New Here...first question concerning Jay Bee Engine Wheels

[High Speed Kurt]

Hello All,

Long time lurker, finally registered. Quick intro, I'm 30, live in New Orleans and model the NS. Layout room is going up soon (I hope)

Anyways, in the effort to keep things as clean and running as well as possible, I came accross a discussion on replacing older blue box athearn wheels with jay-bee. Has anyone used these before? From what I could measure, I think 42" is the standard for most blue box SD40-2's and GP's.

I read the nickel silver are the ones you wanna get. Any help or comments is definitely appreciated.

Thanks,

Kurt

 

[diburning]

Yes, get Nickel-Silver wheels. You can either get then direct from Athearn, NWSL, Jay Bee, and Walthers.

 

[High Speed Kurt]

So with that being said, the RTR newer wheels from Athearn will work with older blue box?

 

[diburning]

Yes, but there may be a size difference because the blue box locomotives may not necessarily have the correct wheel size while the RTRs do.

 

[ICG/SOU]

I got the NWSL ones. I keep both 40" and 42" wheels on hand, since, as diburning said, the blue box may not have had the right ones on it to begin with.

 

[diburning]

If the blue box has the wrong size wheels, I would not recommend that you put the correct sized wheels in as it would have a noticeable change the ride height.

 

[cedarwood]

This discussion on metal wheels is related to a project I am currently working on. I have the Athearn BN #134 calf dummy unit with a metal frame and plastic wheels. I want to power an LED to show thru the headlamp by first, changing the plastic wheel+metal axle ones to all metal ones to enable electrical pickup. The Walthers catalog show Jay Bee as having metal wheels for Athearn dummy units in both 40 and 42 inch sizes.

Any further info on if these particular ones are the right ones for my project ( and which size is best) or is another choice more appropriate?

Thanks for any feedback,

Cedarwoodron