I am in the process of obtaining a mobile home to be home to my new world. I have accumulated many cars/engines with about as many differant coupler styles. From Hook Horn to the present. (HO scale) What is the genaral opinion as to the best all around coupler. Iknow, I know, I’m ready for as many opinions as there are couplers. My road is going to be DC with all manual switches. Just like the fifties were before CTC came along. My crew is going to have to stop the train, climb out and throw the switch and wait for the caboose to come along , realign the switch and climb back on. Sounds boring? It sounds realistic to me. Opinions on both subjects please!
Always let your dispatcher know where you are.
Bing
P.S. My second RR in the room is going to be N scale.
Oddly, you will not get many different answers. You will get only 2. The majority will say Kadee, and the rest will say Sargent. I’m a Kadee guy, because I like the ability to uncouple magnetically from a distance. Kadee, incidentally, makes the greatest variety of couplers, which may be important to you if you have a motley collection of cars with different methods for mounting couplers.
I use couplers from two makers, Kadee and McHenry. McHenry makes the shelf type coupler I like and sell them in bulk though the shelfs on them aren’t big enough to actually work. The shelfs on the Kadee #119 coupler do work however and they can be somewhat of a pain to get apart without some kind of uncoupling tool (a bamboo skewer works nicely). Kadee makes the reliable #5 and the #148 whisker coupler which is an upgraded version of the #5. They also make a more expensive shelf type coupler I get from time to time, the main difference being that the Kadee one is metal and the one from McHenry is plastic. I recommend the Kadee #5 and #148 for the majority of the stock you’ll need couplers for. Some will need something else which Kadee has a coupler for. They have couplers for everything.
Not much in the way of real choices to consider - Kadee (and plastic clones like McHenry that work like Kadee) or Sergent. Beware the superficiallly Kadee-like imitators without metal knuckle springs, since they don’t deliver the same reliable performance over the long haul, although they’re thankfully standard on fewer models these days. You won’t find ready-to-run models with Sergents, and they’re a niche product.
My roster has a variey of Kadee and McHenry couplers. You may have a few models with Accumates, which are compatible with Kadee types, but I’ve banned those from my layout due to unsatisfactory performance, such as random uncoupling on curves.
Walthers now makes their metal clones of KD’s which look very similar to the KD #5’s. I would imagine those would be just about as good but I haven’t tested them extensively.
Of the clones, I don’t understand why Atlas (which is otherwise a top notch HO model maker) still uses Accumates which are crude, and as Rob mentioned, less reliable.
Couplers, some history. Way back in time, when dinosaurs walked the earth, each manufacturer made his own couplers, of his own design, which would couple with nothing else. To resolve this foolishness, and allow interchange of rolling stock from one layout to another, some very clever people at the NMRA devised the NMRA coupler, now known as the horn hook coupler. It was ingenious, easily molded in plastic, and cheap, the NMRA offered the design free to the industry. By 1960 the NMRA coupler had achieved the status of de factor standard, and all the RTR and kit rolling stock came with NMRA couplers.
By the early 1960’s, the Kadee people had perfected their knuckle coupler. It looked much betterthan the NMRA coupler, and it became the coupler of choice of most serious model railroaders. The Kadee folk had patents, which they declined to license, and they charged a buck a car for the real thing. In order to keep costs down, in an era of $3 cars, the industry stayed with the nearly costless NMRA coupler.
This situation continued until the Kadee patents expired in the early 1990’s. Then numerous makers marketed “clone” couplers, that would intermate with Kadee’s. By 2000, all the RTR and kit rolling stock came thru with Kadee clone couplers. Kadee is still the standard, all the clones are forced by market pressure to be compatible with the real thing.
Kadee still rules the replacement coupler market. The clone coupler makers do a little selling into the replacement market, but they charge Kadee prices. Modelers react to this by buying Kadee couplers because why not get the best if it doesn’t cost anymore than a clone? The situation in 2011 is this. The Kadee knuckle coupler is the standard and old rolling stock have their NMRA couplers replaced with Kadee’s. New rolling stock, equipped with clone couplers is operated as is until the
If you know the manufacturer of your equipment, or the models, here is the KaDee conversion chart which will help to conect you to the right coupler desinged to fit that equipment:
If you don’t know the brand or maker of, or cannot find your model listed, then the “standard” general replacement coupler is the KaDee #5, or the wisker version, the Ka Dee #148.
Now, if you have a bunch of cheap older equipment, say, from old train sets, OR have stuff that you are not so fond of, McHenry couplers will do and are cheaper…available at lots of places like here:
But other than that, there are really no choices, there are other brands, but if you stick with KaDees or McHenry’s you will do fine to move into the “common era”.
The standard coupler preferred is a Kadee. However if you are not a conformist whatever coupler you like will work. But if you ever plan to sell or use your rolling stock on a friends layout or a club layout, I would suggest using the Kadee couplers.
Yes realistic. But there is a reason they call doing this in real life a “job”.
