Hi all, I am looking for some info on your factory supplied trucks & couplers preferences. 1. Micro Trains. 2. Accumate. 3. Other (please elaborate) 4. None (would rather add my choice after market) 5. Don't care whose T's & C's are used. Thanks for your input. My apologies if this has been covered before. My personal preference would be #4. However, #1 would be my choice if I had to choose.
#4 would be only for the "hard-core" modellers. My personal preference is MTL trucks except for modern 100-ton trucks, there I use Atlas because they have the prototypical 36' wheels. Just my 2ct (Eurocents )
#5 - I will only replace a coupler if it breaks. I have entire trains of Rapido including locomotives. Not going to change them.
Well my choice of coupers would be Micro Trains, especially the 100 t modern roller bearing trucks. My second choice would be other, Unimates are good they realy work. The main reason I don't prefer them is because they dont have the automatic knuckling action meaning it takes a little more work to couple and uncouple the cars or engines, but on the other hand the unimates way out due Microtrains because when pulling a heavy train say 50-70+ cars even with mid train helpers say up a 3% grade, the unimates don't cause one to have a train go into emergency because of a break in two or how ever many places the train breaks. One neat thing about microtrains is the slack action, and the second is that sometimes when pulling up hill one's train might "get a knuckle" sometimes.
I guess my answer is #3. I do not use truck mounted couplers. All my cars now get body mounted Micro-Trains couplers (usually 1025) before I run them. (The exception to this has been my Kato Maxi-IV doublestacks, and only because changing them to body mounted couplers will be a chore; I will eventually do it. I do actually like the Kato coupler style...if Kato sold body-mount couplers separately, I might switch to them.) Since I body mount the couplers, I have a fair amount of freedom choosing the trucks. Since I model mostly doublestacks, a lot of the time I'm looking for trucks that can pass for 125-ton trucks on the articulated joints. Roundhouse and Unimate both made some trucks that are decent for this. (The Kato cars come with special trucks for the articulated joints, with correct size 38" wheels.) With the new Fox Valley wheelsets, I have more freedom as well to choose trucks that look good, then choose the right axle size wheelsets to put in them. All my trucks either have FVM wheelsets or brown MT low-pros. (And once again, the exception is that Kato, which have nice metal wheelsets.)
Micro Trains for me. I have bad luck with Accumates un-coupling or just falling apart. I replace the Accumates on Atlas cars with MTL's when they break or frustrate me too bad with the un-coupling.
I use Micro trains couplers. About 75% of my cars are body mount, the rest are truck mount. All have L.P. metal wheels including the micro trains trucks. I have had few problems.:shade: Happy Modelin!
#1 Micro Trains, Low Profile, any type. I've had little to no problems. They will stay together on a down hill grade. I like the way they stay clean...!
1 or 4 if they insist on not using MT couplers. I add $4 onto the price of any car without MT couplers, plus annoyance factor of having to do the conversion.
I will concede that I have heard from multible sources that Accumates will fall apart under loads of 10 plus cars especialy up steep grades. To that end I am prepared to replace them with MT when the time comes. I also expect I will be experimenting with draw bars for my unit trains including those that never had them such as 40 foot box cars. First up will be my shorty ore cars and my beth gons.
Right now I'm running a mix of everything. I don't have any grade or long trains so as long as they intermix, I'm happy. I'm sure as the layout grows I will develop a preference. For now just getting away from crapidos is my main objective.
