# Need MTH traction tires



## Lynn D Bennett (Jul 27, 2013)

I need traction tires for the following MTH O-gauge engines:

GP-30	20-20252-1
GP7	30-20191-1
Allegheny	30-1614-1
CSX SW1500	30-20139-1
NYC Pacific	30-1603-1
UP Northern	30-1602-1

*What do I order for each?

From whom?*

I want to keep a supply on hand for all these engines. I need about 10 each. The MTH traction tire chart is not easy to decode.

None of these traction tires have been replaced but several engines have thrown them and I just have not gotten around to getting replacements. My GP-30 just threw the last one and now I need replacements but want to have some for all the engines on hand. I have no idea why they get thrown but they do. It might be the poor alignments of the RealTrax sections used on my layout(??).

LDBennett


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## Todd Lopes (Nov 11, 2015)

Attached is traction tire chart. Hope this helps.
Best,
Todd


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## Lynn D Bennett (Jul 27, 2013)

*Excessive shipping charges and stupidly excessive shipping charges*

OK this is where I am at.

Found the newer MTH traction tire chart and picked out the ones I need based on wheel size as I could not make out exactly which engines took which tires based on the names there. Found I needed three sizes all preceded by DE-00000....18, 27, 25. Looked all over the internet and the only viable (and I use that word loosely!!!) sources were MTH and Trainz.

So finding them on the MTH was horrible. There is no Parts button and I can not even tell how I got to the page that had all the tires listed (in code, of course). Bumbled through the Buy Now, got to an order and the shipping for 60 tires was $142!!!!!! Cancelled order!

Found them on the Trainz web page, or at least 40 of them (no DE-0000025) but started the order. This time the shipping for 40 tires was $20, That 50 cent extra for each dollar part. But I need them and Trainz is now on my list for not buying anything from them again. They are on the east coast and I'm on the west coast..I guess that is it but I am not seeing shipping charges like that from anyone else I buy from.

So I still have to find twenty DE-0000025 traction tires but I got the ones I need for now, DE-0000018, assuming they have stock (???).

What a joke...Trainz charges excessive shipping and MTH charges ridiculous shipping (FEDEX with no other options). I buy tons of firearms stuff via the internet and NEVER see shipping charges like this. Don't either of these companies know about the US Postal Service box rates?

I have to find a better source for these tires as my engines seem to shred them easily (probably do to the crappy MTH RealTrax alignment of the rails problems I face. 

I need a nap after this two hour long session!!!

LDBennett


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## Jim M (Jun 21, 2015)

Try Ebay, I would contact the seller to see if you could get all the tires for one small shipping charge. 
Here's the DE-0000025 
http://www.ebay.com/itm/MTH-DIESEL-...874088?hash=item33ac8734a8:g:r-8AAOSwBahVSUOv


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## Todd Lopes (Nov 11, 2015)

Ive had good luck with calling Midge at the MTH corporate offices in Maryland. She 
is very professional and friendly.

MTH sells a parts kit that includes, from what I understand, everything imaginable you would need to maintain your trains.


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## Lynn D Bennett (Jul 27, 2013)

Todd Lopes:

I looked at that kit but it is out of stock and hundreds of dollars.

In this age of the internet and internet sales you would think MTH would make their web page friendly, but they don't. Since it is Saturday there is no one there to answer the phone. And finally whether I buy it on through their web page or phone them I am not paying $142 dollars shipping from them.

But thanks for the response.

LDBennett


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## Lynn D Bennett (Jul 27, 2013)

Jim M:

That Ebay guy only has 5 and I want 10. The list price is $1 and he is asking $5. That's a pretty good markup. I don't deal with gougers on Ebay. But thank you for your efforts.

LDBennett


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## Todd Lopes (Nov 11, 2015)

Wow Lynn, I didn't know that. For some reason, I thought I saw it on line at one of their distributors. I knew it was little pricey, but seemed to make sense if you had a lot of MTH stuff. Good to know.

I would agree with you on the MTH parts situation, but found that a phone call to Midge did the trick. I didn't find the shipping from MTH to be out of reason.

Good Luck on your projects. Hope they all turn out great.


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## Lynn D Bennett (Jul 27, 2013)

Todd:

The problem with kits like that is they have to be somewhat encompassing. But two things always happen (thank you Murphy). They will have every part but the one you need and about half the parts are not usable by you. There are about eight or so different tires and I only need three. With my luck there will not be the ones I need in the kit or not enough to do the job...always one short, it seems.

LDBennett


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## gunrunnerjohn (Nov 10, 2010)

I'm a bit lost on the MTH shipping, I don't know how that worked. I'd have called them, because it's clear that they don't charge everyone $140 to ship a few rubber bands! I order parts on the technician side of the fence, and there is one shipping charge in the $9-10 range for small orders of 15-20 parts.


