I recently purchased four of these cars, overall I like them. My concern is the couplers. they are way too low and the pockets seem to be too loose. Has anyone else had this problem? I am very particular about coupler and wheels.
A lot of people are particular about wheels and couplers as am I. ExactRails wheels are the most gorgeous HO wheels I have laid eyes on btw.
I assume you have a Kadee coupler height gauge. I don’t have any of the Trenton Bulkheads as they are too new for me, but they are very nicel ooking.
Some standard stuff you may already know: Have in your tool box some packets of Kadee washers, both red and gray, so you can make incremental increases in raising up the car to adjust height. If the couplers are real low, Kadee makes off-set couplers.
In ExactRails case, they make excellent products out of the box, so I would first check to see if something is loose and causing the coupler to sag. It may be you just need to reseat something that isn’t together properly - no company is perfect.
I hadn’t even pulled mine out of the box, but you’ve inspired me.
On the one I checked, the couplers were not that far low. There’s a LOT of vertical play, so I would/will put shims below the coupler shank to raise the head to the proper level.
I was surprised to see that the Kadee glad hand was cut off. It was done to clear the air hose, which is sticking out kinda horizontally. Strange. This isn’t the first time I’ve been delivered a “gladhandless” car; my Railway Classics Empire Builder is the same way.
These are REALLY nice cars, and I recommend them. I look forward to Exactrail doing other, earlier, bulkhead flats–in particular, something in GN would be nice.
Ed
They are really nice - gorgeous in fact, but too darn modern.
The problem is two of the major bulkhead flat cars released in the last few years have both been post 1990’s and very new (Atlas and ExactRail). Again us 70’s and 80’s guys have to beg and whimper to get a good bulkhead for the era wonder years era! I’ve seen some nice bulkheads from Red Caboose lately but all eastern names. A lot of lumber has flowed from the Pacific northwest so we could use some nice bulkheads for that traffic, and some lumber loads would be nice too.