Last night at the club "Fun Run" I had an Athearn Blue Box boxcar that was leaning to one side. It was pointed out to me that I was using Intermountain 33 inch metal wheelsets and that they had too much lateral play in the journal boxes. It made the car lean just so noticeably slightly to one side. I had never seen this before. I came home and changed them to kadee wheelsets and it no longer leans. The Intermountain axles are 1.000 inches long. The Kadee axles are 1.010 inches long. Just that little bit made a difference. Anyone ever heard of this? I think that Intermountain runs fine for the most part. I had never had a problem before. The trucks had been reamed with the "tool" for better rolling performance. Thanks for continuing my H0 education. I do appreciate your comments.
Yep your right IM uses wheels designed to fit their truck. I would encourage you to take a look at Reboxx wheels. They are the same type of wheel sets as IM and you can buy them in different lengths. I keep a few packages around between 1.020- 1.040 just to get the right fit. The IM wheel sets tend to be sold in bulk packages, and while this will get you a better price you pay for it a little as the axles all seem to get the very pointed end beat up a bit and therefore shortened even more, also compromising the free rolling qualities just a little, the other drawback to this is the point seems to get beat to one side giving wobble effect sometimes. You can tell this by running a fingernail down to the pointed end and if you feel a burr the axle has been damaged. The unmolested IM wheels seem to be around 1.015. Reboxx packages their wheels so as to keep the pointed axles out of harms way for shipping. While all this can seem a little "nit pickish" to some, when you pull 50-60 car trains it makes quite a difference, less lateral motion also helps keep things on track, less woobly wobly and certainly helps to keep the draw bars closer to the center line for coupling as well. The most common sizes for me have been in the 1.025-1.035 range. The prices are comparable to IM for the same quantities. But you get a much better product. Hope this helps. Lets have fun out there!
Great post and info, Tom. I learn so much from you .. Thanks for your detailed methods like this and the broken pin on thre switcher truck.
Interesting post..But, if axle, any axle is in its journal and not floating in space behind it why would car list as long as axle is in dead center of wheel ? Or, is Tom saying axle girth gets worn on one end inside journal ? I have one car which lists, a white, plastic, cheap wooden milk car. But I actually like it, seeing it leaning to one side in the mixed train...
Thanks MarkInLA, Consider the taper on both ends of the axle and the taper in the plastic journal and if the axles are way too short (side to side, or end play) it could allow the axles to slide to one side of the truck journal, this could shift the car to one side, up on one taper, and down on the other taper, making the car lean to one side. All in all it might not be that bad for some, I just know it works better for me to use axles that fit in the trucks
I'm assuming the stock truck frames were installed? The Athearn BB trucks tend to be a little bit too wide and flex when they have some age on them. Heck, in some cases, the stock Athearn wheels had too much play inside their own truck frames. Over time, I've converted my rolling stock mostly to Accurail and Bowser trucks with various metal wheels (Kadee, Intermountain, Proto 2000, etc..)
Yea those old MDC trucks were real bad about spreading apart, old Athearns weren't much better for sure, good news is almost all the new ones seem to be a great improvement, just my opinion.
