Parts

[Dave Crow]

While I think I have a vertical turret lathe in Baltimore - or some other machine of massive proportions - I agree that setting up the museum's 48" lathe to do the work saves travel time, both for the wheels as well as the machinist.

Dave Crow

[Ted Miles]

Folks,
          Another possible source of parts is to use three foot trucks. There seem to be D&RGW cars and trucks around the country. I have seen a list of 1500 of the on one list. The wheels could be pressed in or put onto new axels.

i work at the Western Railway Museum and our shop has a turret lathe; they just used it on a set of wheels for MUNI# 016; the wheels were narrow streetcar tread and they were converted to compromise tread which works on our railroad style tracks which uses the widest tread.

The Colorado Railroad Museum has just built three sets of passenger car trucks. This freed up six freight car trucks. They may very well have some spare wheels also. The Durango & Silverton Narrow Gauge Railroad sold some parts a while back; I expect the will have some wheels kicking around also.

So my question is what will be the next car that you guys plan to build?
How about a passenger car?

Ted Miles
WW&F LIfe Member
WRM Member

[Dave Crow]

Hi Ted,

One of the biggest problems is the wheel size.  Maine freight cars, passenger cars, and locomotive tender trucks all used 20" wheels - except for some of the original B&B 18" wheel sets.  Because the wheel cross-section is not constant, you can't just take a Rio Grande 26" or 30" or 33" (or some other diameter) wheel and turn it down to 20".  Axles aren't cheap, either, as they tend to be a better grade of steel.  You're maybe taking off 6 to 8 inches on either end of an axle, which puts the new bearing surface close to or on the location where the wheel used to be.  And therefore, quite possibly, right where there are stresses due to pressing the wheels on and off the axle.

Randy Hees and the guys at Ardenwood Farms in Fremont, CA have probably the closest stuff in weight ratings to the Maine equipment; several of us have (or had) copies of Randy's SPC castings catalog.  However, we do like to cast things close to home, and I doubt Randy would ship us his patterns as a loan...  They definitely do have some neat hardware in their catalog!

Dave Crow

[Russ Nelson]

An old post, but an appropriate post. What wheel profile do we use?