With all the “gee whiz” technology and modern materials out there for today’s model railroadrs out there, and despite the tendency to be interested in operations based on modern prototypes, does anyone out there still model pre-1920’s American railroads? Specifically, does anyone use “Link and Pin” couplers in operating their pikes? Or, related to that, does anyone try to simulate the practice of “poling” to do switch moves? I certainly remember when Central Valley used to make operating link and pin couplers in H0 for it’s 1890’s trussrod cars. Does anyone out there make link and pin couplers today for model railroads?
I remember “in the days of my 'ute” trying to operate with the CV couplers. Setting and pulling the pins with tweezers on H0 cars was a tad challanging. But certainly if might prove and interesting an fun modelling and operational challange to today’s modelers. And it just wasn’t for backwoods or ng pikes either. Both link and pin and knuckle couplers (see http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Coupling_(railway)#Link_and_pin) were used together on mailines before WWI (the ICC finally outlawed link and pins for mainline service). And you didn’t need ‘adapter’ cars either. The knuckle couplers back then could have the knuckle removed (or have a special slot already forged into the knuckle) for use with a link and held in with a pin. Certainly for a model pike, an adapter car could be used to simulate the more ambidextrous nature of the couplers of the old days. And it would certainly spice up yard operations making up the knuckle and the link and pin sections of a train (which, incidently, they also did before air brakes became universal, i.e., they had the air braked cars immediately in back of the engine – source of air – and the han
Kemtron, and Keyport Car & Foundry, used to make link and pin couplers. Harold Minkwitz, on his “Pacific Coast Airline” website, describes how he makes his own. I use ‘roosters’ on my log bunks, made of bamboo with wire rings at the ends. I use those junky plastic knuckle couplers for the draw heads on the cars. I pull the trip pin out of the coupler, remove the knuckle and add the rooster with a pin made of wire.
Remember poling requires a clear track BESIDE the track you are moving cars on. So if you have a yard big enough where you can afford to keep every third track clear of cars to let the engine run down it, you can use poling. It was also used to move cars around on a track with out having to disturb other cars on the track, in other words industrial switching, not as much flat yard switching.
You could certainly pole cars around any track if the next one was clear, but in fact there were yards specifically intended to operate by poling:
From John Albert Droege, FREIGHT TERMINALS AND TRAINS, 1912, pp 60-61:
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The poling method is so far in advance of tail [push-pull] switching, is so susceptible to expansion, and has made such an exceptionally good record in passing cars through division, junction, and tide-water terminals with a minimum of delay and damage, that it is generally recognized as one of the best methods of separating and grouping cars. It requires an additional track for the ram or poling engine alongside the entrance leading to the yard. In some cases yards are arranged to enable the poling to be done directly from the receiving yard into the separating or classification yard. The yard engine has a pole attached to the breast beam which is so manipulated as to come in contact with the poling pocket on the rear corner of the last car in the “cut” to be started. Usually a car is built, called a poling car, equippeed with four poles, two on each side, one of which works forward and the other to the rear. This car is also used for the men to ride on, and is probably a safer method of working than to use a pole directly from the engine’s breast beam, by which the man guiding it can easily get caught if it should miss its mark or slip from its hold on the car. Frequently two cuts (known as a double cut) are started by placing the pole behind the last car in the first cut and