Hi there. I bout a box of Trains at the York TCA and all of them still have the horn couplers and i am trying to convert to regular couplers but for most of these cars the couplers are attached to the wheelsets. I was wondering if anyone could tell me what type of coupler to buy. Thanks for your responses.
One suggestion…
Kadee #9s are made to drop into most Talgo (truck-mounted) coupler boxes. See the Kadee web site for specific make and model suggestions.
Alternatives include (can use a combination of techniques depending on situation):
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Cutting the coupler extension on the truck off, and body-mounting the coupler (#5s used to be the standard for this, now a whisker spring variant in either scale or normal size knuckle may be preferred.)
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Replacing the trucks and body-mounting the coupler. Often the best, but most expensive and time-consuming solution. Some (but not all) of the existing trucks will be worthless or troublesome due to bent axles, warped side frames, mis-shapen or mis-gauged wheels, etc.
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Replace the trucks and coupler with another Talgo truck and coupler set. Kadee still makes these. This has the advantage of not having to modify the body of the car for coupler mounting, but still leaves the disadvantage of higher likelihood of derailments when backing with truck-mounted couplers.
In all cases, getting the coupler height right is critical for derailment-free performance. Use a Kadee coupler height gauge, and don’t quit until the coupler height is right.
my thoughts, your choices
Fred W
I assume we are talking HO here?
If the couplers are attached to the trucks (sometimes referred to as “talgo” trucks although I am not sure why) it is likely that the trucks themselves are not really great quality. And couplers attached to trucks are also an invitation to tracking problems when backing up, although they have certain advantages in sharp curves. Thus, while the Kadee website does provide information on how to fit their knuckle couplers onto talgo trucks (for example, Bachmann cars: http://www.kadee.com/conv/pdf/b16.pdf) I would resist that temptation and instead replace the trucks with better quality (this might call for modifying the bolster or underbody but with practice this can be an interesting and enjoyable challenge) and then mount couplers onto the body. This might be a simple matter of drilling a hole or two on house cars such as box cars or reefers. On flat cars, hoppers and tank cars that can be a bit more trickly but it may be possible clear away an area onto which a Kadee coupler box can be cemented.
At one time Kadee sold a #5 coupler already in its draft gear box all ready for mounting and for some special projects I found that useful.
The Kadee website has lots of helpful info by the way.
Dave Nelson
I beleive that most of these cars are either Tyco or Athern From the 70’s.
Athearns to my knowledge would not be truck mounted couplers, even in their old train set cars. So Tyco is a good guess. While Tyco gets some well deserved scorn, some of the Tyco cars are not at all bad – the Santa Fe flat car with the simulated wood deck, the silver Swift Premium mechanical reeefer are both nicely detailed – and in those cases the quality of the car exceeds the quality of the trucks. It takes some practice and experience but I replaced the trucks on those cars and body mounted the couplers without too many problems. I do not have the cars at hand but what I might have done was plug the hole in the bolster where the trucks went with a rod of styrene, cut if flush with the top of the bolster, and drilled a new hole for screw mounting the trucks.
Dave Nelson
What I did, was cut off the couplers on the trucks, and mounted KD’s to the body, shimming where I had to or using underset couplers if the body was too low and then ran them, if any of them gave me trouble, I would then either change out the wheels (with KD’s in those days, but there are many more available today) or trucks for the offending car(s). If you are going to the trouble of upgrading these cars, I would also recommend weighting them to the NMRA recommended practices as most of the Tyco and Bachmann etc., cars are lightweights. Standardizing the weight of your cars will go a long way toward reliable operation.