Loco to Tender Connectors/Couplers/Why Not Something Better by Now?

Model Railroader Electronics and DCC
1

I’ve been trying to understand why those “stupid” plug in/wire harness connectors are used in almost all HO and N Scale production models rather than a “real” coupler design or at least something solid enough to easily and dependably disconnect without having to have the gentle touch of a safe cracker or nitro glycerine handler in order to quickly, easily and fear free repeatedly disconnect and reconnect them?

Aside from the fact that the wire harnesses dangling down look terrible even with non-rivet counters, are extemely fragile, etc. what’s SO hard designing something solid with wires run internally in MOST/ALL models?

Most people I operate with and I myself, avoid like the plague, disconnecting and reconnecting in order to transport our locos to each other’s sessions.

I’m surprised that an easier, more solid design hasn’t emerged by now. Does anyone know why/why not? If I was younger, smarter, had the money and time for product development I’d be right on top of this one. IS anyone talking about producing such an item? I think only one manufacturer has even attempted this so far.

Thoughts? Product news? Easy scratch built substitutes you’ve done yourself?

2

Hi!

I feel your pain… My steam roster consists of 3 Spectrums and 3 BLI Paragons. Most of them have sound systems, which adds to the wiring. The Spectrums are somewhat “worse” in that the wires are color coded - making them way too obvious. I will probably hit them with some flat black in the near future. The BLIs were a bear to plug in, until I realized the female end of two of them was somewhat plugged up with plastic. I drilled them out (carefully!!!) and then they connected just fine.

But like you said, the process of plugging and unpluggin seems to be a recipe for disaster, and one would think a better way would be in the offing.

Mobilman44

3

It has been done already. P2K 0-6-0 has the plug as a draw bar. Too bad the wire for the headlight on mine broke.

Pete

4

First off, bundle them in tape, that gets you closer to the engine to tender water and steam lines, and if yuou have them, oil lines, running betwxt the two. Creates a stronger cord as well. As for loosening them, I got nuthin’

Onething to love about the Genesis Big Boy. Athearn found the right fit for the plug, it will pull out easily with evternal force, but not through train running. It’s a snug fit, not a lock. And, it goes in the back, not underneath, so you don’t have to flip the model. One can seperate by pulling the tender straight back.

The problem is that, wires bend around curves very easily, as opposed to 2x? plugs. Proto did a nice job with theirs for the 0-8-0, I don;t have any other P2K steamers to judge by. They have a plug on the steamer and the tender, badly disguised as the drawbar. The problem is there is a snap clasp similar to the Atheanr cuplerbox plates, top and bottom. If you don’t get that to fit tightly, and the tender has a screw there that has to be removed to get inside, then it will let go and tender+train goes screaming down the hill and the steamer had power ripped out from under it suddenly.

MTH is doing infared with their engines, no wires at all. I don’t like the potential interference issues, and I kinda miss the stuff that should be hanging out down there. But since it’s patented, no one else can use it.

5

Take a look at the Kato GS-4 in N scale. That has the motor control and power pickup from the tender going through the drawbar, no wires at all. I was able to install a sound decoder in the tender without any additional wiring at all - but no headlights.

6

The old AHM Rivarossi steam locomotives used to send power through the draw bar as well, one of the most common problems with those engines were the trucks would get turned 180 degrees on the tenders causing short circuits. DC mind you, as the locomotives had no electrical pick up what so ever so an engine cold never be run without a tender.

On larger Proto Heritage 2000 there is a little cut out section on the bottom of the tender where the wires tuck up into and I believe there is even a little metal clip that snaps over it holding them from hanging down.

As mentioned before a little bit of black paint goes a long way in hiding the unsightly wires. I have no luck using electrical tape as it seems too stiff, I would like to think you could use heat shrink tubing but then the plug has to come off or the wires be disconnected from inside the tender so you could slip it over the wires. I’ll take the black paint.

7

Capt. Grimek,
Just exactly what kind of connection do you want? What do you consider a “real” connector? How do you know something like that even exists? What makes you think that a small-time hobby company like Athearn or Walthers can invent one?

