Things get complicated.

TrainNut

Ditat Deus
N gauge
Before, on my home layouts, I was never realistically capable of pulling trains any longer than about 10 cars (if that) so I really did not care how much rolling resistance I had. Now, since I have joined a club and have the room to pull much longer trains, I have come to notice how much havoc a little rolling friction can play in the game.
Sooooo, I have made it my new mission to change everything over from plastic wheels and rapedo (sp?) couplers to metal wheels and kadee couplers. It seems it's just not that simple. At first, I just bought a whole bunch of Micro-Trains wheelsets with the intention of getting started by replacing all my plastic wheels with these. Sometimes they fit in the old trucks.... & sometimes they don't. Like everything, I guess each manufacturer does things just a little bit different.:curse: So, first I have to figure out (not sure how I'm going to do this) which manufacturer made each piece and then replace the plastics with metals per manufacturer. I've also come to find out that you just can't go out and buy a replacement Kadee (or can you?). It seems there are many different kinds and I am going to have to wade through the same mess to fix all of those. Why can't these people get together and standardize these things. Yeh yeh, I already know the answer to that one. :curse:
Sooooo, in the future, I think, I will slowly start replacing my rolling stock with one manufacturer - Micro-Trains. Any comments on that?
And another thing.... how come when I wander into the hobby shop and look at all of the rolling stock, how come I can't seem to find any already available with metal wheels and kadee couplers? Seems kind of a waste to buy a brand new $17 dollar boxcar, take it home and immediately replace the wheels.
 

60103

Pooh Bah
Trainnut: the nice thing about standards is that there are so many of them. (Computer joke).
Kadee /MicroTrains decided they would just have to adapt to that.
When I was in N, MT made all those wonderful cars and then mounted the couplings on the trucks, even though they made a replacement underframe with body mounted couplings. I think they made it difficult for other manufacturers to use their couplings.
Can you find wheels with different axle lengths? I know you can in HO, but I haven't checked N lately. One trick for slightly long pointed axles in plastic sideframes is to put the axle in, then squeeze the sideframe (journal boxes) slightly to seat the axle ends.
 
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