MTH rolling test... 3rd video added

Who left that bridge up! 

Wow, that's quite the difference. I like how much quieter the plastic wheels are, but I can't change my fleet. Beside, I need the metal wheels for detection.

To each his or her own.  But I would like to see how that Milwaukee car does after you put one drop of Labelle 107 on the axles where they enter the truck sides.  Delrin is a low-friction plastic, no surprise there.  But any kind of metal-on-metal bearing will work better with lubrication.  Especially so if it's allowed to "run in" first, and THEN carefully lubricated.

I've also seen some MTH cars (especially heavyweight passenger cars) where the truck sides were too tight, and put lateral pressure on the axle ends.  If that's the case with these cars, then you would also need to loosen the truck sides and re-gauge them.  Personally I would want to know what's causing all the drag before I commit to rewheeling my entire fleet.

MTH uses Delrin for bearings in their truck side frames, your not suppose to lube them. Both cars have the same trucks.    

Thanks Clem, for sharing your test results. AMAZING. Beautiful layout too.

clem k posted:

MTH uses Delrin for bearings in their truck side frames, your not suppose to lube them. Both cars have the same trucks.    

Another Delrin plus..derailments rarely produce an electrical short

Engineer Joe that would be me   

Huh. I learn something every day here (Delrin bearings pressed into die-cast truck frames). Also, it turns out some MTH freight trucks have blunt-end axles and some are needle-point. Something I just discovered upon examination.

Lew

Plastic wheels are quieter, but they also pickup a lot of gunk and wear very quickly.  I went the other way, I had some Weaver cars with plastic wheels, they were quickly dispatched for metal wheels!

.......My experience is the Delrin stay cleaner than metal and plastic wheels like on Atlas/ Pola cars get dirty fast !!

Have yet to clean my Delrin wheels and I run a lot of them for quite a few years now. Maybe weight of cars as an effect on this ?   I can't get paint to stick to Delrin !

Clem  

Clem, love the track ballast. Looks great. 

geysergazer posted:

Huh. I learn something every day here (Delrin bearings pressed into die-cast truck frames). 

Lew

Yeah Lew, I think Lionel was doing that years ago, going back to the 80's, if I'm not mistaken.

Another video added

I would imagine the Delrin wheels press onto the axle easier then the metal wheels, which would aid in keeping the axle from bending and creating wheel wobble. If there's one thing I can't stand is wobbling rolling stock and having to straighten their axles. Menards rolling stock has to be the worst I've seen. I believe all manufactures would benefit by using harder steel for axles to keep them from bending when pressing the wheels on.

Runaway train! Now you'll have to put retarders in your hump yard.

I use Intermountain steel wheels. They roll great. I've been putting them in every Weaver car I get. They're single-insulated and generally will not short if the car derails, but if the truck turns sideways, the wheel will short out the center and outside rails. ScaleCity Designs sells them, by the way.

I don't see the Intermountain wheel sets in the ScaleCity Designs catalog, where did you find them?  I want 3-rail wheelsets for Weaver trucks.

Note that I said 3-rail wheel-sets Matt.

gunrunnerjohn posted:

Note that I said 3-rail wheel-sets Matt.

OOPS! If you need some Weaver 3-rail wheelsets for the plastic trucks, I have a batch of those I can send you. Couplers, too.

Its not only the wheels its the axle also. The better axles are thicker and machined to a better finish. In the videos above the better rolling cars had better axles. there are three different axles in that test. and metal wheels are probably the best if they are machined to a closer tolerance. It depends on the $$. The best value for me is the old Weaver 2 rail axles with the High Rail Delrin wheels. Ride height, sound, rolling ability are my concerns in that order. 

Clem  

That middle video above, where the Milwaukee Road Reefer nearly falls off the edge of the world, really scared me for a second. I am glad you caught it in time.