On th other hand in the fifties before CTC there was also no OSHA. I have videos of industrial swiching of this type. They didn’t necessarily stop the trains. They slowed, the switchman would jump off, run ahead, throw the switch and jump on as the train rumbled by.
Am about to start installing Sergent Engineering couplers on all my HO rolling stock. Am building narrow shelf pike, to allow me to walk w/my trains; be my own switchman. Am using C.I. ground throws exclusively, as I see no need for anything fancier. If a background t/o is too far to reach, will build Wolfgang Dudler’s manual throw mechanism for it, similar to what he uses on his HO Wesport Terminal RR. Everyone had their likes/dislikes in just about every aspect of model railroading and life itself, so one will logically, usually go with what works best for them. Just like the fact that there’s Chevys, Dodges, Fords and about 60 other brands of automobiles out there, one or two of which will appeal to each of us, so it is in HO and other scales, when it comes to choosing what’s best to use on one’s model railroad empire. TTFN…papasmurf.
I don;t see coupler comparisons as the same as the Chevy/FOrd/Dodge thing, because in the case of couplers, some DEFINITELY work better than others. Leaving out Sergent, which are a different animal but very well suited for a shelf-type switchign layout (and look more realistic close up), in the more general realm of compatible magnetically operated knuckle couplers, Kadee wins hands down. I replace everything with real Kadees. They work beter and last longer. The Accumate two-piece head and shank is cumbersome and weak, the older Proto 2000 ones are cheap plastic and the knuckles often get jammed in a wide open position (great for a pusher I suppose). Others have flimsy plastic knuckle springs or even centering springs. I’ve never broken a Kadee, even on accidental falls to the floor. I don;t actually use track magnets or electromagnets to uncouple, I use skewers (and after trying it, Andy S.'s idea of a #2 pencil), and Kadee to Kadee are the most reliable when it comes to getting them to easily uncouple without jiggling the train or needing to make multiple tries. So short of switching to Sergent and operating in an almost exactly prototypical way (you have to have at least one open knuckle before Sergents will couple), it’s Kadee across the board.
HI RANDY: REALLY LIKE the way you stuck up for MOPAR! I’m not all that bad aperson, as my son owned a '70-something Orange Road Runner V8 coupe in trhe '80s and I helped him put new ball joints on her. It was a VERY COOL RIDE!
MAY I PLEASE SAY that my Chevy, Dodge, Ford, et al reference was actually aimed at ALL Model Railroading preferences we modelers make, including scale, which we are all free to exercise and do
In my case: HO (was in N scale but have arthritis in my hands now)/ transition era/ early diesels (have HH600, 44 ton & S4 ) / narrow shelf switching/ ground throws/ d.c. for now, then Lenz DCC/ Sergents/ lots of scenic detail based on the New England area/ ABSOLUTELY NO ‘rivet counting’ allowed, ROFL!/ northeasatern and Canadian roads/ etc, etc.
But they all get you down the road, preference is just that, a preference. But some of those knockoff couplers are a dismal failure, more like throwing a Yugo in the mix.
My Mopar preference genrally comes from the fact that when I was about 13-14, an older kid in the neighborhood has a 71 Road Runner that I helped him work on. My first actual wrenching on a car, as opposed to standing on a box when I was little and watch my Dad work on the family Chevy. Old reliable 66 Bel Aire wagon that never let us down, even with pulling a camper all summer long.
And Graf, do you have any pictures of a remote DCC uncoupler using the Accumates? Seems like it would be the easier type to use because of the two piece design. Anything special, or the basic small pager motor on a function output with a little string pulling the coupler open that I’ve seen elsewhere?
Or you’ll get some whacko who’ll say both. I’m slowly beginnign my roster conversions, and most equipment will be Sergent couplers, but anything going to the club will carry a spare set of Kadees for the ends. I wentwith Serg becazuse I’ve had absolute fits with losing Kadee springs prematurely. But I’m also a fluke, not many people have such problems. Then again, I also don’t have issues with Accumae couplers letting go.
Sergents work by having an enclosed metal ball drop in to hold the knuckle closed.
Just like the Kadee-HornHook, it is possible to mate a Sergent and a Kadee. You can also do the clones, if the coupler head isn’t too thick. Open the Sergent, and push it off to the side of the car, until the Kadee coupler face is inside. Then push the couplers back over until the Sergent knuckle locks tight, with the Kadee inside. Note, undoing them is difficult, you could probably smack someone upside the head with the coupled cars.
I’ve seen Dick’s in action in person, pretty slick. A lot smoother than the MTH mess, and when he was running it he didn’t have to slam into the cars at 20mph to make it couple up. I can see how the same sort of thing could pull the two parts of an Accumate couple apart.
As for Kadee springs, I can’t rememebr the last time I lost one - and all the couplers I’ve purchasedin the past coupel of years have had the spring already fitted, with a few extras thrown int he pack in case one does get way. It seems they used to fly off much more easily years ago, maybe that’s just my imagination.