the same problems. When the trucks were replaced, they also got KD wheelsets, (nylon axles) and just about all of our "wheel wear" problems went away.

On my current layout, if the car has nylon trucks, they get P2K, or if the LHS is out, KD wheelsets. The metal trucks get the metal axles. Many of my cars are now over 40 years old, and I haven't had to replace any wheelsets in them at all, since I started doing this. All of my cars are extremely free rolling and have required minimum maintenance.

This was all based on those experiences in Mobile, so remember that YMMV.
 
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They rolled very freely, and were in gauge. We figured that it was the friction of the axle in the truck itself.

Now, Eric, I'm not advocating that everyone should do what I'm doing, as I can almost guarantee that a great majority of yall won't be subjecting your equipment to the punishment of a "Fair run", like we did every year.

I'm just saying what could happen and what I learned from it.
 
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irocinblue89 said:
So I was surfing and noticed that Exact Rail is offering 100ct metal wheels for about the same price as the Intermountains. Anyone have the exact rail wheels? Whats your opinion? I almost exclusively use Intermountains but I am just wondering how these are.

Thanks,
Seann
Click to expand...

From what I've heard the Exact Rail all brass wheelsets are actually manufactured by Intermountain, so they should run exactly the same.
 
Lightstorm said:
From what I've heard the Exact Rail all brass wheelsets are actually manufactured by Intermountain, so they should run exactly the same.
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Here's my previous comment from 1st page of this thread:
Have 10+ ExactRail cars & all the wheels have plastic axles. Used to get Intermountain wheels (w/ metal axles) on eBay. But now get them at Railmaster Hobbies: http://www.railmasterhobbies.com/
Problem w/ plastic axles is they can be bent too easily when being inserted in the truck side frames.
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Exactrail's new aftermarket metal wheels have metal axles. I don't know if they're putting them in their cars yet (or if they'll do it at all), but the new ones being sold in bulk packs have metal axles.

Just because it's made by Intermountain does not mean that they will run the same. Branchline's metal wheels are made by Intermountain, but have a slightly longer axle. Reboxx wheels are also made by Intermountain, but they come in different axle lengths and only come in code 88.
 
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We got the new TRINCool 64' reefers in the shop the other day (Phase 1 and Phase 3), and they have plastic axles.
 
Either they're going to use up the plastic axle wheels first, or they're not going to put the metal axle wheels in their cars.
 
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