Wheels: plastic or metal

I'm a bit confused, I have about 100 pieces of rolling stock, about 80% is Microtrains or has Microtrains trucks installed. The rest is the newer Atlas.
I know I can order 33" or 36" metal wheels from Atlas, I also know Microtrains sells the brown lo-profile wheels in plastic.
Why should I change the wheels at all and if so with what brand, advantages and disavantages.
A confused N-scale modeller,
Paul

 

The reason to change wheels is to improve the looks of a car (and on some old and/or cheap brands to improve the rolling properties). The low profile flange improves the looks tremendously (also some cars needed shims to keep the old giant flange from rubbing against the floor). I am in the process of changing out all my wheels for this reason. Black vs brown is in the eye of the beholder. I like the brown wheels.

It might be hard to imagine, considering the difference of 3" in N scale is so small, but you actually can see the results when you use the correct wheel size. I use NWSL 28" wheels on my autoracks, which is correct. This really stands out. Real articulated well cars have 36" wheels on the interior trucks and 33" wheels on the end trucks. I tried this, and it looks great, but it creates coupler matchup problems and the end bolsters need a shim to level the car. Thus I decided it was more trouble than it was worth. Bodymounting the couplers could alleviate the matchup problem, but I am not ready to jump into that just yet. The 36" wheels are correct for passenger cars and 100 ton trucks (Atlas and Intermountain 70 ton trucks come with 33" wheels and the 100 ton trucks comes with 36" wheels, which is correct, why MTL uses the wrong size wheel in their 100 ton truck is a mystery). I don't put 36" wheels in MTL 100 ton trucks because it makes for coupler matchup problems. I do use 36" wheels on my passenger cars, whenever possible (the low friction bearings on KATO trucks are too valuable to switch to the correct size wheels).

Hope this helps

 

Thank you all for reply but,
still not convinced yet.
If I would choose the metal wheels, which can I buy that fit the MT trucks and the latest Atlas trucks ?

Paul

 

Metal wheels don't roll as well as plastic wheels do.
Try this test. Take a piece of 36" flex track and prop one end up on a book so that the end is about an 1" or 1 1/2" high. Put something under the middle of the track for support. Now take a boxcar with Micro Trains trucks under it. Put it at the very top end of the flex track, and let it roll. Mark the spot where it stops. Now take the MTL trucks off and put a set of metal wheeled trucks on the same car. Put the car at the top of the flex track and let it go. Mark the spot where it stops rolling. Take the metal wheels out of the truck sideframes and install MTL low-profile plastic wheel sets in the truck. Now do the roll test and mark the spot where the re-wheeled trucks stopped.
You will find the MTL trucks roll the best, followed by the re-wheeled trucks with the metal wheeled trucks coming in last.
This is what I want, the best free rolling trucks available. The better a truck rolls, the less strain is put on my engines, and the more cars an engine will be able to pull.

 

I agree on the rolling resistance point Mark, but I've found the reverse in my plastic v metal wheels experiences (with HO, admittedly). There may be a lot of variables involved in my tests, but the difference was quite staggering when I ripped out the plastics and put metals in.

Try putting a few cariages behind a train and test current draw...thats probably the only true test....

 

I personally like the sound of the metal wheels better, and if they came in natural brown and LP, I'd definately get them vs the plastic.

Plastic I like because they should always be in gauge unless temps warp them.

 

Atlas makes both 33" and 36" metal wheels with axles correct for MTL trucks, in addition to the ones which fit their trucks. Unfortunately the quality control is not good. I have found about half the sets in every package I have bought to be defective, the wheel is not perpendicular to the axle. I have not found anyway to fix them, the problem being that the plastic center is sometimes installed in the wheel crooked. Once pressed in crookedly, no matter how I try, I can't re-install it so it is not crooked. They are not cheap and with the high rate of rejects, they are effectively even more expensive. NWSL makes 28", 33" and 36" wheels. They can be ordered with axles of various lengths to fit many different brands of trucks including ones for MTL. They are even more expensive than Atlas. Availability is also limited. Intermountain has excellent 33" and 36" metal wheels, but they are only made to fit their trucks. End result is, I only use metal wheels on cars that need more weight and there is no place to hide it or on cars that need electrical pickup. Everything else gets plastic wheels.

 

Thank you all for help.
I'll stay with my original plastic wheels for now and if one of the Atlas, MTL or IM will supply metal wheels for Atlas and MTL trucks on a fair price with good quality I can change later.
Thanks again for help.
Paul