January’s Scale Rails contains a product review of Fox Valley Models Pullman-Standard 5344 cubic foot single door boxcar. For the small scale of the model, it has excellent detail and outstanding lettering. Nevertheless, I’m unpleasantly surprised a model of this high calibre would continue the practice of truck-mounted couplers. It takes away from the model’s realism and seems so unnecessary because such a small scale would be in less need for compromises for very tight curves compared to larger scales which do not make this awful compromise. When will N scale abandon such a toyish quality?
I tihnk it’s a matter of “do you WANT to ditch truck mounted couplers?”, and the n community probably just doesn’t want to. I model n scale, and personally, I see no reason to switch to body mounted couplers.
Now, if you really want to go body mount and you’re in N, I’m pretty sure there’s stuff from micro-trains to do it.
i have a load of bachmann passenger cars that i bodymounted microtrains couplers when i got rid of the rapidos. big improvment. i tried to use z scale couplers on the cars but the coupler box was too long and interfered with the trucks on curves. my frieght cars (over 100) have come with truck mounted microtrains or accumates which i think are inferior to microtrains and i’ll change them over when i get the time. one nice thing about truck mounted couplers is that they will couple on a curve. microtrains cars come with a dimple on the underside where a bodymounted coupler would go. also with the size of the coupler box it may interfere with the trucks on tight curves.
Perhaps coupler assemblies are relatively wider compared to the larger scales and this restricts truck-assembly movement? Are some coupler types in N scale have smaller/narrower coupler pockets than others?
Micro-Trains dominates the N scale industry and they are dead-set on truck mounted couplers. If they were to ever switch over, then everything that they have offered in the past will become obsolete. Not to mention that a huge chunk of their product line (trucks with couplers attached) will become obsolete.
I’m not sure. Really, anybody with enough time, patience, and who wanted to spend his money on it could upgrade his fleet to body mounts. I’ve been debating if I can add body mount couplers to some streamline coaches I have, they’re Model Power (got them back when I had no clue what was what), and I don’t think there’s a drop in replacement for their truck mounts. Like I said, it’s a matter of personal choice, I like how my cars perform with truck mounted couplers, and for right now, they have accumate couplers (just glad to get ri of those rapido couplers and bachmann cars) and are all from atlas. If you wanted to make room for some body mount couplers, I’d say it’s feasible.
I don’t think that there really is an issue with this—unless of course the RTR crowd make enough noise about this to make manufacturers change the design. I don’t find it an issue either way—
Sure it’s feasible to use body mounted couplers in N-Scale but why bother? Mosat people who see N-Scale equipment moving don’t even notice unless they hold up the car. There usually isn’t a problem with truck mounted couplers in this scale anyway. So what if it’s unrealistic? The whole hobby isn’t realistic as we use electricity to run steam and diesels and none of the people on our layouts do anything but stand there.
The fact that I can couple cars on mild curves makes me want to stick the the truck mounted couplers. I agree that the body mount scheme is more prototypical and looks better from close up, but from 3 feet away it’s just not noticable.
I frequently run trains in the 40 to 60 car length range and have no problems backing up or starting. My minimum radius is 15 inches and since eliminating the helix for a wye, I have had no issues related to string lining in greater than 270 degree turns. 11 foot long consists sometimes try to take short cuts when the locomotive is well past the caboose and going the other way.
My only issue with N Scale couplers is the slinkey effect. I cure that with a heavy car on the back of the consist.
If the manufacturers decided to go with body mount couplers on new releases, I would figure out a way to make them work reliably. As to when that happens; your guess is as good as mine.
Dave’s right in that Micro-Trains had a huge influence in N scale and still does have a strong presence, and they do rely on truck-mounted couplers.
Operating a train with a mix of body- and truck-mounted couplers can be problematic. Well-laid track alleviates most issues, but back-up moves of long car cuts with mixed coupler types can occasionally lead to derailments.
Another frustration I have is that truck-mounted couplers require a higher ride-height to clear the end sills, so most N scale cars are a scale foot or more higher off the rail than they should be.
SOMEDAY I may get to body-mounting my couplers and lowering my cars, but it’s an enormous task (I have both a 1956 PRR and 1980 Conrail roster) and I have other modeling priorities at the moment.
