Does anyone know in what year ribbed-back freight wheels were outlawed for interchange? A friend and I were discussing replacement metal wheels, such as those offered by P2K, and he said that after sometime in the 1930's all freight car wheels had to be the smooth-back type. When and why?

Jim

Jim Hunter asked:
"Does anyone know in what year ribbed-back freight wheels were outlawed
for interchange? A friend and I were discussing replacement metal
wheels, such as those offered by P2K, and he said that after sometime
in the 1930's all freight car wheels had to be the smooth-back type.
When and why?"

Your friend is incorrect. Cast iron wheels weren't prohibited on new
or newly-rebuilt cars until January 1, 1958, and weren't banned in
interchange until around 1970. There was no distinction made between
ribbed or smooth-back wheels.


Ben Hom

Looking at ads in railroad industry magazines, it looks like there were
steel wheels with ribs too. And as Ben says, these were never banned
from interchange.

Wouldn't it be great if our model steel wheels were specifically of 1W
(one wear) and 2W (two wear) style wheels? This is another aspect of
prototype practice that we can't duplicate presently... When did the
1W and 2W designations first appear on freight cars?

Tim O'Connor

Tim O'Connor wrote:

Wouldn't it be great if our model steel wheels were specifically of 1W (one wear) and 2W (two wear) style wheels? This is another aspect of prototype practice that we can't duplicate presently... When did the 1W and 2W designations first appear on freight cars?

At least as early as the late 1930s.

Tony Thompson Editor, Signature Press, Berkeley, CA
2906 Forest Ave., Berkeley, CA 94705 www.signaturepress.com
(510) 540-6538; fax, (510) 540-1937; e-mail, thompson@...
Publishers of books on railroad history

Tim -

We have 1-W and 2-W wrot steel wheels (33" diameter) in PROTO:48.
These are done +/- 0.002" and are available from Protocraft - close
enough for government work! Check Gene Deimling's P:48 website - I
think he has the Protocraft catalog link there.

A.T. Kott


--- In STMFC@..., timboconnor@... wrote:

Looking at ads in railroad industry magazines, it looks like there

were

steel wheels with ribs too. And as Ben says, these were never banned
from interchange.

Wouldn't it be great if our model steel wheels were specifically of

1W

(one wear) and 2W (two wear) style wheels? This is another aspect of
prototype practice that we can't duplicate presently... When did the
1W and 2W designations first appear on freight cars?

Tim O'Connor

Jim -

There are some 33" chilled iron wheels on the ART wood reefer at the
National Museum of Transport in St Louis that have the date "1959"
cast into them. Some old posts here discussed that issue.

A.T.

-------------- Original message ----------------------
From: "benjaminfrank_hom" <b.hom@...>

Jim Hunter asked:
"Does anyone know in what year ribbed-back freight wheels were

outlawed