I recently purchased nearly twenty coach/combine/baggage kits from a well known manufacturer. My previous experience with the wheelsets from this company was what I call the 10% factor. I knew that I would scrap 10% of the wheelsets as totally unusable. I test every axle to find wheels that not only run true, but also do not run eccentrically on the axle causing the car to lope up and down. I then combine the good wheels to make true running sets and superglue them with correct back to back measurement.
Then I pick those wheels that, while not perfect, are at least presentable and have minimal impact on car performance. I then combine these to make ‘acceptable’ wheelsets to use on flatcars, gondolas where any wobbling, loping is not so noticable. The remaining wheelsets are simply useless and discarded. This does add considerably to the overall cost, as factoring in the cost of the dud sets and averaging out the waste over the acceoptable sets, one could purchase a decent set of wheels from a reputable manufacturer for the same ‘average’ price per set.
I have wheelsets from the mid-90’s from this manufacturer, with the solid steel, thick axles and these sets all run true out of the box (new old stock). The manufacturer wheels seem to have followed a cycle over the past few years. Initially, wobbling was the main defect. This may be corrected by twisting the wheels on the axle to find a ‘sweet’ spot where the wobble is counteracted by an axle which may be distorted, exaccerbating the wobble of the wheel. The wobble was replaced by wheels running eccentrically on the axle. This causes the car body to move up and down as it travels the rails. Well, the manufacturer have now surpassed themselves by incorporating both wobble and eccentric behaviour in their wheelsets. The wastage factor is now closer to 25%.
The wheels are extremely expensive to import from overseas, due their weight, so even though they are relatively inexpensive to purchase in the U.S. (generally $10-$14 per set), the landed cost to me is actually as expensive as better quality CNC machined wheelsets. I have literally had hundreds of the wheelsets from the cheap manufacturer pass through my hands and feel that I have a fair view of the lack of production quality. Unfortunately, one is not able to buy the manufacturer’s excellent rolling stock without purchasing their wheelsets.
I spent a l;ot of time and money on my elevated roadbed and track to ensure smooth running. Any lack of rolling quality is amplified by my smooth track surface. If I laid my track in ballast sbjected to frost heave, then the lack of quality would not be so apparent. Some may say that narrow-gauge rolling stock did rock around a lot and is actually prototypical. Well, a trip on a car that rocks and lopes as much as this would make the passengers sick and hardly likely to ever use the conveyance again. Prototypically, the amount of car movement viewed from outside the car would be negligible, so the argument has no grounds. Car inspectors would scrap any prototypical wheels that behaved as these wheelsets do. When I have viewed narrow-gauge cars the car movement is due to track undulation and not wheelsets running ‘out of true’.
I fail to see how the manufacturer could consistently make a quality wheelset for years through the 1990’s, only to see quality deteriorate rapidly in recent years. Thankfully, there are still manufacturers who actually machine their wheels rather than roughly cast them. Oh well, another lot of wheels in the bin. What was once the 10% factor is now an expensive 25% wastage factor.
