For most of you, this is old news, and I first realized it many years ago, and am dealing with it again…
In testing my under construction HO layout, I run a long string of cars behind my most finicky loco (2-10-2). The cars are of various manufactures, including Athearn, Walthers, Ulrich, Accurail, MDC, etc. Most all the cars have KD couplers. The few that do not were purchased “ready to run” and have Accumate or other brands.
Without fail, coupler failures (either accidental uncoupling or coupling failures) happen where a KD is mated with another brand. Yes, I’ve gone thru the NMRA height standards with them, but it just doesn’t seem to matter. Of course I’ll be changing out the errant brands to KDs shortly.
I’m not knocking the other brands, for perhaps they work with their own brands just fine. But they just don’t seem to be KD friendly.
In the past I have written long technical explainations of why all of the plastic generic knuckle couplers are inferior to Kadee couplers and explaining the causes of the problems - only to be told by a bunch of people they use generic brand X or Y with no problems, bla, bla.
So I will just say this, if you run trains longer than 10-12 cars, and run them for any amount of time, you will likely find the generic couplers to be a problem.
So nothing goes on my layout until it has genuine Kadee couplers. and nothing is better than the Kadee gauge for checking the height of couplers.
I’ve noticed the the shanks on a lot of the knock-off couplers are plastic and deform or twist under load. I’ve also have some Atlas cars that came with the strange two part coupler that Atlas seem to prefer and these proved to be nightmarish in long consists.
I only use Kadee couplers, period. Everything else is inferior–especially if one plans on running long trains.
The use of anything else is inviting trouble, because sooner or later the mismatched brands will outright fail and/or cause a significant wreck capable of damaging today’s rather expensive rolling stock.
ANother issue I’ve seen is the older plastic ones that Proto2000 locos came with have a tendency to get jammed in the open position. ANd when you snap them back in place, they’re never the same. Plastic knuckle springs, plastic centering springs - they all have the same problem as the more recent X2f couplers - crappy plastic = crappy springing ability.
For these and many other reasons listed here and elsewhere, I replace EVERY coupler on ever loco and car with a genuine Kadee. They ALWAYS work, and even in a few fall to the floor accidents I never had a Kadee break. The GOOD knockoffs, made of metal with metal springs, aren’t any cheaper, really, so why bother?
If you are a fan of the other brands, as soon as I get around to it and group them into reasonable lots, I plan to try to sell off all the others on eBay. All the unused X2fs and plastic wheelsets, too. I have dozens of Accumates still on the sprues, as well as McHenry and others, all of which went straight from the kit box into my spare parts box.
I only operate my HO equipment on my clubs modular layout at shows. I still have some Accumate and Mchenry equiped cars that I haven’t switched to Kaydee’s. I have to run them in the rear of the trains of 25-30 cars because the plastic knuckles won’t pull the weight of the entire train if they are towards the front. Coupler height or uneven track is not the problem.
I have maybe 10 pairs of none Kadees that came on my Bachmann Sliver series coal cars that still stayed coupled if they are toward the rear of a long coal train. Other than them, its only Kadees.
I had heard some good about MC Henry so bought some for my Con Cor passenger cars. Threw them away and went with Kadee.
I’ve noticed with almost ANY coupler that uses that little strip of plastic to hold the knuckle closed either has a small gap between it and the knuckle or will develop one, allowing the coupler to open, especially if you get coupler slack while running a train. As such, I’ve replaced ALL non Kadee couplers with the real deal. I had a string of older Athearn passenger cars that consistently had couplers that were too high. These had the Talgo style trucks, so I replaced them with Kadee 42s. These have the overset coupler head and were direct replacements. After testing the “whisker” couplers, I’m sold on them.
I’m a newbie, and I knew absolutely nothing about Kadee couplers, but after reading all the posts with people reccomending those, I decided to get some and try them out. Wow, they are really nice, and I also have use for them for the magnetic delayed uncoupling on my new layout.
From now on, when I get any new rolling stock, Kadees are going on them before they even make it on the layout.
I run Kadee’s exclusively but I have had others in the past that have worked ok no complaints it’s just I like to keep things as standard as possible. That being said I have even had Kadee’s fail on grades or while pulling long trains.I think the one week point all couplers share is the spring. If it’s not a metal spring it’s guaranteed it will fail sooner then later. But I solved the problem in one fell swoop when I was at a train show there was a vendor who had a killer deal on Kadee’s I bought all he had 250 pair of #5’s and 200 pair of #58 the only two couplers I need and run on my railroad.
Today we had our club modular layout set up for the public and as a point of interest we began to run a long train, ended up with 99 cars pulled by three f units. At times we had a few coupler failures and it was always between a KD and other brands, changed either the coupler or car and away we went… the pressure on those front couplers was huge and the KDs came through with flying colors.
Kadee’s are tops, no doubt and I have many. Of all the lesser couplers, the two part atlas/accumate work well when used exclusively on a train, and seem to be rather durable. I run only short trains and manually uncouple.
The little plastic thingy spring on the Proto and McHenry couplers seem to break frequently and, yes, when the Protos pop to the open position, they’re done for.
I have used Kadees since before they went magnetic. Even in the 60s, when I was forced by space issues to go with N-scale for a while, I used the Kadee N-scale couplers (before they split off and became Micro Trains). I have a request for the Kadee folks: please put, on the HO coupler height gauge, an extension that can tell me if the body height is right for body-mounting coupler pockets. There is one on the N-scale gauge, why not the HO? It’s a handy thing to have…
The 26 car freight had 6 ready built cars (Atlas, Accurail, Walthers, Athearn) with the supplied couplers (Not KD) in use. These were all bought in recent years, and to be very honest, I was just too lazy to change the couplers to KD (although I have a supply on hand). I knew better, but…
The breaks - or “difficult to couple” situations always occurred between one of these cars and a KD kit built car. When the non KD cars are coupled to each other, they seem to be OK.
When the layout is ready to accept locos & rolling stock, they will all go through specs first, and I garrandarntee you that KDs will be the only couplers on the layout.
Since Kadee’s patent ran out, there have been many copies manufactured. You can usually find these imposters at your LHS on sale at greatly reduced prices. In spite of tests in the major publications, the copies are inferior to the original. Kadees are still the best couplers.
The atlas/accumate coupler works quite well with small trains or on small ISLs where no more then 2-3 cars are pushed/pulled at a time.
With that said KD is the only coupler to use.
As far as the other KD wannabes…I would rather convert back to the X2F coupler before I would use 'em…At least I know the X2F works and never breaks under pressure…