Large Scale Central

Piko 25 Tonner: Ball

Does anyone know if the Piko 25 Tonner has ball bearings?

If it doesn’t have ball bearings, does it have any kind of bearings?

Thank you for your help.

Joe,

Do you mean external thrust bearings on the motor shaft? If so I pulled mine apart (the Cleaner variant) for troubleshooting some time ago, and, no it does not.

Eric

Joe, in general, anything that inexpensive won’t have ball bearings on the axles, and for sure not on the motor.

This is a lightweight loco, won’t pull much. Saw one in the flesh this weekend.

Greg

A bit of a tangent, but here’s a 25 tonner with interesting details in use at/by GE itself a few years ago, https://www.railpictures.net/photo/636298/

Joe, there were detailed pictures on Gscalecentral.com … this locomotive is not designed to pull heavy loads… motor, axle bearings, gears are all lightweight.

As a comparision, the smaller Aristo diesels use the same ball bearing (on the axles) motor block as their larger 2 axle diesels (except the GP40).

USAT does not use ball bearings, but large bronze sleeve bearings, which seem to hold up well, but the weight of the loco is taken up by sleeve bearings in the journals which do wear measurably.

Greg