Trucks

Oct 08, 2006 14 Replies

When replacing wheels and trucks on my HO freight cars, how do I determine if I need to order 33 or 36 inch scale wheels? Thanks. Tom


33 inch is generally used on freight cars except for autoracks which generally use 28 inch, 36 inch is found mainly on passenger cars.

Intermountian, Reboxx and NWSL make some excellent replacement wheelsets in these sizes.

Alan

-- _________________________________________________ / \ | What: Modeling Canadian Pacific in B.C. in the late 50's | | EMail: rag1957 at rogers dot com | | Web Gallery:

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36" also used on 100 ton trucks

Some of the articulated freight (well cars) have 36" on the interior shared trucks and 33" on the unshared end trucks. I think the articulated autoracks have 33"??? (I think?)

I simply measure the existing wheelsets with a cheap caliper and replace them with the same size. 33" comes out to .379 and 36" is about .415.

Stevert

Pretty much just measure the wheels that are on there now. As the others have stated, there are several wheel sizes that are used. Generally 40 and

50 ton cars use 33" wheels and 100 ton cars use 36" wheels. The reason for these different sizes is how much weight the wheels can support.

-- Yeppie, Bush is such an idiot that He usually outwits everybody else. How dumb!

Does anyone make replacement wheels larger than 26"? I have someHornby British passenger cars that have very large (and very lousy) wheels.

Thanks/Carter

Carter Braxton skrev i diskussionsgruppsmeddelandet:3fvWg.10261$ snipped-for-privacy@newssvr12.news.prodigy.com. ..

Try doing a google on Mike Sharman and his wheels, very high stadards indeeed. Beowulf

The home page should be

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but it has been down for quite some time.

diskussionsgruppsmeddelandet:3fvWg.10261$ snipped-for-privacy@newssvr12.news.prodigy.com.

Well thats a bummer :( but most British railway model magasines should carry his wares, sadly no-one carries them at my local international newsagent here in Sweden :(Swedish Danish German US but not the country that invented them ie Britain ( theres them that would say that Cornwall isnt in England..... Trevithick being Cornish.... so British railway magasines are not available :( ) Beowulf

Sharman wheels are (were?) locomotive wheels, they did not do coach or wagon wheels. Coach and wagon wheels to UK finescale standards are available from Alan Gibson, Kean Maygib, try and InterCity Models . Keith

Or from

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Keith skrev i diskussionsgruppsmeddelandet: snipped-for-privacy@4ax.com...

grovel grovel.... just goes to show how long its been since I laid my mucky paws on a British mag :( Beowulf

It depends on the car. 100 ton trucks most often have 36" wheels. The old axiom of passenger cars have 36 and freight cars have 33 realy applies to further back in time. When I was younger (1970's) 33 was on most boxcars and intermodal while hoppers had 36 as did tank cars (esp LPG). Now, there are boxcars with 33 or 36" wheels. autoracks have 28 or 33", tank cars or hoppers most often have 36 (older may have 33). Intermodal range from 33 to

  1. There is the aspect as the era as well. Modern cars lean towards 36. The
33" for freight cars works for older eras ( 1980 and back? ). I don't think there's an honest easy answer for this one. All this is from my obeservation over the years and not from any 'rigerous' source. Depending on the model or photo you have, it may say on the car what the wheel size is. Esp on the car ends. For example, the wheel size is stenciled on the sides this car (36") illegible on these photos. And this car was built when.... in the 70's?
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fun.

Jb

or

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which has

33" wheels at the ends and 38" at the articluation trucks. or the Walthers Gunderson high cube boxcar which has a marking on the car ends reading 36" steel wheels....

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