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## biglionelguy (Nov 11, 2015)

I've got all the MTH traction tires in my Arsenal, how many do you need?


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## Lynn D Bennett (Jul 27, 2013)

gunrunnerjohn:

It was Saturday so no way to call them. I was on a mission to get my GP-30 running after it shed all its traction tires. In general. shipping never used to be a serious consideration but it is now. I recently subscribed to Amazon's Prime to minimize the cost of shipping on all the things I buy from them. Even at the cost of prime it only takes a handful of orders with shipping costs to be more than the cost of Prime. Now, I need a "Prime" for train stuff. Too bad shippers like UPS, FEDEX, and the post office don't offer a similar system.

Why did it shed the tires? My analysis based on the facts is environmental impact on the rubber. Those traction tires are made of a poor quality of rubber much like regular rubber bands. I have a minimal layout about 7 feet by 9 feet. I can only run two trains at a time and I have 5 engines I run on this layout. The GP-30 had sat on the shelf for a couple months. The minute I activated it and moved it a couple inches it shed one tire that got caught in the gears of one truck, jamming that truck and the control system, sensing one of the two motor was not sensing any speed, jacked up the other motor to full throttle or there abouts which shredded the rest of the tires because the engine was stationary. It took a few seconds to see what was happening to respond to get the power off.

Every once in a while I find the remains of a tire on the track so my engines shed tires regularly. Tires that remain on the engines often show signs of cracking which will lead to shedding. I am bound and determined from now forward to keep good tires on all the engines and inspect them often. I was luck this time as the rubber tire in the external gears did not break the gear train but the next time I may not be so lucky.

I am amazed that it was so hard to find a source for the MTH traction tires. Almost no one stocks them. Other MTH train owners must be running their trains without the tires (??).

LDBennett


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## gunrunnerjohn (Nov 10, 2010)

You're lucky, I had one shed a traction tire, jam it into the gears, and it smoked the PS/2 board before I could shut it down.

I can get tires for you, and the shipping will be a lot less than quoted from MTH, probably only $50 or so!


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## Lynn D Bennett (Jul 27, 2013)

gunrunnerjohn:

I didn't realize what was happening and fumbled to get the power off. I thought I got it off but actually my circuit breaker tripped just before I go the power off. I tried again only to have the same thing happen. I pulled the engine off the layout and inspected it but did not immediately see the problem. In trying to move the wheels I noted one axle/wheel set did not move. Then I found pieces of the tire lurking behind the wheel. I backed up the wheels a bit to get it out.

Because the engine was attempting to match motor speeds, the other tires were shredded by the full power to the other truck assembly. But nothing so far seems to have been hurt as a short test after removing the trashed tires showed the engine was working fine (so far!).

I will put more effort into maintenance of these tires in the future through inspections and regular replacements before they get to the breaking point.

I order 40 (various sizes) tires from Trainz. We'll see if they deliver (??). But I could not get the twenty DE-0000025 I need. They list for $1 each. So if you can get them what would it cost including shipping of the twenty DE-000025 traction tires?

Has anyone checked around to see if some commercial replacement for these rubber bands can be purchased directly? Also does glueing them onto the wheels make them last longer and if so what glue and how tough is it to replace them after they are glued on?

LDBennett


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## L0stS0ul (Feb 6, 2015)

Do not glue them. I bought a used engine and the person had glued the tires on causing the tires to not only become hard but the wheel was no longer round so it would bump down the track.It looked like this person used CA to glue them. all it did was make them extremely hard and brittle.


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## Lynn D Bennett (Jul 27, 2013)

L0stS0ul:

Thanks for the tip. I'll NOT glue the tires on.

LDBennett


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## gunrunnerjohn (Nov 10, 2010)

I strongly advice anyone NOT to attempt to glue the tires on. Properly sized and applied traction tires shouldn't come off in normal operation. Obviously, if you have excessive loads, bad track joints, etc. you can damage them. One key is not to stretch them excessively putting them on.


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## Lynn D Bennett (Jul 27, 2013)

I just stuck on four I had for my GP-30. You have to stretch them some to get them on. But I did not stretch them excessively.

This engine worked fine when it was used before temporary storage of a couple months inside the house but the tire came off two inches after it was put back into service. The tires must have degraded during storage from the environment (oxygen or ozone or ????).

LDBennett


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## gunrunnerjohn (Nov 10, 2010)

I have engines I've pulled out after two-three years, I haven't had any issues with them shedding traction tires. I'm always mystified when there is so much difference in a seemingly similar situation.


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## c.midland (Sep 22, 2015)

I have 3 MTH engines. 2 Santa Fe proto-1 f3 sets, and one proto-2 2-8-0 h3. They have all thrown their tires. I purchased replacements at a recent train show from Fred's Trains located in Kansas City. I haven't installed them yet. I run fairly short trains, and don't want the tires coming off again and frying a board or doing more damage. 

