Paper Railroad Wheels? (2016)
cupery.net
cupery.net
> Large metal discs covered the paper, but only served as protection from the elements
It also mentions that they were known to fail, so one could assume exposure to the elements played a part.
Take a textbook and drive your car over it. Hell, park your car on it.
Paper does pretty well under compression.
It's a similar principal to the difference between a wheel made from a sheet of plywood vs a wheel made from comparable thickness disc of tree trunk.
According to this page (p.148) of the "The Railway Purchasing Agent (Jan 1881)" they had a service life of 500,000 miles vs 50,000 miles for cast iron wheels resulting in an operation savings of 3.5 cents per 1,000 miles.
[https://www.google.com/books/edition/Railway_Master_Mechanic...]
Given the rave reviews and obvious cost savings, it makes me wonder why|when they fell out of favor; my naive assumption would be a dramatic improvement in metallurgy?
Disclaimer: statements made using an historical sample size of n=1 ;)
Read the article.
TL;DR: It had a steel rim and an iron hub. But its center was laminated paper. People had made other kinds of composite wheels. They'd tried wood, but wood reacts to weather. Laminated paper was more stable. Wood can split along its grain. Paper doesn't.