Friday, Jan 10th, 14 , 13:30 Hrs. M.S.T. Hi Group, Years Ago, My Brother Converted Most of His Freight Cars to Micro Trains Trucks/Couplers. That's OK. A Few Years Back He Started the Switch to Metal Wheels from Plastic. He Went With Atlas as Standard Metal Wheel.. His Claim, the Atlas 33 Inch Metal Wheels Fit All the Micro Trains Trucks Over the so Called 36 Wheels. and are Free Rolling etc. OK, I Switching Most of All My Cars With Accumate Truck/Couplers, Over to Micro Train Trucks/Couplers Where Possible. Next Phase - Metal Wheels!. OK, For Micro Train Truck Couplers, Which is Correct - if Any, the so Called 33 Inch Wheels, or the 36 Inch Wheels. It Was My Impressions the 36 Inch Wheels Were Correct to Go With. If NOT I'll Go With the 33s. I'm Using Code 80 Rail for Track, and I'm Leaning to "Fox Valley Wheels" But I Do Like the McHenery Trucks/Couplers and the Metal Wheels., I Believe Athearn is NOW Using McHenery Trucks Couplers, Metal Wheels and They Look OK. Any Fair and Honest Views Would B Nice!. Tnx., Operator.
33 vs 36 isnt your only concern. That a rwference to the wheel diameter. Pick up a cheap micrometer and you will be able to check you wheel diameters. Not the flange, just the wheel. What is your biggest concern is axle length. Check out the fvm site for thier various wheels. Theye sell them by axle length and cross reference compatible trucks. I THINK. Atlas and mtl axles are the same length, but you will find the real answer wjen u look at fvm site or get a micrometer. Sent from my SCH-I545 using Tapatalk
The MTL and Atlas cars both take the same wheelsets. I used the FVM 33" wheels on all my cars. The part # is FVM-3302. They are the .553 axle length.....Mike
Normally 33 inch wheels are used on 70 ton and below cars and 36 inch wheels are used on 100 ton cars. That being said, most if not all Micro-Trains cars have 70 ton trucks on them, so 33 inch wheels will be more correct looking. Almost all conventional Passenger Cars use 36 inch wheels. Mark
BLMA makes really excellent metal wheels that fit into MT trucks. From the aesthetic point of view, I think they're the best available.
Which brand, in the long run, is the most economical value when you are potentially talking about hundreds of cars?
This is not true, Atlas and MTL do not use the same axle length. MTL uses .540 axle. Also MTL trucks with couplers mounted use 33" wheels, regardless of what should be on the car. If you install a 36" wheel, you'll raise the coupler height.
