With a nod to 'Master 3 Railer' Norm Charbonneau for making this apt comment recently on the Vision Line Hudson thread, Here are two quick photos to illustrate this dilemma. Years ago when Lionel reintroduced the NYC Hudson based upon the pewar scale 700E Hudson, they included or offered as an add on sale a 'scale sized' pilot with proper sized wheels. Not scale flanges, which are necessary to run on most all track but proper sized wheels themselves. They were plentiful. Lionel again offered a scale pilot for the Commodore Vanderbilt Hudson a few years later. This one small change makes a great difference in appearance of a scale locomotive.
Here is a handsome Lionel Mohawk with the worst case of Training wheels I've seen yet on a large steamer of this size! For comparison, the other is a K-Line Hudson from about 2005 with their optional scale pilot which fleshes out the front of this beautiful example of the breed.
I wrote to Dave Olsen last week suggesting that they return to this policy or better yet - have the scale pilot as standard issue and for those (dwindling numbers of) customers who run on 042 or 054 Fastrak the toy pilot can be optional. I asked what percentage of buyers of the large otherwise beautiful scale locomotives still operate on small radii? He wrote a nice reply a few days later (Thanks Dave) and said he would speak with Ryan but they had no immediate plans to make available the proper pilot. He admitted that they looked great but that was it...
Come on Lionel; and while you're at it - How 'bout produce a few thousand extra good sized pilots for many of your terrific steam locomotives. I'll wager we would buy a LOT of 'em!
Man, they're so diminutive one can hardly see them under there! 
Ahhh... a right proper set of wheels to compliment the mighty Hudson
I've had the K-Line with PS2 for about 10 years and have had no tracking difficulties at all on MTH ScaleTrax, Gargraves, or Atlas
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