N Scale truck ride height

[Iain]

Maybe this is something that can be added to the trucks page on @spookshow 's site.


It would be nice to have the measurements from the center of the journals to the tops of the truck bolsters for n scale trucks for the purposes of calculating ride height.  as a lot of 3d printing is done in mm, maybe that should be the unit of choice (at least what i contribute will be in mm).

i'll start things off with the micro-trains medium shank coil-elliptic trucks, which come to 2.5mm from center of journal to top of bolster.

[samusi01]

Why not from top of rail to top of bolster? Most of the prototype drawings I've seen use that as the reference point.

[NtheBasement]

How do you set a micrometer to the center of the journal box?  That's the axle dimple center, right?

Problem with rail-to-bolster is it depends on wheel diameter, but it would be easier to measure accurately.

[jpwisc]

Why not from top of rail to top of bolster? Most of the prototype drawings I've seen use that as the reference point.

Because that measurement changes with wheel diameters.

[Maletrain]

The rail to bolster measurement also changes with wear of the dimple by the axle point, but not much unless there is a lot of wear.

I think stating the actual wheel diameter along with the measurement from rail to bolster would be the most useful. 

The actual wheel diameters I have found are not just 33" and 36".  On a bobber caboose I just measured, the metal wheel diameter is 0.200", which comes out to 32" scale.

If we have the measurements for both, we can calculate whatever we need for our own purposes, including wheel swapping.