I often have little disasters caused by the “hose” that “hangs” below knuckle couplers on my rolling stock. If the car or the coupler is just a bit low, it will catch on a turnout, especially the Walthers 3-Way I have right on my mainline. The metal “hose” will hook and the car will be violently bounced off the track. Sure, I may have some deviation in the hight of couplers and even in the track, but it is only a problem for a few select cars.
I am assuming that these metal wires are useful for those of us who magnetically uncouple cars, but I don’t and I don’t plan to.
I have seen people remove these pieces of metal wire with a quick clip of a diagonal cutting pliers. I was at Sears today and saw the perfect mini cutter so I grabbed it.
I snipped my worst offending car tonight, but the question is: Should I cut them all? Why should I keep these approximations of scale hose if I am not using magnetic uncoupling. Sometimes I feel like the metal piece helps cars easily mate, but I am not really sure.
I think you just answered your own question. The trip pins do not aid in coupling, they exist for magnetic uncoupling. If you don’t use this feature no sweat. The coupler police will not arrest you.
Could be a bit more complicated in some cases. Some of the older Kadee designs use the metal hose or “trip pin” to help locate the two pieces of the coupler. I’m thinking specifically of the 714, which is used for HOn3 but has related SG versions.
You can still cut them off, but you need to leave the stub that’s right in the sliding coupler-half surfaces in place for it to work properly. Kind of hard to describe, but once you’ve looked at it it’s usually clear what needs to be done.
For most modern Kadee designs, it doesn’t matter. But take a peek or ask if you’re not sure before wholesale amputations from a fleet.
I did do this to a few of my NG cars, then quit. It seemed to affect the dynamics of the 714 a little, but maybe just my imagination? Probably less of a consideration with #5s.
One other thing is that a sagging coupler trip pin is useful for telling that you are in the middle of having a coupler failure. Loose mounting, broken, whatever. There’s usually a reason worth figuring out when a car develops a problem, otherwise it will just fail with no warning. In the end, I found it was better to correct either the car or the track when these issues crop up and that is facilitated by having the trip pins in place as a means monitor coupler adjustment.
After experimenting with the idea, I’ve decided to leave them in place for now.
I have always followed the KD instructions to make sure the trip pin is bent up just enough to level a little space above the rails, and clears the KD coupler height gauge. I also make the couplers match the height guage and I never had any issues or reason to snip them off. I figure I’ll never have the option to use the delayed or magnetic uncoupling if I do snip them off and again, why if they don’t cause trouble. I know some do because the are not prototypical, ok fair enough but on my RR I’m leaving them.
I correct sagging and snagging trip pins, but I leave them on on my rolling stock. I do cut off the trip pins on the front couplers of my steamers, though. I think it gives a more realistic appearance.
If your coupler trip pin is snagging the rails of turnouts, the problem is more likely to be that the coupler itself is too low. If you cut the pin off, you will fix the immediate problem with the three-way turnout, but will not cure the underlying problem of the knuckle itself being too low, and will cause unexpected uncoupling.
Invest in a coupler height gauge and test all your knuckle heights. Once they’re all roughly the same height you will pretty much cure the problem of unwanted uncoupling, whether the coupler has a trip pin on or not
Gidday, I’m going along with the previous posters who suggest that you may have a coupler height problem and would endorse using the Kadee coupler height gauge.
When buying second hand rolling stock it personally annoys me if the pins have been trimmed previously, even though I’m not currently intending to use magnetic uncoupling, and still replace them. [*-)]
So I’d be a NOT clip.
Having just said that I have to remember that its your railway, so…
I don’t use the magnetic uncoupling feature so I cut the trip pins off just beneath the coupler head. I do however try to get the coupler as close to the proper height as I can. A few are a little higher or a little lower but are within tolerance. These are usually on cars originally equipped with truck mounted couplers. Some cars factory equipped with body mount couplers are a little off. Bachmann has a flatcar that’s notorious for this.
I belong to the non-snipping crowd. I think it makes the coupler look more realistic and if they are adjusted properly, they don’t hang up on turnouts. Jim Hediger makes a height fixture out of a couple of re-railers and two height gauges that make the checking process pretty simple.
I’ve used KDs since the '70s, and early on pondered the question of cutting off the trip pins or not. However, I kept them all intact, bending them upwards a tad to avoid catching on trackage (the KD pliers are excellent for this).
My reasons were threefold:
the “hose” added some degree of realism to coupled cars
while I didn’t use magnetic uncoupling, someday I might
the cars will be more “sellable” with the couplers intact (I have sold about 250 over the years).
Your cars, your RR, but I would attempt to keep them intact.
Even cheaper is the round nose pliers at $5.78. These can also be found at the crafts stores like Michaels or AC Moore in the jewelry section. They will work as well, thought the trip pin pliers is the better of the two…
I am assuming that these metal wires are useful for those of us who magnetically uncouple cars, but I don’t and I don’t plan to.
One of the beauties of KD couplers is the hands off uncoupling and the ability to use delayed uncoupling to spot cars in hard to reach area or without the need to reach over structures and scenery.
As others have mention you need to adjust the coupler and trip in height by using a KD coupler gauge.
If you have the Athearn BB cars you may need to disassemble them and straighten the weight or frame if not both.
You may need to add a KD washer in order to get the correct height.
Anyone who is into prototype switching operations has likely found that even manual uncoupling with a small stick or screwdriver is sometimes better done using the trip pin rather than trying to “open” the knuckle from the top.
HO trains are small, relatively precission little pieces of equipment, reasonably tight tolerances and proper adjustment are necessary for good operation.
As others have explained, a wide selection of tools exist to aid in the proper setup and adjustment of Kadee couplers.
As someone woh operates on a number of different “operating” layouts, I can asure you the magnetic uncoupling works well if every thing is correctly set up.
And, as others have mentioned, the trip pins do provide a sense of the air hoses especially when coupled in a train.
Mine most definately stay, with one exception, on the fronts of some locos they can be problematic with the pilot. I sould note here that on some diesels the pin can be reshaped or reversed to be hinden by the pilot and still work.
At the time I was first setting up my cars I as in college and too cheap to buy the special plyers, so I used needle nose I had instead. Guess what? The needle nose worked just fine and I’ve been using them since.
I frequently buy used cars. If I see that the trip pins have been cut off, I don’t buy them. Selling a car and saying that you have K-dee couplers on them when you have cut the trip pin is lying about the condition of the car, in my opinion.