veteran cars and carriages skinny wheels

[tali1]

veteran cars and carriages have very skinny wheels- how are these very fragile looking wheels capeable of handling and absorbing the loads generated by the vehicles they carry, as they look like they could snap quite easily

[colin6789]

These wheels were made of solid wood, the old carriages had a iron 'tyre' rim shrunk onto it to hold it together. The narrow width of the wheels means that very low side forces can be put on the wheel to brake them. Modern car wheels are only 1 - 2 mm thick so they look fragile compaired to the old wooden wheels.