Flash- When I get up enough courage to sally forth again into the mysteries of space and small motors, I shall. In the meantime, I am scenicking.
Well I panicked today.. I was carefully assembling my New Roundhouse MKT Carriage ( See Identify my Diesel Post) and it is in Kit form, other words you put it all together, from the Wheels to the little Turnwheel on the Front end of the Carriage.. As I had to put the Rapido couplers onto the Wheelset, I lost the little spring that goes in between its mount and the Wheel set...., well I nearly spent 2 hours looking for it and I couldnt find it, so I thought Oh well another this wont work as the coupler just droops in position, then I remembered.... AFX slot Cars have springs on their pick up shoes, and I went straight to my AFX spare Car parts and got one of their Springs and mounted it in no worries !! The Carriage hooks up nice every time... So AFX Slot Car parts come in Handy when I am racing the Slot cars and When I am chilling out with the trains...
My bet is that there are thousands of springs literally lying around in various places in the workrooms of our members. There are also thousands of various Atlas springs sitting in old tobacco tins and plastic storage cabinet drawers waiting for the time when one might be needed. I have observed that our members are notorious squirrels and will not dispose of anything short of it being beyond hope of repair. Even then, if it looks like it can be part of a gondola scrap load, it will never be tossed. All you need do is ask if there is something of the sort that you can not replace yourself.
I've slowly gotten rid of most of the Rapido couplers from my fleet of locos and rolling stock. Sometimes I just chose to sell them off cheap at swap meets. The use of knuckle couplers versus the non-proto Rapidos really makes all model railroad equipment (regardless of scale) look like models... not toys. I was resistant to change at first because I had much invested in Rapido equiped trains... but the difference IHMO... is dramatic. Just put two identical locos or rolling stock next to each other... one with Rapido and one with ANY knuckle coupler. The knuckle coupler equiped model just looks less toy-like. Using Rapidos now-a-days is like using training wheels on a Tour-de-France cycle.
Well .. thanks for the history lesson .. but it still doesnt change my view of thse things... comparing crapidos to ms-dos does nothing but reinforce my opinion that these things are detrimental to N Scale .. your opinion and mileage will vary I am sure. I still have a few pieces of rolling stock to convert, but until I do, they are relegated to the RIP track. Standards evolve in this hobby .. just like any other hobby ..and we should keep up.
Same here. I was an early convert so many things now need to be updated again. For instance, I added Microtrain couplers to my old Arnold Alco S2 switchers. However, they still had truck mounted couplers and huge gaping holes in the pilots. I picked up some kits to convert LL BL-2 real cheep at a swap meet. I was able to shave down the pilot insert to fit in the hole and mount the 1015 couplers that came with the kit right to the metal frame. Even that change was dramatic for me. We have come a long way but it can be intimidating for a newbie to have to deal with it all. That is why it is great that many locomotives are now coming out of the box with knuckles. I seems there will always be Rapidos but they are becoming fewer and fewer.
My opinion and mileage does vary. For one thing I don't denigrate a product whose only offence is esthetics and see no reason for anyone else to no matter how strongly they feel. I guess I would encourage you to contact who ever holds the patent on the available knuckle couplers and sell them on the idea that it should be public domain. That I feel would be the best use of energy. I'll join you in the effort if you like. A little more history on patents. Did you know that George Westinghouse, (as in the company Westinghouse), did not believe in patents. He gave the design for the air brake to the public for _free_. He also died a penniless. The air brake is what makes trains stoppable in a controlled manner. When the folks who hold the patents on MTs and Accumates make them available the way Rapidos are then it will be a good thing. Till then life goes on and it is toooooo short to get upset over a coupler design, (and I think most folks would agree with me). Be well, enjoy,