Would be nice if the rubber bands actually stayed on.


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## Lynn D Bennett (Jul 27, 2013)

My RealTrax has so many alignment problems with the rails that I think that is tearing the tires up.

This time it may also have been that the tires were degraded from the environment AND a long train.

LDBennett


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## Todd Lopes (Nov 11, 2015)

Lynn, I had similar issues with RealTrax. I moved over to Lionel's Fastrack for my Christmas set up and have been happy with the performance. 
If my memory serves me correct, there were some production batches in the mid 2000s that had these issues. They were solid rail. From my understanding, the new hollow rail seems to be holding up.


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## Lynn D Bennett (Jul 27, 2013)

Todd:

I have about $1000 worth of RealTrax all screwed down to my layout. It is way too late to change now and if I did it would not be to sectional track. I grind away the worst mis-alignments but since the rails are hollow I can only correct it by a minimal amount. All this Realtrax is less than 3 years old if that. 

The switches are junk. I got it all working good enough but problem creep up now and then. Just yesterday my Railking Pacific stalled going very slowly through an O-72 switch right at the frog and turned off. Often times it turns out to be the geometry in the engine of the wheels to the center pickup. You would think that an MTH engine would not have trouble like that on their MTH RealTrax (??).

I know, I expect too much from "Toy Trains" but it is not like these O gauge trains are cheap. As a kid some 60 years ago I was a HO model railroader with a layout in my bedroom and I had less track problem than I have today even though everything on the layout was hand built by me.

Today I also have a HO Trolley point to point layout along the wall and the track mistake I made there was too tight radius curves, Atlas switches, and unfortunately I repeated that mistake on the MTH O gauge layout (force to tight radius curves to get any amount of track in my 9 x 7 foot layout space).

Seems with age we just learn about new mistakes instead of learning from a lifetime of experience.  

LDBennett


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## Todd Lopes (Nov 11, 2015)

Lynn, If it helps, you are not the only one. I had the same solution for some of the mis- alignments. This is the first I've heard that someone is having issues with the hollow rails as well. I, personally, liked the look of the Realtrax better, but performance moved me to the other solution for track with a plastic bed.

I only had a few Realtrax switches and seemed to be fine. They were 031. In fact, the ones I had were "Rite Trax." This was the first name MTH used for this track system.

Best of Luck-hope things settle down on your layout and you can enjoy running some trains.

Best--
Todd


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## Lynn D Bennett (Jul 27, 2013)

Todd:

The switches were new at the same time as the rest of the track. Nearly every one of the seven switches need to be disassembled and the internal mechanism adjusted to get proper operation. On top of that the anti-derailment feature was shorted out by the part of the track that was the electrical switch. It was suppose to be isolated from the adjacent track section and was too long, touching the adjacent track rail. I had to shorten every one.

With no guide alignment pins for the rails, the mis-alignment is almost guaranteed. RealTrax is a poor system at best. It may be fine for a Xmas tree layout of one that is put up and taken down frequently but for a permanent installation it is a joke. I did not know of all of the problems with it as only a few negative comment appeared here. I could get more track on my layout using it rather than FasTrack and that drove me to RealTrax regardless that gunrunnerjohn attempted to talk me out of RealTrax...should have listened. Being new to the forum I did not realize what an asset he was to all of us. I listen now.

I complain about the track situation but it works kind of OK with only an occasional problem after I spent tons of time trying to get it closer to correct. The layout is basically complete with buildings, vehicles, and people. It is a toy train layout and not a scale layout with scenery. My current task is to add a old western town where there used to be an accesses way (14 inches by 60 inches). It will be a town street with nine old west style building. The buildings will be Banta Craftsman kits. I have built one very successfully (very good kits by the way) and only eight to go. That will keep me busy for months. I'm not great at modeling but I do good enough to satisfy me.

LDBennett


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## Jim M (Jun 21, 2015)

Lynn,
If you think the Realtrax system is bad, you should see the problems I've encountered and continue to encounter with Scaletrax. Both systems are full of potential but lousy quality control guarantees that they will be loaded with problems. Alignment, poor conduction, short circuits, poor positioning of rails, etc. I'm like you though, too late to change.


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## Lynn D Bennett (Jul 27, 2013)

You know, I always hated old Lionel track mostly because of the alignment pins getting loose or falling out but I have come to appreciate why they need to be there. I think ScaleTrax is also without alignment pins. At least with Flex track like that from Atlas (I have two three foot sections of Atlas Flex track in my layout to get smooth transition not possible with sectional RealTrax) you can use clips on the rails to keep them aligned.

LDBennett


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