Back in the Wheel Standards post, I started to take a look at how wide some of the currently produced O scale wheels are. What followed was the page NMRA S-4.2 O Scale Wheels Standards where I started to document how far from standard our wheels are. What I found was very disappointing, almost none of the products that were available were within the NMRA standard for wheels.
That opens a big question mark for me. I believe in standards, they are what will make the railroad run smoothly. What I was seeing was nothing close to standard.
On the ride back from Chicago I was able to have a long conversation with Matt Forsyth who was really stuck in the Jeep listening to me. He had been prodding me for a couple of months to thin down my standards, go to .135 wheel widths only to find out that the NMRA already went to .145. Here is an example of one of Matt’s Intermountain trucks with the thinned down .135 wheelsets.
Well as the conversation turned, I asked “you’re only .020 off of P48 widths, why not go back to p48 standards?” That lead to a long conversation about what’s important to each of us as modelers and what wasn’t. At the end of the conversation we were looking at trying proto48 standards with a 5 foot gauge. We each had our reasons for not just saying yes to Proto48 again.
We ordered in some wheelsets from Protocraft, boy did they look great! Matt quickly modified a set of wheelsets with a spacer installed behind the wheels to adjust the guage. The concept could work nicely. But is this the right direction? I stayed back on the fence a little, still not sure I wanted to commit to the concept. All the while those wheelsets kept sitting on the workbench screaming at me.
The data about the lack of standards for O scale kept piling up this Spring, some manufacturers had different tolerances on different runs of the same products.
When I made the choice to stop modeling in Proto48 back around 2000, I was headed in a different direction. I was a member of a club that really did not want proto48 in it, I had an ever increasing Steam Locomotive stable and didn’t have any real machining skills and there were not many products available for Proto48.
What I now realize, if you want standards, everything is a project to convert no matter what the gauge. If I used the new NMRA standard almost everything needs to be converted, if I go to proto48 standards, everything needs to be converted. On some projects in the queue to be built, it is actually more work to use the NMRA Standards than the p48 standards, mostly because of the products produced by Protocraft.
In this photo is a San Juan P48 USRA Andrews truck with San Juan plastic wheelsets, a San Juan truck with Protocraft wheelsets, and on the car another San Juan truck with PSC wheelsets. There is a difference. Here is a close up of the San Juan USRA Andrews truck with a Protocraft wheelset on the left and a PSC wheelset on the right.
@Western Maryland Joe
Joe,
Proto48 means different things to different people. For me it means wheel and track standards.
When I modeled in p48 in the past, I added the same amount of detail to my models as I have since putting five foot gauge wheel sets under them. To me there is no difference. I’ve just grown tired of looking at the fat wheels. O scale in 2011 doesn’t need to be there.
Since I have NO INTEREST in being a club member of any of the local clubs, the pier pressure to conform to the fat gauge has been removed.
Also what I see in the current set of standards from the manufacturers is that there are no standards. The wheel and weight charts I have here on this site prove that. So if I have to modify almost all my equipment anyway, it makes even more sense to go p48.
Wow, I can see my absence from the hobby since last fall has brought a lot of changes! Is this discussion for P48 ONLY for the wheels/ track width?
Part of the discussion I recall was the O 5 foot was “the industry standard”, so everything that could be purchased would be compatible. P48 standards would involve having to rebuild everything, to include hand laying all the track. With my hobby time being so limited, I frowned on having to hand lay more track.
Matt does have a way of convincing. Maybe it’s the blow torch. Seriously, you guys have picked up something I have noticed.
My change to O scale from HO has had me looking back in the last several months. HO scalers have RTR and kits that are to Proto standards (except wheels). I keep looking at the Weaver kits and see how 1970s they are. 1/48th scale railroad modeling has NOT been keeping up with the times.
Proto 48 wheel standards, or P48 for everything? P48 everything translates to “building twelve cars in your life time and never operating a railroad” was a quote from…
Joe
@Penn Division
No Rocket Cycles.
That line is the sand has turned into the Grand Canyon.
We both were already there, it has just taken a little longer for us to admit it.
Thanks very much for showcasing my work, and our numerous discussions. YES!! I was but a prisoner in the Jeep, with no choice but to listen!!
WE ARE P48 and better modelers, so it only makes sense to just go there (get out the rocket cycle, Batman)!!!
Just looked at the shimmed Protocraft P48 wheelset above, and thought to myself, “boy, it sure would be nice just to take them out of the package, polish the treads and DROP THEM IN the sideframes, without having to modify every single one!!
MF