Believe it or not, in the old times, in Soviet Russia, trains ran on square wheels.

How do I know?

Picked up half a dozen of old (20+ years) N gauge Soviet coaches by PIKO (that German company which originally started out as the main supplier of trains in Eastern Europe)

Well, the first thing to do is a test lap on the layout....four out of six cars just failed to run on regular 9mm track. Wheels were out of gauge and on some wheels, still had bits of sprue on them. Making them effectively rather UNROUND. As I bought them as used, I really wonder whether the previous owner had had any success in running them.

Though I'd love to, I can't take a picture of them to illustrate the UNROUNDness as the camera has trouble with capturing such detail. Maybe later.

They are quite nice, though, especially given their origin, and probably a new set of wheels will make them run again without trouble. And someday when I have the courage I'll repaint them to look like this http://www.rvm-electro.ru/urengoi6.JPG

Square wheels...heh...

I recall there being an article in model railroader back about 1989 regarding model railroading in the Soviet Union. I recall them mentioning that the model railroad items available included just a few train sets, and to do much modeling required extensive resourcefulness and kitbashing.

Never had a problem with their roundness although the flanges are very large by todays standards. I replaced all mine with modern sets from Ebay. Just search for N-Radsätze/Achsen.

nachoman Wrote:I recall there being an article in model railroader back about 1989 regarding model railroading in the Soviet Union. I recall them mentioning that the model railroad items available included just a few train sets, and to do much modeling required extensive resourcefulness and kitbashing.

I remember that article. If I recolect right, they ordered some stuff from America(remember...The Wall was still up) covertly just to get smooth running drives, as the Soviet drives were crap.

Is not Soviet trains' responsibility to accomodate rails! Is Soviet rails' DUTY to always support train!!

Disassembled the coaches for cleaning and removed the wheels: most of them are out of gauge, too (probably more so than unround). (Maybe they were made for the N gauge equivalent of Russian 1520mm tracks! Maybe not ) Yep, going to order some nice brass Präzisionsradsätze from eBay.