With a DCC loco with the decoder in the tender, you need at least 6 wires between the tender and boiler: 2 wires from the drivers to the decoder for track power, 2 wires from the decoder to the motor, and 2 wires for the front headlight. This means that whatever connector one uses needs to be fairly substantial. But it can’t be too big because there’s only so much room available. And that’s not getting into things like how flexible it has to be.

Besides, real steam locos had all kinds of hoses between tender and boiler. Air lines, steam lines, water lines, etc. Seeing a huge drawbar like the P2K 0-8-0 isn’t exactly prototypical. Drooping wire bundles are, however, a smidge more realistic.

Speaking of which, these P2K drawbar plugs weren’t perfect, either. They tended to fall apart and were a real pain to put back together. One guy in my club use CA cement and accidently glued all the plugs shut. Ooops!

For my brass fleet, I use Minatronics mini plugs. They seem to do all right. For keeping my tenders attached, I use A-Line boxes to transport them whenever I can.

IMHO, I think the greater question is: why do manufacturers insist on shipping the boiler and tender seperate? And why do they insist on making boxes that cannot transport the steam loco with the tender attached? I think most of our problems can be solved by the simple expediency of getting the loco already connected from the manufacturer and shipped that way. Then, why would anyone ever have to disconnect or connect them?

Paul A

8

Because Sanda Kan, the Chinese manufacturer of over 50 different brands of imported models, uses cheaper “industry standard” connectors that can be purchased in bulk for a mere pittance. Unfortunately, we mere mortals can’t purchase those same connectors.

9

cacole,
Seriously? Try simply looking at the Mouser website, or Allied Electronics. These sorts of interconnects can be had by any “mere mortal” who can afford to buy them.

And do you really think that even Sandra Kan is going to invent a new socket just for model trains? Of course they are going to use “industry standard” connectors they can get in bulk for pennies. They’d be fools not to.

Paul A. Cutler III

Weather Or No Go New Haven

10

I appreciated that Trix permanently couples their Mikado tender to the engine…although it can be decoupled if you want…but it is shipped coupled and looks great.

11

Hi Paul, You’re one of the long term forum members that I’ve learned tons from and greatly respect. I do disagree though, rather strongly in this particular case. (Gee I almost feel guilty about that!) I’d like a solid, at least semi-realistic looking drawbar and/or coupler (even if it had to be a little larger than scale) with all wires or contact strips, etc. contained and protected within the molding/casting. The slightly larger than scale would outweigh the flimsiness and delicacy of the current popular connector set ups. Nothing is worse in ops sessions for me than to have to focus so hard and so carefully everytime a derailment or fiddle yard placement/replacement of a loco is made in the “heat” of the moment. It’s not the look of the wires that bothers me and I do “pretend” that they’re hoses, but the extemely delicate nature of handling the loco and tender together, the sometimes difficulty in getting a connector free when separating the tender from the loco. Why would I want to? To run different/longer/higher capacity tenders sometimes or possibly trade off between coal and oil burning, or just sending it off to the RIP track, etc. A LOT of this would be no issue if the box the loco came in, from the manufacturer allowed all that nice closed cell foam to not go to waste by allowing us to carry our assembled motive power units in them when going to friends to operate or simply storing. I don’t agree that developing a drawbar or coupling “unit” is out of the domain of most model train manufacturers and would be prohibitively expensive if amortized over the sales of an entire line. Jeez, a simple polyester resin molding is all that would be needed, right? I’ve seen more than one connector pulled off of wire(s) even when handled relatively carefully at clubs and shows. It’s dead easy to have my BLI Heavy Mikado’s tender come loose from the draw bar (at the plastic pin) and just the bit of twisting it takes to juggle the loco and tender (separated with plug plugged in) to re

12

Sorry Paul and all. My message got “shoved” back into Safarii from Foxfire when I went to peek at an incoming email (which too me back into Safarii, removing all paragraph indentation.) I did’t dare try to reinsert them as Safarri then starts leaving out entire paragraphs already written!)

