I have not switched couplers on any freight cars up to now. Should I use long, short or medium shank lengths? All my track is Kato Unitrack. My switches are #6 and my radius curves are 12 3/8 and 11". Thanks for any advice.
My suggestion is to go to the Micro Trains website and download either the Excel or PDF versions of their conversion data base because there is no simple one answer to this question. The data base is sorted by manufacturer and by locomotive or cars such as Bachmann or Kato. Truck mount and body mount will perform differently on various radiuses and through switches along with the factors of car length and number of axles in a truck plus axle spacing. Their recommended types and coupler shank lengths are developed for the optimum performance of the specific cars. A lot of the longer length modern cars (70 and 80 foot) will not operate on the smaller radius curvature and tighter switches without truck mounted couplers but will operate just fine on radius above 15 and 17 inch.
Thank you for your reply. I believe the couplers/trucks I should have is 1000's. I was looking at truck mounted couplers and was confused in what length shank I should use. My rolling stock is 40-50' cars and presently Atlas cars. Thanks again.
The styles of truck mounted couplers come in what is referred to a short, medium, and long extension. Most of the 40 and 50 foot stuff with truck mounts will take the short shank coupler although there may few that need the medium shank. I usually keep both lengths in my box. If the distance from the center of the bolster hole to the outside edge of the car end is 10mm then the short will work. If over that slightly you need the medium extension.
Ralph, I have a mixture of body mount and truck mount. I have a mixture of makes but, all the truck mount, I have changed to the 1030 if it wasn't a Micro Trains car. Regards, Pete Davies
