Going back as far as the 1950’s, BRIO trains have had red wheels. It was not until the mid-1990’s with the advent of the Trains of the World series that BRIO started using other colors on their locomotives, and even then red wheels persisted through the mid-2000’s. One question I get from time to time is, why red wheels?

While only BRIO can answer this for sure, one possibility is that the red wheels come from history. Early steam engines in Germany used a bright red paint on their wheels to make it easier for safety inspectors to detect metal fatigue and cracks. This practice may date back as far as the 1920’s, and it was prevalent because rail systems were nationally and not privately owned. Not all countries in Europe did this, but the red wheels from Germany may simply have stuck out to the BRIO designers. The look on real steam engines certainly is striking.