Wheel Colors???

Super

There are several different colors of wheels on our favorite trains (not Revolution/Trackmaster 2) are there any that are a different shade of blue than the usual shade for Thomas, Gordon, Edward blue? Or any non-Thomas engines?

GreatGordonFan

Probably

chrisjo

also Ferdinand, & Bash is grey - blue

Super

Thanks Dr Chris, I had forgotten about them. I wonder if there is also a blue wheels that don't have stupid Trackmaster holes or the drive wheels have no side rod holes. Did Den, a Diesel have blue wheels and because he is a Diesel no side rod holes?

DalaGStanator

Couldn't find any images (not even on Sun's site), but ~~I seem to recall an early RC Shinkansen with dark blue.~~ Could be wrong, though.

In early 2011, there were no "punched" wheels because the packaging sticks weren't being used yet, and Fisher Price still made two wheel types without holes for rods (spoked and flat). As such, the first batch of Day of the Diesels releases didn't have either.

chrisjo

Super wrote
Did Den, a Diesel have blue wheels and because he is a Diesel no side rod holes?

Yes, and no.

Many diesel shunters have coupling rods to transfer the power from one driven axle to all four or six wheels. Sometimes the driven axle doesn't have wheels on it at all:

chrisjo

Yes, I'm pretty sure (99.9%) you're wrong on the Shinkansen!
And sure, Dart didn't originally have any extraneous holes in his wheels, but then they weren't blue either.

Super

@Chrisjo
Many thanks. After reading this I took a look at my custom 'Conrail' engine which was made from a Den. I had forgot that I swapped out his original wheels with black ones (with no holes) which looks great btw. Can't remember which character I stole those from...may have been a Trackmaster Toby? So I had to dig through my large collection of wheels that I have and found Dens originals. His original wheels did not have holes for side rods but did have the annoying packaging holes times two on all 4. Those will never work for a Super Custom. 'All Holes Barred'

@[deleted]
Thank you. Its good to know about the Year Trackmaster started using the blasted holes for their packaging. I guess I can understand why they did it but don't have to like it. They could have easily just made the clear plastic cover for the box molded to the train like they used to. What really baffles me now is, once they discontinued using the sticks to hold the trains in the box, they continued to make the holes in the wheels when they are not needed. That even carried on to the Revolution/Trackmaster 2's when it would have been easy for them to just remove them in their original design plans for the mass production machines

chrisjo

Now I need to dig Den out from wherever he's hiding to see how his coupling rods are connected without there being holes in the wheels...

Super

They aren't connected to the wheels Dr Chris. They are faux rods molded into the engines shell.