A few months back, I bought 16 Athearn Roundhouse tank cars. Absolutely beautiful, great tracking, couldn’t be happier. Except for one thing. The couplers suck.
I have been pulling the 16 tank cars behind pair of Life Like GP9s. Whenever, I stop the train for whatever reason and then start it up again, the tank cars uncouple, never the same car, never the same location.
When I first eyeballed the couplers, they appeared to have a plastic hinge controlling the knuckle. But, last evening, I put on the Optivisor for a closer look. At a glance, it appears that the knuckle opens and closes by a small blackened spring. But it doesn’t matter. The couplers seem to have no holding power.
I can literally uncouple the cars right now by simply pulling them in opposite directions. So, I have decided to replace the couplers, all 16 of them (ugh) with Kadee couplers.
Due to continual issues with Kadee knock-offs, a lot of individuals and clubs insist on Kadees only. Properly perpared and installed Kadees operate for years or decades without issue.
All engines get Kadees immediately. The cheap plastic things only last a few weeks, anyway. Mostly I build kits for rolling stock, so they get Kadees during construction.
Other cars will get Kadees on both ends as they fail.
Yup. The McHenrys will eventually wedge open or closed, a problem that seems especially acute on shelf coupler versions. Whenever possible, I replace them with Kadees before a car or loco enters service.
Don’t just discard them. Save the metal knuckle springs for spares, since they work on Kadees.
Not I, I change out couplers to Kadees whenever I get something new and check the weight at the same time. For the life of me, I don’t understand why some of the higher end rolling stock don’t come with Kadees to begin with. I would pay a little extra as a result.
Is coupler height is correct? Check it with a gauge.
Assuming that’s OK, replacement with real Kadee’s is a the way to go. When I acquire new rolling stock with clone couplers, I run them until they break. Then I replace the clone couplers with the real thing from Kadee. Last time I looked, my local hobby shop (Charles Ro in Malden) wanted as much money for a pack of clone couplers as they did for a pack of Kadees. Since the best doesn’t cost any more, I always buy the Kadees.
I do the same. My layout is 95% Kadee, 4% Protomax and 1% Rapido Macdonald-Cartier couplers. The imitation ones do make nice details around the car shop, though.
I use 100% Kadee, and I do not, will not use the semi scale couplers.
Tests showed that however slight, the semi scale coupler actually has more slack action.
And it has a smaller gathering range for coupling.
Before any new equipment goes into service, it gets Kadee couplers and in many cases my “special” trucks - Kadee sprung/equalized metal trucks refitted with Intermountain wheel sets. And to that end I only use code 110 wheels as well.
In the case of these items, performance trumps looks, or perceived looks.
Because in my view, the semi scale coupler, while smaller, has an odd shape.
And code 88 wheel sets leave an unprototypical gap between the wheel and the side frame.
In both cases I feel we are just trading one incorrect feature for another.
I go all KD standard size, so both saperate springs and whisker (thats #5 and #148), when ever I built something or replace somethings couplers.
Things I replace as soon as possible:
Accumate (comes on Accurail and Atlas cars), I HATE these, they never mate easily with KDs and don’t work with magnetic uncoupling ramps!
Anything without springs, I think this includes whatever comes with the cheaper bachmann stuff.
Then anything plastic, including McHenry. I am a bit less rushed to take out McHenrys, they do mate okay with Kadees. However they are plastic and will break quicker, I just mostly run on level track.
Things I may not replace
ProtoMax (comes with Walthers stuff), these are almost identical to KD #5s, I think the difference is somewhere were the knuckle rests against the rest of the coupler. That said I would never put these in a car in place of KDs
KD scale head stuff, I like the look of them, but if you are an operator, you will notice that cars that don’t handle wellare usually those with scale head as opposed to regular heads.
I also think whatever comes with BLI stuff seems to work fine, though I think it’s plastic… I personnally have never changed one. Rapido’s couplers also look okay, but I lack evperience with them.
I’d say to anyone that there is a reason KDs are almost standard in the hobby, at least in HO. It’s because they work the best! I see little reason to not use them, changing out coupler is very easy, usually you can just use the existing coupler box without modification.
That is what I use in HO, as a side note, in N I use Micro Trains, they are quite oversized, but close to everything I have bought so far uses them, so why both to change them!
I’ve used Kadees since I started in HO in the mid-'50s.
The McHenrys with the plastic leaf-type knuckle spring were useless almost right from the beginning, but the later version, with a coil spring for the knuckle, worked well-enough, and I’ve not had one fail. I’ve been replacing a lot of the latter with Kadee’s “scale” couplers, though, and they seem to perform fine for me.
Well, maybe people havne’t repeated the model RR mantra enough? Kadee, kadee, kadee.
Yes, I have a set of Athearn RTR Thrall gondolas and pulled them out of the box and ran them stock at a modular meet. The train, when stopped, would randomly uncouple. The couplers are McHenry with the plastic “finger” spring and from sitting in the box, the finger spring had become fatigued and would not reliably keep the nuckle closed.
Those older McHenrey couplers were eventually replaced with a newer verson that has a metal spring, but they are still plastic an much inferior to genuine Kadee’s.
Oviously the need is to replace them with Kadee’s is the answer. I have quite a few pieces of rolling stock that I will be upgrading with Kadee’s once I begin to have some hobby time after getting the basement finnished and layout built to run them. I have several bulk packs on hand for that and will need to get more.
As I said at the outset, these couplers failed right out of the box. So, I just ordered enough Kadee #148 whisker couplers to replace the factory equipped couplers on all 16 tank cars.
