What is the best way to permanently couple/attach multiple powered locos so the trucks don’t climb the rails when pusing a long train ie. 18-21 cars? Drawbar? Dummy couplers? Regular Kadee/McHenry? To what should they be attached : truck or body? For use on 30 inch minimum radius.
JDAY
You shouldn’t have to permanently couple them in any case, especially on 30" radius. On 30" radius if they derail its a problem with the track or the trucks, not the couplers.
[#welcome]
First off permanent coupling of powered locos is not a great idea. It makes them hard to handle and performing any maintenance to one unit takes them all out. Using KD or other couplers either body or frame mounted is the best option. The new Sergent engineering couplers are scale size and look cool. If I didn’t need about 1000 of them I would be switching to them.
http://sergentengineering.com/
Pete
i believe the early FT covered wagons were connected with a drawbar between the A and B unit.
as for HO scale models, as stated before you should have no trouble with any body mounted coupler if your track is in decent shape
. i do have a couple sets of yard/transfer power that are mu’ed and i cut the trip pins off the kadees between the units. that way they don’t get seperated over magnets in the yard tracks and i can still seperate them easily with a pick or rix tool when necessary.
years ago i ran some F units and alcos with hobbytown drives that used a jack shaft and u joints between the units. the motor was in the b unit and the 2 a units were connected to it with drawbars. on the rare occasions that one of them needed attention it was like grabbing a python by the head and trying to roll the whole snake over at once.
grizlump
If your engines all have body-mounted couplers, and are speed-matched (assuming you’re in DCC), they shouldn’t have any unusual derailment issues on 30" curves.
If you have two engines that run together all the time, you can put dummy couplers (like the Accurail ones) between them. One advantage with the Accurail ones is they will mate with Kadee couplers if necessary.
FT’s were designed to use drawbars, so could only be run in A-B (or A-A) sets. Santa Fe (IIRC) got GM to rig up a coupler between the A and B units so they could mix and match them. However many railroads continued using drawbars between A and B units on later F units. I think some NP F unit A-B sets made it to BN still with drawbars(??)
Except for a few A-B-A sets (like FT sets using the FTSB short booster), railroads normally would only put two engines together with drawbars - longer sets couldn’t be turned on turntables, and many steam era roundhouses were used for diesel maintenance too so you had to be able to get the engines on the turntable to get it in the right stall.
If you’re running DC and are running two or more engines that don’t all match up in speed, put the faster loco in front, then next fastest and so on. If you’re running DCC you should adjust the CV’s to more closely match the other locos, if you don’t or can’t do that, then follow the DC recommendation.A faster locomotive pushing a slow loco can easily cause derailments. Permanently coupling locos won’t solve any derailment issues.
Almost all my F-units are permanently coupled A/B units. The higher end ones came with close coupling and diaphrams. All I did was give both units the same address. I did have several sets of P1K A/B units that did not couple closely and I decided to join them closely with drawbars. I got a great tip on how to do that and I wish I could credit the person who gave me the tip but I’ve forgotten who it was. He suggested creating drawbars by cutting up old credit cards to the proper width to fit in the coupler boxes. It’s fairly easy to calculate how far apart to drill the pivot holes in the drawbar and the proper length for the couplers. All my A/B sets now run as if they were a single loco. Occasionally, I will MU them to create an A/B/B/A lash up, but I only do that when I want to run really long trains. For the most part, two units is sufficient.
I can identify with that. I have several pairs of large locos that are permanently mu’d and coupled together. As you said, it’s like handling a snake for even a simple wheel cleaning.
What brand of locomotives are these that are climbing the rail?
For any pushing job one definitely wants body mounted couplers.