Hi everybody,
Just a little spiel about a1g freight car wheelsets. Again, these
observations are based on new cars purchased at a hobby shop and not on cars I got from
eBay or whatever.
Style 1:
These are on the earliest Atlas cars and the wheels are a bronze color rather
than the more black appearance of later ones. The insulator is rather small
in diameter. The sideframe journal actually pretty much hides the insulator.
The insulator protrudes from the inner surface of the wheel.
Style 2:
These are just like style 1 except that the insulator is flush with the inner
surface of the wheel.
Style 3:
These are just like style 1 except that the wheels are black, or nearly so.
Style 4:
These are just like style 2 except that the wheels are black, or nearly so.
Style 5:
These have black wheels but the insulator is larger in diameter. You can
easily see the insulator looking at the face of the wheel. The insulator is flush
with the inner surface of the wheel.
Style 6:
These are just like style 5 except that the wheels are silver (nickel plated
brass?). There is a noticeable rim of silver around the insulator on the face
of the wheel.
Style 7:
These have silver wheels too but the insulator is smaller in diameter on the
inside of the wheel than style 6 while it is slightly larger in diameter on
the face of the wheel. The rim of silver is noticeably thinner around the
insulator than on the style 6 wheels.
As stated above, the style 1 or 2 sets were used on the earliest Roco cars
around the 1967 era with the boxes that just had plastic spacers in them instead
of blue cradles and paper inserts. They did spill over into the early blue
cradle period, however.
Styles 3 and 4 followed shortly thereafter and style 5 shortly after that. I
believe that the vast majority of Roco cars had style 5.
I seem to remember that style 6 showed up in about 1969 and I do have Roco
cars with this style, especially the later cars (Container Flats, Hi-Cubes, 94'
tankers, etc.).
I originally thought that Rivarossi built cars had style 7 exclusively but
that is not the case. I have several that have style 6 sets on them.
After Atlas started manufacturing cars here in the USA and had some of them
made in Yugoslavia, it was a mixed bag again. For example, my 2397 (Morrell 40'
reefer) has style 4 sets on it!
Regards,
Doug
