Looking at Model Railroader's Trainland advertisement I see brands like MTH,
Mantua, Rivarossi, Roundhouse etc... having steam locos in H0 scale.
Are all these equipped with RP25 wheels?
Is it so that in general all steam locos -- even those intended for entry
level hobbyist -- equipped with RP25 wheels? If not, why not?
pekka
If it's all current (new or retooled) production, yes. There may however
be subtle differences in interpretation of the RP25 specs - back-to-back
and check gauge dimensions are more important the flange depth for good
tracking, especially through turnouts, for example.
OTOH, on some older Rivarossi and IHC locos the pilot and trailing truck
wheels are not RP25.
Well, retooling is costly, so why do it if the tools are still good, and
so many people want cheap trains? Also, "common sense" says that deeper
flanges will hold the track better, right? Exhaustive NMRA testing in
the 1960s disproved this, but hey, what's accurate testing data when it
disagrees with to common sense? ;-)
Avoid any "entry level" locos, whether steam or diesel. They are made to
a price point, for people who have a bad sense what inflation had done
to prices. There's a reason so many of these locos are offered at 50% or
more below "suggested retail price". Better buy one good loco than three
"blow out sale" junkers.
Anyhow, the RP25 issue is a mix of aesthetic, technical, and economic
considerations. RP25 is not an industry standard, it's a recommended
practice of the NMRA (National Model Railroad Association, a volunteer
_consumer_ group.) The NMRA cannot enforce its standards, only market
forces can do that. It also helps to join the NMRA, so that it can
continue to develop, improve, and promote standards.
The comments below are in no particular order.
-- RP25 was developed by the NMRA primarily for aesthetic reasons -- the
shallower flange looks better. The NMRA flange standard specifies a
maximum depth of 0.035" and a minimum of 0.025". The deeper flange will
track properly on code 83 and larger rail, and even on some code 70
track. For example, Micro Engineering's track has finer "spike" heads
than some other brands, and code 35 wheels will run just fine on it.
(Code numbers refer to thousandths of an inch.)
-- The NMRA standard wheel profile specifies a fillet between flange and
tread, for all flange depths, and a fairly thick flange. (There is also
a "fine scale" spec for a closer to true scale wheel.) This rounded area
helps prevent the wheel from climbing the rail and derailing.
Unfortunately, "RP25" has been interpreted by some manufacturers as
referring only to flange depth.
EG, I have some "RP25" wheels sets which have the shallower flange, but
it is narrow and sharp, and there is no fillet between flange and tread.
I keep them as curios, to show what happens when a manufacturer doesn't
fully understand what the NMRA standards and recommended practices mean.
-- NEM allows a deeper flanges (max. of about 0.045"), which explains
the generally very deep flanges on European made locomotives in the
past. But recent European and British product has better looking wheels,
close to or following the RP25 specs. AFAIK, the Japanese manufacturers
adopted RP25 almost as soon as it was approved by the NMRA membership,
largely because so much of their market was the USA/Canada at the time.
-- Market forces do eventually have an effect. All new quality
locomotives have RP25 wheels, just as all new locomotives now come at
least "DCC ready", and the vast majority are offered in both DC and DCC
versions which actually raises the average price - it would be cheaper
overall to offer all locos with DCC installed.) Also, more and more of
the older product is wholly or partially retooled, and that means RP25
wheels
-- "Entry level" now means about $100 for a locomotive, and that's the
discounted price. There are exceptions, eg IHC, but I consider those as
trial gear - good enough to last long enough for you to decide whether
model railroading is for you, cheap enough to toss when you decide
either way. $100 to $150 looks high, until you consider that entry level
locos in the 1950s ran around $25 to $30, or roughly $200 in today's
money. And those were kits. I recall the buzz when Varney offered his
Dockside 0-4-0T at $15.95 - still over $100 in today's money.
HTH
Thanks.
Here (in Finland) the "average" modeller runs with german commercial trains
and belives in MOROP's NEM. All finnish outline is considered by average
enthusiast as "finescale" and rivet counting although all kits produced have
only RP25/110 or RP25/88+ wheels (as practically nothing is available in RTR
in Finnish outline and those wheels are most widely available). Small group
of us have tried to convince that even kids in US drive on layouts laid on
carpet with RP25 and are happy.
I therefore wanted to check if this really is true, and that the kids with
their first train set having a steam loco with more that two axles can
actually keep the RP25 wheels on metals.
