[modeleng] Needle roller bearings

Hi chaps
Does anyone have experience of fitting needle roller bearings to locomotive 
axles, that they would like to share?

I want to fit drawn cup sealed needle roller bearings to a 5" gauge battery 
driven diesel shunter.  Ideally, I'd like to fit hardened sleeves to the axles, 
but there isn't space to do this.  However, the axles are of silver steel.

The loco has six wheels, and so the middle axle will need to have some side 
play.  If the axle is allowed to float through the bearing, there will be 
sliding instead of rolling contact between the rollers and the axle, and I 
wonder if there might be a problem with wear on the axle?

Would it be better to constrain the bearing on the axle in some way, and allow 
the axlebox to move in the horns?

Over to you guys!

Regards
Ron
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