Yes, prototype equipment rosters often list cars less vestibules. None of my information comes from such sources.
I have personally done extensive research of actual drawings.
Car lengths are measured a number of different ways for different reasons on the prototype.
Operating departments want to know length over pulling faces.
Sales and marketing wants to know useable interior space.
Construction and shops generally want to know actual body length, or pulling face length.
The bigger point here is that there is not now, or never was, some “magic” rule that all passenger cars are the same length, or that the length was always 80’ or 85’.
And in fact, a great many passenger cars were in the 70’ “range”, and many others were all over the map between 70’ and 80’. Put a 72’ Athearn heavy weight coach next to the accurate length Bachmann heavyweight coach which is 78’. The difference is pretty small. Too small to notice as they roll by in a train viewed from 3 or 4 feet away going 45 scale miles per hour…
Anyone with access to the MR archive can simply search “passenger car plans” for dozens of examples of the variety of car lengths.
The “typical” “80’ Pullman” measures 82’ - 4" over the pulling faces of the couplers, making the actual body of the car after you deduct the diaphragms and buffers, abo
Wheels are indeed 36". Although thinking about it the difference in radius is 1.5" prototype which at 1/87 changes the coupler height by only 1/64" approximately.
I’ll take a look again at the Kadee 148 but last time I recall trying to fit one the shank is just that much thicker than the EZ Mate II to make snapping the retaining cover back on difficult. I did find that using brand new Athearn metal coupler covers worked much better than trying to reuse the old ones.
And of course the #148 Kadee fit just fine. The shank is 0.09" thicker than the EZ Mate II. It happens that the Kadee actually fits better in these Athearn coupler boxes as the thicker shank fills the box better.
I was unsure because the coupler boxes in a set of four stock cars I just bought (Athearn RTR) brand new are too shallow for a Kadee shank. Or so I thought. I just fitted Kadee #148 into these coupler boxes also. Again the vertical play is reduced. Also, I found yet another type of Athearn gearbox under a crane and flatcar combo. It accepted a Kadee #148 as well.
So now I am left wondering whether any of the Athearn coupler boxes are to shallow for a Kadee. Maybe I’m thinking of Bachmann Spectrum coupler boxes.
