Nostalgia & History > What is it that determines the size of the wheels on a

Picture 2, “Rock Island Railroad crew members in Selden, Kansas. This photograph shows Rock Island section crew workers in Selden, Kansas. Also visible is a storage shed and a wheeled pump cart used for traveling down the rails. Date: Between 1900 and 1915.

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The hand car in the second picture appears to be the typical 20" wheels most Hand cars and some early Motor cars had. When I saw the first photo I said Holly Crap as I have never seen wheels that large on a Hand car and I have been fooling with Motor cars and such for 20 years now.
Steve

Obviously it must be a passenger car. Steam locos had larger driver for speed. Therefor, it must be for passengers 8+)

The handcar in the first photo might be a homemade job with wheels scrounged from something else.

flynn Wrote:

> What is it that determines the size of the wheels
> on a handcar?

Nosing around on Mason Clark's handcar site ( http://www.railroadhandcar.com ), the answer appears to be a combination of the time period and the manufacturer. Hopefully he will chime in as well. The car in the first picture looks like an early design with spoked wheels similar to the early Kalamazoo car shown here:

http://www.railroadhandcar.com/history/catalog/kalamazoo/

The second looks like a later car with pressed steel wheels. The ninth photo at the link below shows a car with the same sort of wheels, but the caption doesn't elaborate on who built it:

http://www.railroadhandcar.com/history/handcar-photos.php