Standardization-why not?

Model Railroader General Discussion (Model Railroader)
1

I’ve been in this hobby for 60 years, and have seen “standards” established for a lot of things. Can any body explain why every manufacturer uses a truck mounting screw no one else uses? How about car bolster bosses? Couplers, same situation. Different retainer screws, different draft gear boxes. Different axle lengths. It is bedlam as far as the running gear of our trains is concerned.

This rant is generated by my installing code 88 wheelsets and replacing couplers if necessary, with Kadee 153s, or 156 on cars with cushioned underframes. Drop a screw and figure “Forget it, I’ll hunt for it later! I just use one from my stash, instead.” Not so fast bucko! You need a wierd machine screw with a shouldered shank, instead of a simple 2-56. Why?? There is no undo stress on HO scale rolling stock, that requires all of this exotic hardware. Could it be time to institute standards for truck and coupler mounting, with common sense deviations for special installations?

2

I was discussing a similar thing with a friend who used to model O scale. He was complaining about how in HO everything is assembled differently. Every company has different wheels, pickups, couplers, screws, body removal, decoder plug, etc.

I told him that HO models differ from O, N or even european OO scale in the sense that there are a vastly more diverse amount of manufacturers. The benefits of having so many manufacturers are obvious, however a drawback is that everyone makes models differently.

Every manufacturer seems to use their own brand of knockoff kadees. It would be nice to have some standardization, but if you were to standardize all locos having kadees preinstalled, kadee would completely monopolize the market (which it kinda already does)

On the other hand though, I would much rather have annoying screws and couplers than only have two major monopolies making all my models.

O has Lionel, MTH, (and others like atlas, weaver, 3rd rail, etc)

N has Kato, Bachmann (and others like BLI, etc)

OO has Bachmann, Hornby (and others like Hattons, DJM, Oxford, etc)

HO has BLI, Walthers, Athearn, Scale trains, Bachmann, Atlas, Intermountain (and others like tyco mantua lionel tangel exact rail life like mth accurail bowser fox valley rivarossi, etc)

In short, its a trade off you’ll have to deal with when you model such a diverse scale.

Charles

3

There’s more to it than simplicity for the end user. I fear a lot of it is the simple “follow the money” mantra.

Right now, Europe is pushing for standardization of cell phone charging cables. I have a phone and a tablet, both Android devices, but the plugs are different. The GF has an Apple, yet another variant. With markets in the hundreds of millions, why not standardize? Because Apple is screaming bloody murder about it.

We are lucky to have the NMRA to enforce some standards. DCC prevaied over DCS because of popular standards that most adhered to, while MTH slowly faded. We are also lucky to have Kadee, who has made their couplers a de facto standard by adapting to everyone else’s odd all needs.

4

Standardizing screws for trucks would not be very practical for model manufacturers, especially since it’s such a minute detail.

As for Kadee’s being a standard coupler, while I would like that myself; it probably ignores some other constraints. Could be that Kadees would bump up the price of some models, hence why most cheaper products use EZ Mates or McHenry’s instead. Note most higher end manufacturers use Kadee as a default, but not the entry level stuff.

5

I think that this is just a small example of a somewhat large problem. For example, a lack of standard in paint colors leads to a very miatched engine roster. Some of my locos look red and green and some look pale orange and green. With the advent of DCC consisting is easier, and some standards are there, but things like function buttons can vary greatly. It’s just the nature of the hobby. Lots of different locations, road names, etc, etc. Vareity is a blessing and a curse.

6

NMRA doesn’t “enforce” any standards. There are no NMRA Police. Compliance is optional.

There HAS been, and may still be, a “bug” that can be used on a product that is NMRA compliant. I think that’s pretty much long gone–certainly ignored. I think the idea was that NMRA members should boycott any product without the bug. You can imagaine how THAT worked out.

If enough people felt strongly about standardization, and went the above route, you’d have standardization. It won’t happen.

I think NMRA has done a pretty good job with standards and recommended practices. NOT perfect. Not even super good. But up there, considering.

Ed

7

It seems to me like, especially for couplers, this is kind of a new development. In recent years, perhaps connected to the trend for more scale-sized couplers, many HO cars now have a narrower coupler box and use smaller screws to hold the cover in place. In prior years, seems like most all freight cars used 2-56 screws for couplers and trucks (except for Athearn and their metal ‘snap on’ cover for the coupler box.)

8

The world has changed, get over it. Many of the non Kadee’s work fine though most don’t last as long. NMRA is not the power house it once was, their own fault by the way, they did not take a stand on items and they lost control of their divisions too, some are great and some are truly not very good. Moving their headquarters without a real vote. Latest was the national convention that went virtual, from what I hear, not many showed up. I would have gone to an accual convention but virtual, no way as I can get free clinics every day on the likes of u-tube, why pay and not just a token amount either.

9

When a factory in China agrees to construct, test, package, and to ship a container load of passenger cars, it must cost them in order to make a profit. It will source all the design costs, jig and die costs, machining costs, and materials costs. Then comes the costs associated with assembly, and the packaging, including getting them designed, printed, and delivered to the factory or assembly contractor. In order to make a couple renminbi, they have to get the cheapest available that still meet specs, and then make their offer.

Kadees would add maybe $.50 to the cost of a car across an order for 6000 of them. That could sway some serious pennypinchers, but not most who want a specific car, especially if it’s to be a one-time run.