Almost all of my passenger equipment still has the stock trucks and couplers, which are Rapidos. They never give me any trouble on the bumpy NTrak layout, even in passenger trains of 9 to 12 cars. I have buddies who have the "high end" passenger cars with lights and whatnot, and they have a lot more disconnects and with their "knuckle" couplers than I have with my Rapidos. I have a friend who runs a coal train with the Atlas hoppers and 3 or 4 Kato SDs on the point. The Atlas trucks with Rapidos (the run before they changed to a 2-part pocket to hold the Accumates) track fine, roll easy, and stay coupled up to around 50 cars. I used those Atlas trucks with Rapidos on everything up until about 5 years ago. It took me 3 years and most of my hobby budget during that time to change over to MTs, but I am glad I did. The performance for hauling long trains on NTrack is worth it, and the hands-off switching capability at home is also worth it, IMO. The only couplers I don't like and don't use are Accumates. The cars couple too far apart, and they disconnect at random on long trains. Every so often, one re-kits itself. They do not operate reliably in switching at home, either. When I replaced the traction tires on my Bachmann 2-8-0, I was surprised to find a half a dozen Accumate "brake hoses" stuck to the bottom of the ashpan area on the loco, held there by the magnetic force of the motor. I'm glad they didn't get picked up in the gears. If you look at Atlas' on-line catalog, they show their O Scale trains with tinplate toy trucks and couplers, and those do not stick out as far from the car end as the Accumates do on the N Scale versions of the same cars. I have a friend who is happy to take all my Accumates and trade me other stuff I need. I am very thankful for that. I take them off of everything I buy before I run them, and save them for him. He has a couple of tricks he does to get them to work better. Of all my resources, I am the most limited on time. I choose to use something else that requires less fiddling. I have used the Accumate coupler parts in an MT draft gear box to replace MT's I've broken. Mounted in the MT box, the Accumate does not stick out any further than an MT, but they still do not work right in switching, and they still disconnect on hard pulls. Those are my own experiences, taking into account that I only use my trains for two things, pulling long trains on NTrak, and switching on a small layout at home, so that is going to have an impact upon my expectations. Your actual mileage may vary.
RI Straw: Ted Brandon? Why do I know that name? Did he start TexN Rails? Was he from California? Wait!! Wick Brandon! Impending senility! Any relation between those two?
Not that I know of. Ted lives in New Jersey and I believe he was from there originally. He has been involved in different N Scale groups on the East Coast for a long time. He has been heavily involved in promoting Nn3 for the last decade or so. His most recent project was editing of the new Nn3 Handbook. Because of his advanced age has decided to give up the tiny trains and move up to On3.
Thank you all for the information, history and opinions. I've been courious about the different couplers for a while. But not being able to be active lately, I put off asking. All mine a rapido and seem to work fine. But look clunky.
Hey, it could be worse. Look what the European modelers have to do to be prototypical. No knuckle couplers there. Just the chains & hooks, screw coupling and buffers.
Longtrain, you are correct, but they would only sell to purists. The manufacturer has one goal in life, and that is of course is to make all the money he can off us. Therefor, since most people today have little or no idea what link and pin couplers were, they happily buy the old antique tea kettles with modern K-D couplers, and would be mad if the couplers wouldn't fit their other cars. Besides where you going to hire some little peoples to set and pull those tiny pins for you? Most of the ones I hired have already lost hands trying to set those pesky pins anyway! Here is a photo by Ed Freltas of those link and pin couplers in one of the uses in logging. [ March 15, 2005, 04:09 AM: Message edited by: watash ]
Well I have Rapido's on my Freight, and Bar Couplers on my ICE2 and my Kato Series 500 Bullet Train has Prototypical Unique Couplers which make mixing Carriages next to impossible.. I think that the Rapido's are going to hang around on my layout for Quiet some time.. There ease of use and popularity are going to out way there value and money needed for me to switch ...
Watash, Now that you mention it I will be fitting out my 1800's steam with draw bars or something. Anyone know what they used on 2 - 6 0s? Is there a commercialy available product?
Just face it, Rapidos rock! No slinky effect when pushing a train, they always stay coupled, easier to get coupled, MDC cars already have and so do LL GP20s, and you can't even see them when looking at a nice 30 car cut wrapped around a curve. There are more effective ways of making a model railroad look real than couplers. In my opinion.
The patent has expired on the MT coupler, which is how Accumate got into the business. Infortunately for them, the plastic casting skill that MT has built up over the years was not in the patent. The Accumates have been getting better, and since their standard coupler pocket fits the 1015, you have the option of either coupler. Pretty nice. Kato keeps making noises about entering the market, but so far they only use them on their own models. There's plenty of room for additional vendors, but it's not as easy as it looks, since moulding engineering plastic is a very advanced science. Tony Burzio San Diego, CA