But I agree, it’s high time N scale starts doing “what the big boys do.” I think we’re in a place now where manufacturing standards of rolling stock and track in N scale is comparable to HO; HO went body-mounted a long time ago.
I’ve body mounted for a long while because I found that the truck mounts were too clumsy around corners and such—but if some people want the truck mounts I’m not going to quibble—too time consuming anyways—
That is why God created Pizza cutters. Pizza cutters (barf) are there to counter-act the lateral forces associated with backing up trains with truck mounted couplers.
When I was in N scale (Years and years ago) I had body mounted couplers all around with Z scale couplers. I also used CD55 track, so that ruled out pizza cutters.
First of all, body mounted couplers allow backing moves of longer trains with fewer derailments.
Secondly, if you’re going to play the “it’s not realistic” card to such a ridiculous degree, you clearly aren’t interested in simulating the real world in miniature in the first place.
I always thought that one wanted to avoid derailments—I always thought that you avoided this by body mounting couplers instead of loose flapping trucks being coupled—oh well—[:-^]
The point still revolves around some of us want them body coupled and some insist on truck coupling—so why not market to both?
I tinkered with N scale, and it surprises me for how light the equipment is it stays on the track, hook couplers body mounted and all. I’ll never get real serious for N scale, HO is my thing.
Two members in my club body mount their couplers. It seems like a lot of work to me but they swear thats the way to go. Me being new into N scale I think I’ll just stick with the truck mounted couplers.
All of this discussion made me wonder why most of our locomotives of modern manufacture are body mounted? I went through my inventory and the only locomotive that I run that has a truck mounted coupler is the Kato GG1. I haven’t expierienced any derailments that could be attributed to either scheme as the only derailments I’ve had recently were due to going through mispositioned turnouts. As I said before that may be attributed to nothing less than 15" radius.
Then I said HMMMM… Do I even have any rolling stock with body mounted couplers? Sure enough, a string of deluxe twin stacks that have operated reliably for years and then I looked at my Roadrailers and sure enough they couple through a pin in the front and a drawbar in the rear of each trailer. What about the coupling scheme on the Kato Broadway Limited kitchen/dormitory to diner car hook up? It works well and is not truck mounted. It hasn’t given me any problems yet.
So I guess that I’ve been running body mounts for years and never gave it a thought. I’ve also been running a mixture of both truck and body mounts without any significant trouble. I did once have a couple pocket on a twinstack come apart, but that was connected to an FT A/B/B/A set, with (3) 5 unit twinstacks and 30 roadrailers in tow on a 2% grade. A search of the rails allowed recovery of all the bits and a little CA during reassembly fixed that.
Maybe it’s time to look at the issue from a manufacturers point of view. It’s probably not cost effective to modify current tooling, but new tooling would be do-able.
Then the question would be; will it sell? PCM couldn’t generate enough preorders for the N Scale H2a hoppers and they were supposed to be body mounted although that is not the the reason they were cancelled.
I consider myself an advanced N scaler (if age has anything to do with it). I’m not convinced that one way or the other is best as a general statement. Different layouts and operating styles present different requirements.
Yes, body mounts do offer advantages in many instances, but not all. Smaller layouts with tighter curves can be problematic with a lot of body mounts, particularly on passenger and longer freight cars. Consider that smaller layouts aren’t likely to have long trains that need a lot of backing up, and truck mounts become the better option.
I’ve converted all of my 55 ton fishbelly hoppers to body mounts for a couple of reasons… One of my tipples is at the top of a steep switchback, which caused the truck mounts to buckle when pushing 5 cars up the grade. Since this mine is limited to 55 ton cars, I needed to modify the rolling stock so it could work in that operation.
From a more practical standpoint, this conversion also solved the problem of the extended coupling distance caused by the Accumate truck/coupler design. I simply nipped off the coupler box, then attached it to the sill using a dot of CA glue. Happily, Atlas provides a sill which makes this very easy.
By contrast, many tank, open and covered hoppers do not provide a sill to work with, so body mounting becomes more of a challenge. So general service cars tend not to get converted.
If the manufacturers decided to standardize everything as body mounts, I wouldn’t mind it… I do like the way this stabilizes switching moves, but I’m not dissatisfied with operating with a mix of truck mounts and body mounts.