Size of wheels for Well cars

[crisco1]

What siize wheels would an Well car take?

thanks,

Chris

[Little Timmy]

I dont remember exactly, but I think The 3 cars or 5 cars coupled together had 36 inch wheels at each end, and 28 inch wheels along all the trucks in the middle.

Single cars I believe  had 36 inch wheels.

My memory is "cloudy" so I'm probably wrong.... paint / glue fumes , you know ...)

[mbinsewi]

I'm pretty sure Little Timmy is right.  I did up some well cars and spine cars last year, I'll have to double check.

Mike.

[maxman]

Little Timmy

The 3 cars or 5 cars coupled together had 36 inch wheels at each end, and 28 inch wheels along all the trucks in the middle

I'm thinking that the intermediate cars have 33 36 inch wheels.  I also think that 28 inch wheels are primarily used on autorack cars.

edit:  corrected intermediate wheel diameter.

[Overmod]

I think Timmy has it backward.  The load on the intermediate trucks is higher than on the ends, so the wheels are larger there -- I believe 36" for 100-ton sections, 38" for 125.  This size difference is clearly visible looking at the articulated sets.  The 'end' trucks have wheels appropriate to the potential peak weight there; I believe these are 33".

The 28" wheels are for relatively light loads where vertical interior space is important -- mainly enclosed autoracks.  There is no need to use small wheels for double-stack clearance because there are no wheels under the well locations.

Very small multiple wheels are used in some European train-ferries and HPIT-like 'iron highway' sets -- I have seen wheel size as small as 16".  But that's a different world from North American practice.

[mbinsewi]

I think what the prototype uses, and what will work on our model railroads might be different.

I measured what I have, and my 3 car and 5 car sets have 33", stand alone cars have 36"

I think the 5 and 3 car prototypes use 36" on the inner trucks, and 33" on the ends.

I have 24" radius, and using 36" wheels on the inner trucks caused problems.

Mike.

[maxman]

mbinsewi

I think what the prototype uses, and what will work on our model railroads might be different. I measured what I have, and my 3 car and 5 car sets have 33"

I believe that this is probably correct.  I have a Walthers 5 car set and changed the intermediate wheels to 36 inch diameter, which is what I thought they should be.  I found that the 36's rubbed on the car bottoms, so I changed back to 33's.

I also think that if the model car was designed to use 33's, using 36's would result in the end cars not being level.

(be sure not to use 45's or 78's as the music would not sound right)