Question on 1980s train wheels

[156439DMU]

Hello,

I recently bought two different incomplete 7745s off fb Marketplace*. But I've noticed one set came with wheels that were fully black, whereas the other came with wheels that had a red centre. I'm not interested in any monetary difference or anything, but what was the reason? was there a changeover date where the wheels went over to fully black? Why was the change made?

I would be delighted to hear any opinions and information on this. I can add pictures tomorrow if it isn't clear what I meant. - if there is an earlier thread on this, sorry, but I couldn't find it!

* I paid £43.60 and £40 respectively for sets which both had the full track, working motors & transformer and enough parts for 2 wagons plus seemingly other random bricks too. One set also came with 2 points and the 7860 which I was very pleasantly surprised by!

[HoMa]

As far as I know is the black pin the regular pin for black wheels and the red pin holds the red wheels, like in  7715. Some later sets like 7745 or 7813 and 7823 come up with red pins and black wheels. This might be caused by overproduction of red pins and the fact that the Grey Era ended with new sets in 1986. Maybe internally in Billund they end l were already working on new train wheels (which showed up in 1991 in the 9 V system). So there was no option to start production of black pins for a relative small number of sets produced back then. And they had the red ones left over. So they were used ...

I got the container crane 7823 in sealed bags and it has black wheels with red pins.

Holger

[JopieK]

@HoMa sounds like a very plausible reason! I also had the 7823 with red pins (back in the days when I was a kid already).

[Andy Glascott]

I can’t comment on the wheel issue, but under 85 quid sounds like a bargain for what you got!

[156439DMU]

9 hours ago, HoMa said:

As far as I know is the black pin the regular pin for black wheels and the red pin holds the red wheels, like in  7715. Some later sets like 7745 or 7813 and 7823 come up with red pins and black wheels. This might be caused by overproduction of red pins and the fact that the Grey Era ended with new sets in 1986. Maybe internally in Billund they end l were already working on new train wheels (which showed up in 1991 in the 9 V system). So there was no option to start production of black pins for a relative small number of sets produced back then. And they had the red ones left over. So they were used ...

I got the container crane 7823 in sealed bags and it has black wheels with red pins.

Holger

Ah ok I see thank you. That's interesting that there was a 'winding down' so to speak of the 12v era parts. Would it just be that the later sets were still being demanded in greater numbers than sets that had been on the market earlier rather than them deliberately choosing later sets to use red wheel pins?

Ie. would earlier sets like 7735 etc also turn up with red pins, but less frequently as far fewer as a total proportion were being made in that later period?

Also, I notice both motors still have black pins, were motors never subject to the use of red pins, to your knowledge?

1 hour ago, Andy Glascott said:

I can’t comment on the wheel issue, but under 85 quid sounds like a bargain for what you got!

It certainly made me feel way better about 150 quid spent on a slightly incomplete 7740 with a ratty motor last year! 

[Reker1000000]

7735 was released at the same time as 7745 (1985) and I believe they stopped production at the same time, around 1989, so yes you will see copies of 7735 with wheels that have red pins occasionally. I'm not sure about the percentage of the wheels with red pins, but I can say that while they're not as common as the standard ones you can definitely find them on Bricklink or eBay.

Motors used a different kind of pin, the wheel part is a different design- wheels have a smaller diameter towards the center of the motor I guess to prevent derailments. And the wheel part had a hole for the connecting rods. The middle wheel is the only one that uses a plastic pin since the 4 others are attached to driving axles. The pin for middle wheels can be taken out from the inner part of the wheel- but these pins were always black for black motors and red for red motors, to my knowledge.

Also yeah, 2 7745s and extras for about $100 is extremely cheap. Congratulations on finding those deals!