What is this about car mounted couplers, not wheel mounted ? My trains will be mostly freight with 15 cars max.and N-scale.
On the Prototype couplers are body mounted. On most N scale cars couplers are truck mounted. This allows them to operate on sharper curves.
Some modelers advocate body mounting for better (more prototypical) appearance and better operation (particularly when pushing cars).
I personally am satisfied with the appearance of truck mounting. and don’t consider body mounting worth my effort. Body mounts are great but difficult to do right and if done wrong will not operate properly[:(].
HO scale used to have a lot of truck mounting too, but manufactures have up graded to body mounting. The will probably happen in N scale some day. (it has already happended with N scale locos[:)]).
I personally prefer body mounted couplers. they take a little more work but I like it so much better.
[2c]
dekruif
I have some cars with body-mount, but nothing runs more reliably on my layout than good old Micro-Trains cars with truck-mounted couplers and pizza-cutter flanges. I do have some problems with mixing body-mount and truck mount, but mostly with passenger equipment. With a minimum mainline radius of 13.5" the problems are mostly cosmetic and not really mechanical. I get a mis-match of diaphragms that way.
Some N scale cars are designed for easy conversion to body mount, but most are not. I tried body mounting for awhile, but found it difficult to get the coupler aligned properly with the center line of the car. Even a slight mis-alignment leads to major operational problems. Vertical alignment is important too, but usually easier to do.
I am not bothered by the appearance truck mounted MTL or Accumates on N scale cars. I am happy that body mounts are becomming the standard on locos.
Most N-scale modelers I know use truck mounted couplers (including me). They look good and work just fine - especially on those real long N-Trak trains.
But there’s nothing wrong with going body mounted. In fact, I’ve noticed that some of my cars have pilot holes to make it easy to line them up. But I’ve heard that you need to have a layout with gentler curves in order to assure their reliability.
If one is concerned enough about appearance to body mount they should use MTL Z- scale couplers. They are closer to correct for N-scale. They will couple and operate with the N-scale couplers so conversion can be spread over time.
What do you consider “gentler curves”?
I use body-mounted couplers for the reasons addressed by DSchmitt in his post. I find them immensely more reliable in shoving operations - I’m really not much into the lets-see-how-many-cars-we-can-shove-into-the-spurs-today school of operation but I do do (I can’t believe I said “do do”!! Bergie will surely censor me for this slip-of-tongue!!) a certain amount of juggling cars on my pike and occasionally I do enjoy an “operating” session - my “operating” session is sending a peddler out to drop and pick-up cars out on the line and, of course, there is a “yard” job which switches local industries. My “operating” sessions don’t require three hundred and eighty-six hours and five hundred and sixty-two pages of paperwork. I handlay my own switches and no matter how much care I exercise in their construction talgos (truck mounted) couplers still love to pick points.
I still use talgos - and will probably continue to use them - on my passenger equipment and I occasionally drop and pick up a diner at my “division” point. I have quite a few (freight) cars which still need to be converted but my current layout is in the process of destruction and it will be about two years before I will be able to begin building a new (portable) one - that gives me a lot of time to get the job done.
Other posters have addressed the issue of radius standards for body-mounted couplers. My minimum (mainline) radius (at one point only) is 15 inches - that is a tight curve even in N-Scale - and I have experienced some trouble with 89 foot cars at that location - the “coeffiecient of lurch”, a term coined by the late John Armstrong, is just a little sever at that location and I occasionally experience an 89 footer on the ties. I go down as low as 9 inches on my spurs/industrial trackage but these are slow speed operations and I seldom shove 89 footers into that trackage.
Another issue addressed was centering the coupler - I built a
Since I don’t have much experince running body-mounted couplers, I can’t say for sure what min radius one should go with. I suppose it would depend on the length of the car as well as the type of coupler and how well it’s installed. I’d say, at the very least (using Atlas N-scale sectional curve track), stay away from 9 3/4" as I have personally seen troubles with this radius and body mounts. Not sure if 11" is too tight as well. Maybe start with 19"?