Why do they exist? It seems completely illogical to make couplers that don’t look good, don’t work well, and are just generally not good? Why do half of all traincars come with them?
They existed because they were CHEAP!!!
I’ve been throwing them away for over 50 years and replacing them with the "Standard of the industry, KADEE # 5’s. And now the # 5’s have been replaced by # 58’s.
They are almost as ridiculous as the ugly N-Scale couplers that existed for so long.
Thank God for Kadee and Micro Trains!!!
cf7
The only real question is, “Why do they still exist?” After all these years (45 or so in my case) manufacturers still include these dinosaurs. Don’t believe me? Well…
The X2F, or horn hook coupler, was devised by a consortium of manufacturers trying to set some type of standard for couplers. The main reason a lot of them continue to be provided is the cost, which is probably close to $1 or less per 100, since they are a one-piece design that can be stamped or molded at the rate of thousands per hour.
Anyone need a few hundred?
Flip
Are you kiddin’. I got a box of 'em right here.
I sold a bunch of around 500 on eBay several years ago, got $11.00 for them! I’ve been saving them ever since, working on my next 500 to eBay! [8D]
“kadee” type knuckle couplers were under patent, and kadee did not makethem available to manufacturors to use as "standard equipment.
once the patent expired, and other companies could make and sell low cost operating magnetic knuckle couplers made in nylon plastic, they quickly became standard equipment
Actually, the horn-hook coupler was developed by the NMRA, as an attempt to standardize the chaos of HO couplers current at the time (Mantua, Varney, Devore, Baker, a dozen non-compatable fixed knuckle types, plus the early Kadee ‘K’ couplers - a partial list, certainly incomplete.) Early on, it was referred to as the ‘NMRA coupler.’ The NMRA divorced it pretty quickly when investigation proved that not one manufacturer was actually in compliance with NMRA specifications!
Manufacturers stayed with it because it was cheap, and there were no patent or licensing issues with using it. In the meantime, the Edwards brothers came out with their ‘MK’ and later ‘MKD’ variants, and started producing a variety of shank lengths and drawgear types, so Kadee couplers could be fitted to just about any rolling stock with minimal pain. Kadee couplers became the HO ‘standard,’ through pragmatism, not by edict.
Chuck (modeling Central Japan in September, 1964 - with lots of MKD-6 couplers)
I’m old enough to remember them as the industry standard. Sometime during my 10 year hiatus from the hobby during the 1990s, manufacturers started including both horn hooks and KD compatable couplers with kits and RTR equipment. I can understand why they continue to offer horn hooks because there are still quite a few diehards out there who never made the change to knuckle couplers and they want to keep them as customers. Who really cares as long as knuckle couplers are included as well. In reality, it doesn’t matter which type comes with the car since I usually replace them with genuine KDs anyway.
Horn and Hook go straight to the trash. Plastic Kaydee wannabes go into the trash when they fail.
Sometimes the rolling stock is not worth the kaydees. Better to save the kaydees to swap out the plastic couplers on a new peice of rolling stock.
If we can convince the producers of mega sound/DCC units to actually INSTALL a working Kaydee on the fronts of all steam at the factory, my kaydee experience will be complete. But oh, no. They wanna put a molded dummy coupler on teh front to save the costs. The Heat or Air conditioning costs more than that at the factory.
As a child once I understood why horn and hooks just dont work, I wanted Kaydees and nothing else. Sometimes that few dollars allowance went to a set of kaydees instead of a 3rd or 4th peice of new rolling stock that day. Once everything was converted (Or destroyed trying to convert; particularly the truck mounted ones) you could actually try to be a railroad and operate.
When I go to a Hobby Store and see a rolling stock with a horn and hook? Automatically I decide not to purchase it. It’s that simple. Or worse, I might buy it but the rolling stock is slated to destruction thru practice weathering techniques or other experimentation involving paint stripping etc.
Long live Kaydee. They day they die is the day HO scale is over at my home.
Safety Valve,When properly mounted the X2F would work quite well just like any coupler…
A little history. The NMRA did have a group led by Paul Mallory to develop a standard coupler back in the 50’s. There were multiple designs, and what is referred to as the ‘X2F’ is really the ‘X2I’ variation. This variation with the integral plastic spring is what were manufactured by the millions. The design was basically ‘one piece’ and was easy to manufactuer. The NMRA membership never did vote this into a ‘standard’, but manufacturers were free to stamp out this coupler and HO now had a ‘sorta standard’ coupler.
The problems with the X2F were:
- Did not look like a real coupler
- Due to the return spring tension, cars could derail when shoved(especially with ‘talgo’ type trucks).
- The automatic uncoupling was mechanical and did not perform well.
When the Kadee patents expired, the plastic McHenry coupler was released. IIRC, Bachmann bout the rights and made them availabe to all manufactures. The McHeny design has gone from the ‘living’ knuckle spring to a metal coil spring and plactic that is not as brittle as the first production example. Accurail has also produced a working knucke as well. Like most modelers, I use the supplied ‘clones’ until they fail, then replace them with Kadee couplers. I had a couple of boxes of ‘horn hooks’ and took them to a MRR ‘flea market’ as year - A guy gave me $5.00 for the them!
Jim
What year did the Kadee patent expire?
I found a cool use for horn hooks - when I was in HO I had a set of Con-Cor 40’ intermodal trailers. The hitch pins were too large to fit into Athearn or Walthers TOFC flatcar hitches, so I cut off the Con-Cor hitch pin and snipped off the sharp part of a horn hook coupler and glued it on the bottom of the trailer…it fit the hitches perfectly!
Jim said:Due to the return spring tension, cars could derail when shoved(especially with ‘talgo’ type trucks).
Jim,At the Columbus,Ohio Model Railroad club in the 60s we use to switch long strings of freight cars as well as passenger trains without problems again the X2F had to be properly mounted…
Then Jim said:The automatic uncoupling was mechanical and did not perform well.
The better grade of uncoupler would work fairly well when properly mounted to the track…
However,most of use would use a small flat tip modeler’s screw driver to uncouple the cars.
I remember they worked pretty good when mounted on the trucks and used on 15" and 18" turns. Even though they where toy like, they held up to my 6 year old fingers and patients pretty good. I never could have delt with Kadees at that age.
For the same reason it took so long for the flat earth society to go out of business.
Actually love 'em hate 'em,despise 'em they was the BEST solution at the time after all EACH manufacturer seem to have their own coupler and heaven knows there was a hodge podge of couplers to choose from.
So,they can rightfully take their place in history of model railroading.
May they RIP.
Kadee had several patents and improvemets filed with the US patent office. Around 1995 some of these expired. Here is a little history:
1952 - The first Kadee coupler(became the ‘K’ coupler)
1955 - The NMRA ‘X2F’ coupler
1960 - The Kadee magnetic coupler(‘MKD’)
1964 - The Kadee ‘delayed coupler’ - The ‘MKD’
1996 - The original McHenry Coupler with the ‘living’ knuckle spring
2001 - The McHenry ‘KS’ coupler with a coil knuckle spring
Jim Bernier