This is almost as frustrating as…those little loco to tender connections :slight_smile:

13

Capt.

I have to say I am largely with Paul on this. Maybe for the same and different reasons.

One, these are fragile models, not childrens toys, and as they advance in detail and function they will become more fragile, not less.

I too believe they look and work fine. I here others complain about this on the Bachmann forum and don’t quite understand what you/they expect.

I have a large fleet of Bachmann Spectrum as well as Proto and BLI/PCM steamers - I don’t have issues with this aspect of any of them.

I will admitt, I don’t carry my locos around to others (or club) layouts as a general rule, but if I did, I would transport them in something that would allow them to stay coupled.

For ever Mantua locos had semi perminate drawbars with one wire, that system worked well in my view. The ability to “latch” the drawbar might be a better idea than trying to make the plugs easier to disconnect.

I couple them, put them on the layout and leave them alone, OR, I carefully lay them in a cradle and disconnect everything. Again they already are fragile, with or without the wires.

I reject the notion that manufacturers should make the products more “robust” or toy like to accomodate newbies or those who lack the skill to handle them. Marklin, Lionel and MTH are already in that business. I prefer models.

Admittedly, I’m a lone wolf and only “play” with a select group of other modelers, so few, if any, “others” ever handle my locos. If I break it, I deal with it. Have not broken anything in a long time. Patience is a virtue.

Standardization would be good from a tender swap point of view, but it will never happen for a number of reasons.

Many of my locos have tenders different from what they came with, but I cannot imagine trying to use

14

Okay, I think I’m caught up with the OP now. Yes, I have pulled a wire out trying to work with a Bachmann 4449. Annyoing, I agree. But that’s why I reccomended the tape, the strength becomes of four instead of one.

15

Okay, I promise I’ll come back and read everything tomorrow and actually give a thought out reply. But since it’s 1:40AM where I am, I’m just going to post these two pics I took at Steamtown 3 years ago and go to bed.

Picture #1 - Canadian Pacific tender.

Picture #2 - Reading T-1 Northern tender connection:

Paul A. Cutler III

Weather Or No Go New Haven

16

Okay, I’m back.

Capt.,
That’s okay, I like reasonable disagreement. [:)] It makes the forum worthwhile. If everyone agreed with everyone all the time, this forum would be pretty dull. As long as we don’t break any rules, we can debate this until one of us grows bored…

First off, your description of a realistic drawbar that contains all wire connections is faulty. Real steam locos did not have such a drawbar, and even a slightly oversized one will not be large enough. Again, we’re talking about 6 wires at least…7 wires if you want a chuff sensor, 8 if you want a flickering firebox. Real drawbars are not that big. Even an O-scale drawbar isn’t big enough. You can’t have a “realistic” drawbar that has 6 or 7 or 8 wire connections in it. That’s impossible.

Secondly, I’ve yet to run into a “delicate” wire connection between boiler and tender. Heck, I’ve seen a couple cases where the loco owner forgot to hook the drawbar and the steam loco pulled his train around the layout by relying on the wires instead. I’ve also yet to see anyone break a plug or wire. I’m sure it happens, but it’s rare. I’ve been in my club for almost 20 years, and we have some 70 members. We have around 1000 locos on the roster right now, and there’s all kinds of steam on it from old Athearn Pacifics to the latest BLI… With just two exceptions, I can’t recall a single one that’s ever had a broken plug or wire.

Those exceptions? The P2K 0-8-0’s that have the multi-wire drawbar that you want. I’ve seen two of them fail because they fell apart. One owner attempted to fix his and glued all the plugs shut (as I said above). This is not an improvement.

Personally, I think you’re slightly crazy to be swapping tenders around during an Ops session. [;)]

17

Hi Paul and all.

I’m reading through and considering and learning from your points and logic.

I was wondering if something along the lines of a “workable” Proto type connector (one that never breaks) would be viable using smaller “micro diameter” wires or fiber optic cable/infra-red-NO wires. Would something closer to scale and possibly something even more prototypical in appearance be possible?

