Alex,
Judging by the fact you are a young man and that you have Life-like trains, and taking into consideration that you live in remote Australia and probably can’t get Kadees, I put horn hook couplers on the Athearn SW1500 I sent you this week. I know I should have asked what you had first, but it looks like I made a good call.
Use the horn hooks, they will work just fine and you will learn a lot. The point of it all is not what kind of equipment you have, but what you do with what you got.
The shipping is about $19.00 to AU. I’ll let Alex give you the address.
hey hows it goin
Well Horn Hooks are about the worst cupler idea in the world, they don’t look real and they don’t run very well.
I recomend that when ever you buy a loco or a train car you spend an extra buck or two and get some KD #5, there usually not that expensive, depending on were you go You can get a pack of 4 for like $3.00 or get a pack of 10 for $15 but I definently sugest when ever you buy new stuff you get some kd’s to go withem, you cant go wrong.
They’re non prototypical and stupid lookin.
You’ll spend more money doing that double-upgrade. I’d sooner recommend you upgrade directly to KD’s, even if it means you go a little slower.
Horn-hook couplers worked very well when they first came out in the 1950’s. When my father and I replaced our Mantua couplers with horn-hooks, ALL FROM THE SAME MANUFACTURER, they worked fine. Even when magnetic horn-hooks came out and we replaced the mechanical gathering pin with our own piece of iron wire, they still worked as long as they were ALL FROM THE SAME MANUFACTURER.
But when a variety of manufacturers started to equip their kits and RTR with them, each brand was slightly different. After a while,these differences in size, height, contour and spering tension made for very unreliable operation. Luckily, Kadee couplers were becoming popular and they solved the problem.
One aspect that made Kadee’s so effective were that they were available from only one manufacturer and thus all matched.
Unfortunately, history is repeating itself. Most Kadee clones I’ve tried aren’t as good in accurate centering spring tension and/or accurate knuckle spring tension and/or coupling on curves and/or delayed uncoupling and/or strength if accidently run into a bumping post, etc. All the clones with plastic springs loose spring tension if the springs are left compressed. Some plastic knuckle springs have lost their resilence when left between two diesel units for a mere week.
If you just pull a train around the layout occasionally, Kadee clones or even horn-hooks may suit your purpose. But if you have friends over regulary to spend a whole evening switching, classifying trains, making set-outs and pick-ups, then you best stick to Kadee.
I find that most of what I purchase have the horn-hooks, and I really don’t care for them. What I do is cut off the hook and they look more prototypical that way. Of course, they have to be carefully mated in height. I remove the couplers on each end of a train of horn-hooks and add Kadee’s. As time goes on, I replace the other horn-hooks to spread out the cash outlay. So, for a while, the horn-hooks are okay in the middle cars of a train, but I only use Kadee’s to couple to the locomotives.
As a child nothing stayed on the track using horn and hook. Derails etc were VERY common.
I was told “Kaydee” were too expensive. (Figures… 2.00 per car and .75 or whatever they were back then for Kaydee)
Now I fight to get Kaydees factory installed on 400 dollar steam engines or similar at the factory… im told “Cheaper price point” using plastic imitations or worse… dummies.
Kaydee all the way. Ive found some of the other plastic couplers that fit with Kaydee lasts for a while, just long enough for me to restock the Kaydee coupler bin.
This discussion reminds me of when I first discovered Kadees as a kid and used “transition” cars. I would replace the horn hooks as my allowance would allow. I used the same tricks mentioned above like trimming them down to look as prototypical as possible. We all gotta start somewhere.
Alexander, I have horn hooks on about half my fleet here. I like old time steam, my kids like modern diesel, and most of the modern diesel locomotives, freight cars, and passenger cars have horn hooks, while the old time steam locos and cars are all Kadee or similar. Mostly, this is because this is how they were when we bought them.
When you sit on top of a boxcar, looking towards the front of the train, the horn-hook’s spring is pushing the coupler to your left. The car in front of you has its coupler spring pushing to your right. When you couple them together, there is a significant force pushing the front of the car you’re sitting on to your right and the back end of the car ahead of you to your left. Now, this force isn’t strong enough to knock over either car, but once you get them moving, and they encounter rough track, or a turnout, or any other problem, then the sideways force is the straw that breaks the camel’s back, and the horn-hook cars tend to derail first. Backing up, you are using the coupler to push with and that causes problems also.
Eventually, all the cars and engines that stay in service here will be switched over to Kadee couplers, usually one train at a time. The plastic copies of the Kadee coupler’s will be replaced as they break, or if they refuse to uncouple properly over a magnet, or if they start uncoupling when they aren’t supposed to.
I bought one of those Wal-mart organizers for the shop here, a plastic box thing with about 20 slide out drawers. Couplers occupy one whole drawer, while coupler boxes occupy another one. I bought a big bag of Kadees, 20 of them I think, and a couple bags of Joe Somebody’s Universal Coupler Box, a Kadee coupler height gauge, and a bag each of 0.015" and 0.010" shim washers, and now, when ever anything coupler related breaks, needs swapped out, or fixed, the tools and parts necessary are close at hand.
We can get most stuff down under, you just have to know where too look. i don’t live somwhere too isolated, bout 2 hours to brisbane, a city who’s population goes into the millions.
I know I got myself away from horn hooks.
Some modelers out there stuck with horn hooks and made them work.
You will need to evaluate your operations and if your going to do a switchover to knuckle couplers, go the best way that works.
I only recall hornhooks or Kadees, then suddenly someone comes out with plastic versions, prolly competition to kadee promoting they are less expensive.
I would think without heavy grades on a layout and short trains, the plastic knuckle would be OK.
Long trains and grades, better go all out with kadees.
I had converter cars, but now, if its not kadee on the car, it dont run.
I think the new equipment coming out with the plastic knuckles, if it decides to break on me, its change time to kadee.
Kadee knows what they are doing with couplers.
You could try half kadees and half plastic, but locos should get the kadees.
Equipment you think you might do a lot of switching I would go kadees.
Passenger cars may live with the plastics.
Doing a changeover from knuckles to kadee will be a gradual process especially if your thinking to operate now with horn hooks, so take your time and dont break the bank, but the end result you will like much better.
Because horn-hooks remind me of these guys:
and I don’t want my trains to become extinct. Give me a knuckle-head any day.
I cant get them apart
I think I still have two cars still together
I remeber one time picking up a boxcar and twisted oh…
no hornhooks are bad
I get the kadees in the 20 packs
was $19 now $22
K