Re: Wheels and the FRA

We are using cast steel, not cast iron for these wheels. We are not addressing the issue of FRA/AAR certification for our wheel program. (although the machine shop coordinating the work has done work for PUC and FRA supervised railroads) Our railroad is very insular, operating completely within a public park, with no public grade crossings. Speed on our line is limited to the walking speed of a draft horse (about 4 miles an hour) (although some years ago we invited a California State PUC track inspector in to do an informal review... he said he would rate us a FRA 3) We expect that most of the wheels produced from these patterns will be used under static museum restorations rather than tourist lines.
Our issue is trying to find appropriate wheels for our restorations. We have strived in our restorations to use the technology available to the builders of the equipment. So if an original part was cast, we cast it rather than substitute a weldment, if it was forged we forge it, For the most part we use traditional had tools for the wood work on our cars, we do resort to power sanders, and the occasional drill, as well as epoxy for some heroic restorations of original material, but the goal is to preserve the technology of the builders as well as the artifact.
Wheel represent a major problem for us, as current commercial designs do look like 19th century cast iron single plate wheels. The equipment in our collection is all 19th century, much lighter in construction and capacity (we plan to use these under 8, 10 and 15 ton cars) than that which survived on the East Broad top or Colorado roads. (but these would have been the original wheels under a Baldwin consolidation's tender) We considered chilled iron, but have turned instead to cast steel. We investigated chilled iron technology enough to know that we could do it, but it would both cost more, and produce a worst wheel both in comparison to what we could produce with steel and with what would have been produced from a good chilled iron shop in the 19th century. Historical records are full of reports of poor wheels, and their production was as much art as science. Steel should be much more serviceable, and the change of material will be invisible short of a meteorological test.
We are currently developing a specification for the wheel profile. Our original wheels are too worn to provide an original spec. These wheels are only 5" wide, verses the master car builders World War I era specification for a 5 5/8" wide wheel. We would welcome any comments or information of 5" wide wheel profiles.
Randy Hees
Society for the Preservation of Carter Railroad Resources