I’ve seen locos drag their tenders by the wires and that doesn’t seem to be a problem. It’s when someone moves the loco without moving the tender at the same time or drops the tender a few inches suddenly that I’ve seen wires part or break from the plug. True these are mishandling situations but seeing this happen twice now, it started to occur to me that this is a less robust system than maybe it could be.

I considered taping the wires together on mine. Is there any maintenance reason to not bundle/tape them?

I’m building a small/medium sized layout with loco servicing yard being a large emphasis. I was under the impression that some Western roads switched out tenders/capacity depending on that train’s direction of travel (distance from water plugs, etc.) and if assigned to a local or branchline temporarily or if they were assigned to a region where coal was cheaper than oil or vice versa. Were locos able to use both/either fuel alternately or was an oil burner always an oil burner? I’ve tried to find this info.in books but no luck.

I thought this might give the layout’s yard crew/hostler/r.h. more to do before a train was sent out or when it returned. Is this not at all a reasonable or prototypical operation from time to time? Is it too far fetched?

Can someone post a close up pic or link to a diagram that shoes the Proto brand and Kato’s (N)?

Is something along the lines of the Greenaway product possible with the plug(s) contained?

There must be at least some minimal interest in a “different” connection/system

18

Maybe you need some cheap but good running diesels for those beginners to train on, then when they stop crashing and running through misaligned turnouts they can graduate to steam locomotives. Get some Bachmann FT’s or Proto1000 F3’s and let them crash them up until they learn the ropes.

As previously stated, I’m not involved with anything that would qualify as “beginner training” and frankly don’t want to be.

As to your question/thoughts about tender swaps, I must again agree with Paul. From everything I have ever read in 40 years of modeling and prototype study, I have never heard of a railroad changing tenders for the reasons you suggest, or with any kind of frequency.

Changing tenders was to my knowledge, a semi major shop job which was only done when needed. Locos would get new tenders if the old one had problems, or if a modernization plan included increased capacity or a change in fuel, but such changes would not be made “willy-nilly” at the drop of a hat. And, prototype loco to tender connections were no more standardized then our models, so changes may require custom parts, fabrication and modlification of piping, mountings and appliances.

Sheldon

19

Thanks Sheldon for the prototype info. This is something I’ve been trying to determine in books for some time. I started my “research” by trying to see if NYC did this with their short and PT tenders on any kind of regular basis or just went to the PTs when water plugs along the main started disappearing.

I have a steam era layout but it’s 1946 so having them run a diesel for awhile, first, is a good idea. Thanks. I’ve been “blinded” by my steam era only concept, and see the practicality of your suggestion.

20

Most larger steam engines, built after say 1920 or so had an auger to move the coal from the tender to the engines. Most latter engines did not hand fire. Add in that the way the water lines connected to the engine and all the other connections and that the Prototype had no standard conection on the draw bars (all steam engines where costum built) and you had a LOT of work to just disconect and reconect the same tender to the same engine. Add in that the same class of engine often had noticiable difference and it was not easy to swap tender among the same class. Add in the differences from class to class and you have an issue that basicly said it was not normal to change tenders out. Most engines would exist with the same tender from the day it was built to the day it was scraped. Some changed them (the C&O did this a bit) but it was only done on a rework basis. For instance the class needed biger tenders then they would be replaced. if latter the engine did not need the big tender then maybe it would be swapped out. But this would only happen on a few engines and only a few times durring the entire life of the engine.

So for the most part swaping out tenderrs was not something that was done all that offten on the prototype.

Add in that this would mean that somehow you would have to design all the engines to have a spot to connect a draw bar (couplers where not used on tenders) and this is something that I do not think could be done. For instance an old 2-8-0 would have a fire box above the driver while a 2-8-2 would have one below the level of the drivers but over the trailing truck and you would be giving up the look of the engine for something that was basicly not done.

Now that being said Bachmann makes several tenders that can be swapped out.

Doug M