QUOTE (Gary @ 21 Oct 2005, 09:34)Don't take this the wrong way Lisa4P as I can see the merits of P4 and EM. However forget P4 and EM!
Its not practical. Modellers want to run both continental and American HO on the same track as British OO. To say that you want ready to run manufacturers to produce British outline locomotives that only run on special 18mm track (or whetever) is not a serious option.
I didn't say I wanted RTR P4, so I don't know where you pulled that from.
I definitely support the adoption of RTR British H0 rather than P4, for the same reasons you mention. I simply mentioned P4 because fitting the correct gauge wheels into a model is quite relevent when discussing a change from 00 to H0.
QUOTE I have covered this in an earlier post with reference to Romford wheels only giving an extra 2mm when we need to find 4.5mm.
European and American HO ready to run manufacturers use wheels that are the same width as British OO manufacturers.
It is unfair to single out British manufacturers in this respect.
It is done for several reasons and these are reliability, strength and cost I suspect.
We still need to find 2.5mm from somewhere assuming that narrow wheels and fine/smaller less deep rivets/bolts have the strength required for a ready to run loco that might suffer abuse from a minor.
I've cut 2 of your posts together there as they are on the same subject. I can't comment on European prototypes but most US models these days use the NMRA RP25/88 wheel standard, this gives a wheel which is 2mm wide, compare this to the 4mm wide wheels you keep bringing up and that's a reduction of 4mm over the wheelset, 00 uses wide wheels so that the valve gear doesn't have to be modified too much to fit the narrow gauge, and also so the wheels aren't hidden too far under the model which would alter it's appearance more so. The width of the wheel treads have no bearing on the running qualities of a model, unless you're handlaying the track and can't keep the gauge even!
QUOTE Hornby locomotives operate for 100's of hours without maintenance. Can you say that of P4 and EM models with all this very fine detail under the chassis?
You mean the Bachmann and Hornby models I've fitted new wheelsets to? I give them the occassional drop of oil but other than that they are just as maintenance free as when they were on 00 wheels, except they now run much smoother.