Where’d we get the term “talgo” to refer to a truck-mounted coupler? Was it an early manufacturer?
How’d we get 'em in the first place. Every prototype I’ve ever seen in a museum from “old west” stuff to modern, mines to mills, passenger to intermodal has been a “body mounted” coupler. Was there ever a prototype talgo? If not, who the heck came up with 'em?
I’m not sure about where the terminology came from, but the practicality of it is that the manufacturers could fit cars (and locos) around turns that are way too tight for a body-mount coupler to handle well. Probably came into use when train sets were first being manufactured, as they are designed to be set up in small(ish) areas - with curves that are generally 15" or 18" radius (as opposed to what “big” layouts use ie. 30"+ radius curves).
I’m sure they go back to the beginning of toy trains meant to run on track, at least 100 years now. Remember Lionel 0-27 is 13-1/2" radius, the equivalent of about a 7-8" radius curve in HO !!
p.s. TALGO was the name of a Spanish co. that made the “Talgo Train” back in the forties/fifties that never really caught on here in the US. Don’t know if they used truck mounted couplers ?? I did read somewhere that someone suggested it could be a combination of “Talgo” and “Tyco Truck” which was a brand of truck Mantua made fifty years ago or so (which I assume had truck and coupler combined)??
Mix-ups and combinations like that do happen; the Santa Fe had some streamlined steam engines that were called “Bluebirds”, when Baldwin sent out a diesel demonstrator in the 40’s with a blue and gray paint scheme it was dubbed the “Blue Goose”, somehow these terms merged and people talk now about Santa Fe “Blue Gooses” when they are referring to what back in the day the railroaders called “Bluebirds”.
Hello “k,” The term “talgo” comes from a Spanish design for articulated lightweight passenger trains introduced in the 1950s. (Talgo trains are still being built, in fact Amtrak now operates some in the Pacific Northwest.) Model railroad manufacturers adopted the term for truck-mouning of couplers after the Talgo trains appeared, even though toy trains had been built that way for years, and the design of trucks with integral, swinging coupler mountings had nothing to do with the real Talgo trains. Some passenger cars and long freight cars have couplers mounted on extra long drawbars that can move a little from side to side, but to apply a model railroad term to the prototype, almost all real cars have “body-mounted” couplers. (The main exceptions are things like disconnected log trucks – no bodies! – and some “span-bolster” flatcars and tank cars with two trucks at each end.) So long, Andy
The Talgo trains are still being built in Spain, they have designed high speed trains & articulated train sets that run into many countries within Europe and the they also produce a multi gauge train set. The train regauges itself from the Spanish gauge to the standard gauge & vice versa whilst enroute. Take a look
Shaun
There usto be one flat car up near Seattle w/ truck mounted cupplers, but its been scraped for a few years now. It was used to shove the old two bay grain hoppers in when they went to desals.
I think when they first used 'em someone said, “Hey, when the train derails, 'talgo off the tracks!”
Very funny and they say humour is lost when transfered across the Atlantic Ocean.
Shaun
Nope, just the second “u.” 