I was getting ready to have a ceremony of sorts for almost finishing my trackwork by running two trains, but then I realized something: I have an Atlas Alco diesel, two Walthers stock cars, a Walthers caboose, and will eventually have some Atlas USRA single-sheathed boxcars (N Scale). I realized that the engine, stock cars, and caboose have different couplers than the boxcars I am ordering. The boxcars have “AccuMate” couplers, while it appears that the rest have “universal” couplers. I would like to switch these all to AccuMate, or really any type of coupler that looks more realistic than the universal ones. I looked for some couplers, but I really don’t know what I should be buying. Any suggestions?
Micro-Trains couplers are pretty much the standard and operate quite well. Their website (in the previous post) lists the conversions for just about everything ever made. [8D]
A lot of folks complain about Accumates, but I’ve had good luck with the ones I have.
Ray
Accumates and Micro Train (MT) couplers will work with each other, but many in our scale prefer MT’s. They have been around the longest, are the most reliable, and have the most truck styles.
The ‘standard’ coupler you are referring to is known as the “Rapido” coupler. They have been around since the beginning of N-scale, and are generally reliable but ugly. If you find yourself in ownership of a lot of Rapido equipped cars and are short on money, you could always make a conversion car in which one end is Rapido equipped and the other is either MT or Accumate.
Accumates are not bad, but had a very unfortunate start which has since been fixed. But many have a looooong memory and prefer to stay away from them altogether.