I have a pair of these boxcars I probably bought in the late 1990s. While running them tonight, I noticed the wheels are tiny - much smaller than the 33" wheels on my other boxcars. I haven't pulled out the scale ruler yet, but my guess is they are 30" or possibly even 28" wheelsets. Is this correct for this car?

To the best of my knowledge, box cars had 33" wheels. The only cars I can think of right at the moment that have 28" wheels, are the covered auto racks.

I've never used the wheels that come with Accurail kits, so haven't paid attention to the size. However, I'd agree with Nachman - based on the era these were built, I'm 90% certain the wheels should be 33". I don't have a reference to confirm that though.

They should be 33" - I just checked several of mine and the smallest was .376", which is roughly 33" in HO. There were a few ten or fifteen thou' larger, but all cars seem to ride at about the same height. These cars date from whenever it was when the first ones were released.

Wayne

Could it be that the flanges are more to scale hence they look smaller?

Galen

I just measured them, and they scale to 30". Perhaps my cars got shipped with the wrong wheelsets, or for some reason i swapped them out (although I have no idea where or why I would have had 30" wheelsets). They are metal wheels on a plastic axle.

If I recall correctly, Rivarossi used under-sized metal wheels on their passenger cars: actually, they were metal tires on plastic wheel/stub axles, all mounted on a metal axle. Here's a load of tires and axles: the wheels are in one of my parts drawers.


The wheel diameter, by the way, is measured over the tread, not over the flanges.

Wayne

Perhaps they are 28" wheels, but I know they aren't the Rivarossi. Still, I have no idea why I would have or have bought 28" wheels. They must have come from the accurail kits, for some reason. Either way, I guess I will replace them.

28" wheels were appropriate for an earlier era. I don't recall when 33" wheels became standard...I think it was around the same time as cast trucks. (and since your cars are WW2 in vintage, they most certainly are not appropriate)

I re-measured them with a caliper at 28". My best guess is that accurail shipped them many years ago with the wrong wheels. Then again, some of my other accurail cars I bought near the same time came with rather lousy plastic wheels. So, it is possible I swapped them for the wheels on another car that had metal 28" wheels. It doesn't matter anymore, because I have already swapped them out for 33"wheels. Perhaps I will build some MOW cars and shove the 28" wheels under them.