Intermountain engines seem best, heavy, run smooth. Bought kit and rtr rolling stock. Atlas and Athearn have good rtr at good price, I think. Greenway Products has great fallen flags rtr. But why the stupid hook and horn couplers?
Any tips on retrofitting knuckle couplers? Cache Creek has terrific hand made logging rtr cars-works of art and reasonable.
Whats the easiest way to do hills, mountains, if there is one?
Dumb question-Intermountain sells powered A and B units. Do they just operate together? Guess would be great power if so.
I can only help you on the coupler they use them because there cheap they are easy to replace on most all rolling stock and locomotives using Kadee coupler there web site shows you how I have done it and it was eazy.
Are you running DC or DCC? HO or N?
I have a large fleet of cars from 40 years ago that I am retrofitting with knuckle couplers. There is only 1 word you need to know:
Kadee
For most modern rolling stock and engines, the Kadee #5 coupler is a drop-in replacement for horn-hooks. For a few of them, Kadee makes specilized couplers of all kinds (offset-shank, extra long, etc.) that will fit.
Powered A and B units are usually separate locomotives, identical inside, with different plastic shells. They are meant to operate together. If you are using DC, then just couple them up and go. If you are using DCC, you can either program them to the same locomotive address, or you can “consist” them together using the “MU” capability of your DCC system.
Im ho using dc powerpacks. Thanks for info. But some rolling stock have couplers in a pocket with a snapoff (by force) cover and you cant snap it back on. If you try to glue it the new coupler gets glued too.
Use a kd box to put the coupler in.
Jim
you must have some athearn bb equipment…the box cover will snap back on but you have to be careful not to disturb the two tabs on the side of the draft gear box when you initially take it off …if the tabs do break ,then it’s time for the utimate repair…remove the original draft gear box from the frame by wittling it completely off with a hobby knife or by cutting it off the frame support depending on which type of coupler mount it is…be sure it is smooth at the frame with no jagged edges or humps of plastic in the area which can cause any uneven mounting of the new gear box…glue the upper portion of a KADEE draft gear box on in place of the old one, (read on before gluing) now, take a drill bit, remove the plate weight and drill a hole in the general area where a screw from the gear box will come thru the frame and not bottom out against the weight plate,…(some times the weight plate will be too close to the edge of the frame to drill a hole…in this case, i’ll take a dremel tool cut off wheel and completely cut an entire section away from the ends of the weight plate and then install the cut off section on top of the original plate and glue it on with JB weld) … …now,…drill a hole into the frame in the exact location where the new draft gear box has a hole in the middle of it and is pefectly aligned in the middle of the frame…(I use the KADEE 2-56 screw drill and tap set in a pin vise)…once the hole has been drilled thru the frame, assemble the rest of the kadee coupler and install a 2-56 screw to hold it all together to the frame…you’re going to need the Kadee coupler height gauge also so that all your couplers connect together at the same height between cars…if the coupler is too low, th
there are many ways to do this but the two most popular are by using blue or pink foam or by building a shell
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blue or pink foam can be easily cut and stacked on top of each other, starting with large pieces at the bottom and gradually tapering them as you go upwards…then take a knife and carve the rock formations out of it…fill in the flat spots with paper mache or plaster of paris.
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a shell can be build also…take some cardboard and cut it into long 1" - 2" strips…now weave it together and hotglue the sections together where they intersect (sort of like weaving an upside down basket)…once the mountain skeleton frame is complete you can either use strips of newspaper dipped in plaster of paris and lay it across the frame until its covered or use a pre coated sheet material that’s coated with plaster of paris that only has to be dipped in water and layed across the frame…you might even want to combine the two techniques together by incorporating some pre-carved blue or pink foam rock formations into the cardboard weave before adding the hydrocal sheets or newspaper dipped in plaster of paris…they also make rock molds (or you can make your own from liquid latex) that can be put in the mountain …take the rock mold, pour some plaster of paris or hydrocal in them, let it dry ,and incorperate them into the shell of the mountain…chuck