I have a couple questions. I have a couple of IHC NYC Smoothside passenger cars for HO scale. They have these odd couplers that realy s*** at coupling. I was going to replace them with Kadee num 5, but I noticed that they are directly attached to the Truck+frame, with no screw to hold them in place or anything. Would there be anyway to re-couple them?
As some of you have said, there were mixed passenger service runs. Would the 2 tone grey Union Passific cars mathch up with NYC Cars? I mean, the smooth side type.
There is always a way to upgrade couplers. It may involve some cutting and filing. Sometimes, you need to remove the old mechanism completely and replace it. Kadee makes a product called “draft gear boxes” that are complete coupler pocket assemblies. (These are really cheap, by the way. As in “inexpensive.”) You can cut off the old pocket and either drill and tap out a hole for a 2-56 screw, or just glue the whole assembly on.
How long are the cars, and what radius curves do you run? Most likely, you will want to stay with the truck-mounted couplers for home-layout sized curves. Putting body-mount couplers on full-sized passenger cars is asking for trouble unless your curves are close to 30 inch radius. And if your curves are that big, well, I’m jealous.
I have an old set of cars that I’m working on now. I’ve bought Athearn passenger car trucks with coupler assemblies. Of course, this will require doing some work on the underframe of the car to provide a slightly different mounting point for the trucks, but this is one of those fun things to do anyway.
Pull the truck off and look at it closely. There’s a pin that holds the horn hook coupler in place. It should pop out with a small screw driver. If your going to run them on tight radius turns, you might want to think about Kadees truck mounted conversion kits instead of mounting on the body. They make them for 4 and 6 wheel IHC style trucks.
Okay, I got the first part. Yeah, its probably going to be the truck mounted kind because it isn’t going to be 30’ turn radius. Now the second part (and the pictures!?)…
My fix was to clip off the tip of the long shank that IHC uses, effectively clipping off their so-called coupler. Then I clipped the loop off the shank of a Kadee #5. I then glued the Kadee shank to the top of the long plastic shank, which puts it close to the height of the couplers on my Walthers heavyweights. I may have had to add a spacer between the Kadee and the IHC shank, I don’t remember.
I have a couple of IHC passenger cars that you have, except they are Canadian Pacific.
I ended up using McHenry couplers thay make for the Rivarossi/IHC passenger cars. The only problem I have with them is that I need to make a support for them at the end of the car as they tend to sag.
Another thing you will want to do is add the IHC metal axles & add some weight directly above the trucks inside the body as this will make them roll a lot better. I have had no problem with these cars rolling in the same consist with my Walthers passenger cars even on 22" curves.
BB’s work good for weight too. Seal them in with some Elmers glue. Metal wheel sets will drastically improve performance. Just watch the brake shoes don’t rub. InterMountain wheels are recommended.
For your coupler conversion, there’s two ways I can recommend that have worked for me, and not just for IHC cars:
Kadee makes a conversion bolster (their terminology) for the IHC/Rivarossi cars that allow you to use one of their couplers on the regular truck mounted arm. This one is for the 6 wheel truck.
For long cars and curves above 25 inch radius, Walthers markets the swing coupler mounting set. Although it is advertised for certain Athearn cars, I’ve used it successfully on Con-Cor Superliner cars. One pack has parts to do two cars. It’s similar to the coupler mounting Walthers uses on their enclosed auto rack cars.
I ‘inherited’ a set of IHC streamline 85’ passenger cars for my ‘City of San Francisco’ BLI E-units. What I did, was–
Immediately bought the McHenry knuckle couplers designed for the IHC cars. Bought a wheel-reamer for the trucks, Intermountain 36" wheels, and some lead weight to put on the inside over the truck mounting pins. Reamed out the inside of the trucks, popped the Intermountains in, changed out the couplers and the cars run smooth and well and properly weighted. It’s a nice set. And the IHC cars look close enough to the 1945 “City” to pass muster pretty well.
As manufactured, the IHC cars run like junk. With tinkering and TLC, they run like jewels.
There are two ways to go on converting IHC cars to Kadee couplers.
1 . Find a Kadee or McHenry super long shank talgo mount coupler that will snap into the IHC trucks. They are made, but not all hobby shops have them in stock. You may have to check the Walthers book for part numbers and special order them. The long long shank helps get the cars around 18" curves without derailing.
Convert to ordinary body mount #5 Kadees. I did this, and the result will still get around an 18" curve. Granted, the overhang on curves is humungous, but both cars hang out, the same amount , so they stay on the track. Mixing short cars or locomotives (say an F unit) doesn’t work so well. Stick to the long E units, and no 40 foot head end cars and it works fine. In fact the E units are nearly as long the the passenger cars and they have body mount couplers too. The body mount couplers let the train back up more surely than truck mount, and their centering springs will hold the coupler in the middle of the car, making coupling up more dependable. The long long shank truck mount get set over to one side and stay there, so they fail to couple when two cars are shoved together.
To mount the Kadee coupler boxes use bits of styrene strip as shims underneath the box to get it to mount flat. Drill for a 2-56 screw thru the hole in the center of the coupler box. This way you can pull the screw and get the coupler out should replacement be needed. I feel gluing the lid on a coupler b
WHOSE cars are they? Rivarossi, IHC. and ConCor used ‘Talgo’ or truck mounted couplers. For truck mounted couplers McHenry might be the best answer. They ‘plug’ in.
Depends. Most ‘name’ trains on the UP sported Armour Yellow. It would be more probable if some NYC Sleepers were tacked on to the UP.
Most travelers departed their trains when reaching Chicago, and transferred to other lines (different Depots). AMTRAK today uses one ‘Union’ Depot.
[#ditto] They make conversion kits for both 6 axle and 4 axle passenger trucks. I think they are Kadee #505 & #508 respectively.
If one decides to go with body mount don’t use Kadee #5. Use a Kadee #46. This lets the coupler swing just a little bit more from side to side. For those that like close coupling, mount the coupler pivot point futher back on the car. Either way the effective radius will be increased to at least 24".
