The Magic of Kato Wheels

[Ed Kapuscinski]

I've been fighting with my somewhat new Atlas sound equipped GP38 since I got it. It's always just run slightly wonky when it came to my Atlas Code 55 track.

Well, the other night I noticed that it seemed to be clomping over the frogs on my turnouts and decided enough was enough.

So I took it up to the work bench, disassembled the trucks and swapped the stock wheels out for some of my stash of Kato low profile ones.

It made a HUGE difference.

I'd like to thank the shared ancestry of most N scale diesels for making this HUGE upgrade possible.

If you're curious, I used Kato 932090 : https://store.katousa.com/product/low-profile-geared-wheelset-pointed-axle-w-offset-gear-n-scale/

They're worth every penny. I'll be stocking up when I get a paycheck again, so you  better not clean em out!

[C855B]

They're worth every penny. I'll be stocking up when I get a paycheck again, so you  better not clean em out!

Hear hear. A bench project idling my big City of Everywhere is upgrading five first-run BLI E9s with Kato wheelsets. I need to check inventory again. Problem is traction tires, so even the slight speed mismatches make the lashup sound like a coffee grinder (not sound-equipped otherwise!).

I might have enough. I recently sold the ABBA set of Life-Like FAs they were intended for, a move I now regret having anticipated the late-2025 schedule for the Atlas re-do with the correct number boards. IMO the leaning on futures is now fraught given what we've all talked about ad nauseum.

[mmagliaro]

Ed, any chance you can take some super close macro photos of the Kato wheelset next to the Atlas one it replaced?
My impression over the years has been that there is something magical about the metal plating Kato puts on their wheelsets
that makes them smoother, more impervious to dirt, and more reliably conductive (even when they aren't dirty) than
everybody else's.  But I have not noticed anything mechanically superior (like going through switch frogs better).  So now you've got my curiousity piqued.

[randgust]

Not only that, but all my testing over about 20 years has convinced me that Kato wheels get better adhesion than your average Atlas wheel; I put that out to pure Kato materials technology.   It's kind of a secret sauce thing, but it's remarkable and can be measured.  I get a typical 20% adhesion on a Kato wheelset and it's more like 13-15% or less on Atlas wheels (tractive effort in grams/locomotive weight in grams).

LL wheels do well too, but they oxidize up relatively rapidly.   Kato doesn't do that either.

[davefoxx]

It’s been years since I ran N scale trains on Atlas Code 55 track, but, unless something has changed, those Code 55 frogs did not like any wheelsets that were undergauged (i.e., too tight in the back-to-back wheel spacing), which was approximately 99% of the N scale locomotives that I owned.  It wasn’t flange height or flange thickness of Atlas locomotive wheelsets; they were just out of gauge.

DFF

[u18b]

Based on my experience in the past …. Which might be wrong here….

Kato wheels tend to have longer needle points.

[davefoxx]

Based on my experience in the past …. Which might be wrong here….

Kato wheels tend to have longer needle points.

Agreed, which would cause the Intermountain and Atlas sideframes to be too tight, unless you pressed those wheelsets on the axle halves.  I seem to recall a discussion about pressing those wheelsets years and years ago.

DFF

[Steveruger45]

Agreed, which would cause the Intermountain and Atlas sideframes to be too tight, unless you pressed those wheelsets on the axle halves.  I seem to recall a discussion about pressing those wheelsets years and years ago.

DFF

Here it is.   From Dec 2019.
I still use this tool today.

https://www.therailwire.net/forum/index.php?topic=48520.msg643634#msg643634

[nickelplate759]

Agreed, which would cause the Intermountain and Atlas sideframes to be too tight, unless you pressed those wheelsets on the axle halves.  I seem to recall a discussion about pressing those wheelsets years and years ago.

DFF

I have pressed those axle halves both in and out to use Kato wheels in various other manufacturer's trucks.   Arnold/Electroten Talgo cars, and the ConCor AeroTrain for example.

[MK]

So I took it up to the work bench, disassembled the trucks and swapped the stock wheels out for some of my stash of Kato low profile ones.

It made a HUGE difference.

Did you do the 0.01" (or something similar, I don't remember) modification to them before swapping?  Or did you do a straight swap?

I have a set of those that I've been wanting "one of these days" to put in an Atlas SD50 because the wheels brass'ed out.  What's stopping me is the extra work of axle length modification that Peteski documented fully in another thread.

Since you didn't mention any axle adjustments I was just wondering...

[Chris333]

Kato wheels are made out of Kato rail 

[peteski]

Ed, any chance you can take some super close macro photos of the Kato wheelset next to the Atlas one it replaced?
My impression over the years has been that there is something magical about the metal plating Kato puts on their wheelsets
that makes them smoother, more impervious to dirt, and more reliably conductive (even when they aren't dirty) than
everybody else's.  But I have not noticed anything mechanically superior (like going through switch frogs better).  So now you've got my curiousity piqued.

Yes, for some magical reasons Kato wheels seem to stay clean longer (resulting in increased electrical pickup reliability).  Over last few years I retrofitted them into several models (both mine, and friends), and the performance and appearance has greatly improved.

Here are some photos:




In 2018 (can't believe it was 7 years ago!) there was a complete thread devoted to retrofitting Atlas wheelsets with those awesome Kato ones.
https://www.therailwire.net/forum/index.php?topic=33107.0
While unmodified Kato wheelsets can be jammed into Atlas, Intermountain, or some other model's trucks using similar wheelsets, most installations  will end up being too tight or too loose.  Axle length adjustment is highly recommended for perfect trouble-free operation.  Good place to start in the above mentioned thread to get the meat of the procedure is https://www.therailwire.net/forum/index.php?topic=33107.msg379288#msg379288

That thread was about Axle wheelsets. If retrofitting other brand models it makes sense to determine the amount of adjustment needed to Kato axles for a perfect fit.

I think I also should mention that the Atlas has slightly modified their wheels in the most recent runs of their models. The flanges are lower, but everything else is the same.  Also the recent IM F units have wheels and axles machined from a single piece of brass stock. As manufactured, end axle length is too short (causing the wheelsets to have extra play  in the bearing cups and even the wheel face to rub against the metal sideframes.

[reinhardtjh]

If you're curious, I used Kato 932090 : https://store.katousa.com/product/low-profile-geared-wheelset-pointed-axle-w-offset-gear-n-scale/

A few years ago, every time I made an order at MBK I'd add a few packets of these wheels since they usually discounted them a buck or so.  Then they stopped stocking them and then, well everyone knows what happened to MBK.  But at least I created a stash of good wheels that will last for a while barring any crazy re-wheeling projects.

[peteski]

A few years ago, every time I made an order at MBK I'd add a few packets of these wheels since they usually discounted them a buck or so.  Then they stopped stocking them and then, well everyone knows what happened to MBK.  But at least I created a stash of good wheels that will last for a while barring any crazy re-wheeling projects.

I have also built up good size stash of those  MBK discounted wheelsets, but even ordered directly from Kato, their price is still reasonable. 

Fun fact: Early 932090 packs only contained 4 wheelsets. If someone needed to convert a 6-axle model, they needed to buy 2 packs. But later Kato started including 6 wheelsets for the same price.

[mmagliaro]

To my eye, the superiority is obvious.  The Kato wheels have a more rounded-over flange edge, and the flanges themselves slope out gently to the wheel tread.  The Atlas flanges are more like a "pizza cutter blade", which would make them more susceptible to picking points and frogs.
Thanks for the photos.