Torby, “C’mon guys, get a sense of humor.”
I figured that he was being sarcastic (at least I hope he was). However, you have to look at this statement (and any for that matter) from a different point of view. The reason you do this is every person in the world sees things differently than the person next to them. You don’t want to offend somebody by mistake do you? So, look at the statement from the point of view as if this is your very first time on the forum. Now does seeing somebody ask a question and the very first response is “nope, no one knows”. Does this seem like a helpful and encouraging thing to see? No, it doesn’t. The reason is that statement shows that (#1) (as it states) nobody on the entire forum knows the answer and (#2) nobody is even willing to help you find the answer. I know that if I had seen this when I was first looking into G-Scale I would have stopped right then and moved to another scale or hobby. This is not what we want. That is why when somebody asks a question and you have nothing helpful to say, then don’t say anything. Now, if he had said “nope, I don’t know”, then that would be a whole different story cause he is talking about himself, not answering for the entire forum’s community.
Anyway, about running a locomotive without putting in the traction tire. Simply, no you cannot. Either put in a new traction tire or replace the wheel with a non-traction tire wheel. The reason is that a wheel that is suppose to have a traction tire has a groove cut into the tire to keep the rubber traction tire in place. If you remove that rubber traction tire, the wheel will then "sink" into the rail and cause considerable damage to the motor block. I have a couple of LGB F-7As that lost their traction tires while running, and the motors and a few gears on them are shot. The problem wasn't caught because it was on an overhead layout that runs in a restaurant.