I've watched them get aligned in professional shops a couple times and started checking them and adjusting them myself. Doing it the way you describe would scrub tires for sure.

The axles need to be aligned with eachother. This is done by using a piece of metal with two pointers and making sure that the hubs are an equal distance apart from side to side. ALL of the axles are to point slightly to the left of center to compensate for road crown.

The problem here is that the bogie points toward the right of center....enough that I could have eyeballed it better than the factory did when they should have been using the proper tools.