Monday, May 6, 2013

Wheel Dilemma

As I convert my small fleet of rolling stock to metal wheels, a few conversations with my friend HK got me wondering. I know modern freight cars have 36" wheels. No debate there. The issue I have is that the left and right hemispheres of my brain can't agree on the visual versus the actual. I'll explain:
I am using FVM wheels. Up till now I have been using 33" wheels because they look right to my eyes (right brain). HK measured the FVM wheels for me and at the wheel face both sets are accurate to the given dimension (33"=33" and 36"=36"), this works for my left brain. Where the odd debate comes in at is that wheel flanges in real life measure about 1" give or take. On a FVM 33" wheel, the flange diameter is 38", or roughly that on a prototypical 36" wheel. The diameter of the FVM 36" flange is over 41", or roughly appropriate for an N Scale 40" wheel. Now my left brain hurts.

I decided I needed to figure out a way to check to see which half of the brain was the crazy one, so I too some prototype photos and lined them up with some model photos. Here are the results:
Photo 1 (FVM 33" Wheel): The overall diameter of the wheel (including the flange) closely matches the overall diameter of a real 36" wheel. Because the flange isn't weathered (and never will be) this stands out as the visual key in the picture to me.
Photo 2 (FVM 36" Wheel): The wheel faces are spot on to each other, but the oversized flange on the FVM wheel makes the wheel look oversized. If I had matched the trucks exactly the real wheel would have looked even smaller, exacerbating the issue.
 I believe I know how I must move forward. I hope this didn't hurt your brain as much as it did mine...
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4 comments:

  1. KristinMay 10, 2013 at 2:04 PM

    The Parental Unit says the wheels look better because the flanges look smaller. :-)

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  2. UnknownMay 11, 2016 at 4:09 PM

    I'd have to have my chin resting on my layout to see the wheels up that close. I'm more interested in getting my trains to run reliably than in 0.001 inch accuracy in flange diameters.

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    Replies
    1. Karl A.May 12, 2016 at 6:46 AM

      Reliable running and prototypical appearance aren't mutually exclusive. You can have both. I'm also moving my layout height from 50" up to about 54-56". I'm 6 foot tall and I like to view my trains from the side, as we do in real life.

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  3. UnknownSeptember 22, 2018 at 11:13 AM

    I too 'am engaged in changing out my wheel sets, ideally to FVM metals wheels but at least MT low profile wheels, which look smaller due to the black flange of plastic. After seeing your comparison photos I'm leaning towards 33" wheel sets to simulate 36" wheels as I find in N scale you sometimes have to go with how something looks vice actual dimensions.

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