10

Because they can.

11

Is there not possibly an element of copyright at stake here? In the sense that the external apperance is of course OK to replicate - obviously - but if say an MTH passenger car had the exact same truck mounting as Walthers it may be construed as an infringment, as much as it would make everyone’s life easier in terms of interchangeability. If it’s screw thread size and pitch then no. Designers though are notorious for feeling they have the best way to do things.

12

Not copyright, but patent.

It would have to be something new and original.

Slight differences in truck mounting wouldn’t qualify. Take that cute center boss that Athearn made famous for their truck mounting. They can’t patent it. Nor can someone else, even if they make it .010" larger in diameter. There’s nothing novel about the concept.

Leaving out electronics, there isn’t much patentable in model trains. Kadee couplers were an example, but their patent ran out. But for years, it was THEIR market. Worked pretty well. Sergent couplers could have been patented, but he chose to release the patent.

Anyway, copying someone else’s idea, but changing it slightly doesn’t cut it in the patent field.

Ed

13

Imagine how great it would be if car wheels all fit the same. Right now we have four-bolt, five-bolt, six-bolt, etc And the shape of the hub? Etc. Just think if my Chevy wheel would fit my Toyota. Now who would blink first? WHo would change their pattern to fit a competitor’s product? Who would set the standard?

HO train screws? OK, who would adopt the competitor screw first? In my long career in electronics, I disassembled and rebuilt thousands of things, and they all had different hardware. SOme SAE screws,others metric. I even had to keep track of screws holding a lid in place. Some were machine screws, some sheet metal type - on the same lid. It is a matter of staying organized. I used pill vials, 35mm fim cans, tubs from cream cheese or soft butter, ziplock bags, whatever it took. I very rarely lost any hardware.

14

Do the rims on a Chevy fit a Ford?

Sheldon

15

The NMRA has Recommended Practices for bolsters as I recall, which if followed would go a long way toward standardization – again, if they were followed. But when you read the equipment reviews in the NMRA Magazine, it is almost unheard of for the rolling stock under review to get a check mark for those RPs, whether or not they actually follow the NMRA Standards and get a conformance certificate. And somewhat undercutting even the NMRA standards, much less the NMRA recommended practices, often the equipment reviews in the NMRA Magazine refuse to issue a conformance certificate but concede the rolling stock runs great with no problems.

The Recommended Practice for wheel profiles and flanges, RP25, has been a huge success for over half a century. All other RPs are kind of ignored it seems, compared to RP25.

The NMRA tried to stadardize couplers back in the 1950s, with spectacularly unsuccessful and controversial results. Some even date the slow decline of the NMRA’s status to that attempt (what they should have focused on was a standardized coupler pocket).

We should be grateful that the NMRA with the help of Lenz was able to standardize DCC as early as it did, leaving relatively few modelers with 'noncompliant" systems, most of which would have needed to be replaced sooner or later anyway. Flush with that success the NMRA attempted to create and standardize “LCC” (Layout Command Control) and bellyflopped again, in part because the techno/geeks they put in charge were (in common with many techno/geeks) unable to write in clear English what they were doing and why – I have never encounterd such incoherent articles in any model train magazine – and partly because neither MR or RMC showed any interest in the topic and said little or nothing about it in their pages, perhaps because they knew a stink bomb when they saw one.

But soon, maybe it is already here, the NMRA’s DCC standards will resul

16

And air filters! There must be literally hundreds of different sizes of engine air filter being produced right now, even though IMO 99% of automobiles could easily have been designed to fit one of only like 4 standardized sizes.

This one hits close to home for me because the other day I was given an engine air filter for the 2017 version of my car, which is a 2018. Apparently in 2018 they decided to change the air filter; it is now approx 1/8th of inch wider and 1/8th of an inch taller. I cannot fathom why they decided it makes sense to redesign and retool the air filter plus the case it is housed in for such minor differences.

I suppose it boils down to the fact that companies don’t decide to do what’s really best for their customers. “Companies” don’t decide anything at all. They’re not sentient beings. People working in the companies make these decisions and they may not be deciding on what’s best for customers. Heck, they might not even be deciding on what’s best for the company… could be just looking out for #1.

The world in general would work a lot eaiser and more efficiently if people would try to cooperate, but it is the way it is

17

How about we just all drive the same kind of car, made in the government factory, by the government workers and never change or improve it?

Good products from the past like GRAVELY and Checker were slow to change and had high parts interchangeably for decades. But not everyone saw the value in this.

All of you in favor of total standardization will make good little comrades.

Sheldon

18

You know, say what you will, but the Soviet GAZ model 24 was a pretty good looking car!

-KΘMRADΣ KεVIÑ

[(-D] (apparently forum software does not support cryllic characters)

19

Eeze soundink like great idea, comrade Sheldonski, mit Ladas in effry drivink-vay, und borsht-only for effry comrade’s soup bowl. Vun size fits all!

Boris Tauruspentsov

20

I spent my entire working career in maintenance (61 years) and there is very little standardization between products and never will be.

There will always be SAE and Metric screws. It’s a hobby guys. To me its fix it or make it work, nothing is ever going to change things.

I have a good selection of tools to make things work for me the way I want and very happy that I can change things to work my way.

Mel

My Model Railroad
http://melvineperry.blogspot.com/

Bakersfield, California

I’m beginning to realize that aging is not for wimps.