It appears that it is not so simple as old tools and models are around
(models are often made in big batches for years to sell), but that there
seems to be no technical reason why RP25 would not keep on track even laid
around the xmas tree.
It seems that the difference between MOROP's NEM and NMRA's standards is
that in Europe NEM tries to follow the manufacturers factory standards but
in US manufacturers try to follow NMRA standards...
pekka
(snip)
From helping friends with collections of old Marklin and Fleischmann trains,
I have the impression that both systems first (or at least early post-WWII)
used track that was made with sheet metal rails bent into an inverted "U"
shape that was tab and slot mounted to a sheet metal base with a "roadbed"
trapezoidal cross section. This semicircular top required a deep flange to
keep the train on the rails, just as with US Lionel and its tubular rail
head sheet metal track.
By contrast, I believe that HO started in the US as a craftsman's hobby, and
from the beginning used solid rail with a sharper angle at the top corners
of the rail head. Most all of the early track (MidLin, TruScale, Atlas
flex, etc.) were designed for use on permanent layouts and were not
originally offered as sectional track systems. I think these factors
resulted in the adoption of a more prototypical flange in the US. I recall
that it was not until the mid-1950's that Atlas introduced the "Snap-Track"
sectional track system.
(Does anyone know the commercial history of this event - did Snap-Track open
up the availability of HO train sets, or did the HO train manufacturers'
desire to offer train sets lead to the introduction of Snap-Track?) Geezer
[...]
OK, see your point.
Yes, there are cheap entry level train sets here with the larger flanges
(0.035"), but otherwise the wheel profile is usually standard NMRA. The
better train sets use RP25 wheels.
Most people don't run on the carpet, though. There is track mounted on
plastic bases that vaguely resemble ballast, and that's OK for carpet
running, but even so, the first layout is usually built on a 4'x8'
(120cmx240cm) sheet of plywood.
The NMRA was formed originally (in 1936) to promote interchange. There
were many different scale modelling standards, and modellers found that
they could not be certain that their lovingly built models would run on
other people's layouts. NMRA standards fixed that problem. This had
nothing to do with toy trains, whose only standards were track gauge
(1-1/4" or 32mm) and propulsion voltage (16v AC, more or less.) Scale
models were in a minority, served by small manufacturers, many of whom
were themselves model railroaders. These welcomed common standards,
which guaranteed the largest possible market for their products.
Eventually, the toy train market withered, and the scale model market
increased.
So, from the beginning, the NMRA focussed on promoting standards for
manufacturers to follow. MOROP was formed after the fact, so to speak,
and so had to adapt its standards to the de-facto ones used by the
manufacturers. But I've noticed that European products are increasingly
using RP25. I think the main reason is the increasing demand for
accurately made models, which higher disposable incomes have made
affordable. Model railroads have become a largely adult hobby (which
does not bode well for its future).
I suspect that Maerklin's recent problems were as much caused by its
image as a toy maker as by a backlash against its high prices for what
became at best average product compared to other brands. Maerklin still
insists on going its own way, which will cause it further problems. The
fact is that an international model railroad standard, both technical
and aesthetic, is coalescing, and manufacturers that ignore it do so at
their peril. The days of captive, national markets are over.
Anyhow, the history of model railroading has never been fully documented
or written.
Have fun!
Well, actually NMRA found that a wheel with no fillet between flange and
tread was required for good tracking on round-head rail, and that
shallower flanges would in fact work on such rail. Conversely, a
filleted wheel tracked well on square edge rail. That promoted both a
revision of the NMRA wheel profile, and allowed a reduction in flange
depth. More recently, several workers have shown that exact scale wheels
will work perfectly, if trucks and chassis have working equalisation,
and track is built to matching standards.
Good points.
IMO Atlas's Snap Track (early 1950s) was a response to foreign imports.
IIRC it was the Italians who first offered solid rail sectional track
with a realistic rail profile. Around that time Fleischmann also offered
solid rail sectional track. IOW, the furriners showed it was possible,
and Atlas copied and improved on their innovation. For decades, Atlas
was the standard, and other manufacturers had to make compatible track.
Hence the code 100 sectional track on plastic ties that has become a
de-facto standard worldwide. We are now seeing a competition between
varieties of plastic ballast base track. And code 83 rail is slowly
displacing code 100.
Fun times. ;-)
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