Couplers

As I've been purchasing a variety of new and used rolling stock from different manufacturers not all of the couplers have been the same. Also, couplers on some of the cars have been damaged and need to be replaced. I'd like to standardize my couplers so that any of my equipment can be hooked up in a train in any order.

The photo below shows an example of three couplers. From top to bottom are:

• #1 scale (1:32) knuckle coupler (this one is from Kadee)
• G scale (1:22.5) knuckle coupler (this one is from USA trains)
• Hook and loop coupler (also from USA trains)

The hook and loop coupler is typical of what comes with most garden train cars regardless of scale. They are very easy to use and provide great flexibility even around tight curves and uneven track, but they don't look anything like couplers do in the real world.


So my plan was to replace everything with Kadee brand knuckle couplers as they're generally considered the best of show. And as all my locomotives and rolling stock are about 1:29 scale, I thought I would try a #1 scale coupler which is pretty close at 1:32.

Replacing a coupler is pretty easy. I just need to take the truck off the car and remove the existing coupler...


And then figure out how all these little parts go together...


After the first one it went pretty quickly. Replacing the couplers on the locomotive, however, was far more complicated and took much longer than the cars did. But the end result looked awesome...


Unfortunately on my first test run in the garden I immediately saw the problem with using #1 scale couplers. They are true to scale and do look absolutely perfect on my cars. And I bet they would work great on a very well built indoor track with broad curves and perfectly aligned track. Unfortunately, in the real world of my garden, the track is not perfectly even or level, and the tiny little couplers kept slipping apart and couldn't accommodate sections of track that were uneven.

So I then ordered some G-scale Type "E" couplers from Kadee. These are about 1:22.5 scale so they are oversized for my cars, but the extra large size helps where the track is uneven. Only problem now is that the coupler for my locomotive doesn't provide as much give on horizontal curves as I need, leading to a derailment if the trailing car is too light. So I may try to replace that coupler or see if I can adjust it to provide more horizontal movement.

What I really need to do is solve a more fundamental underlying problem -- some of my curves are just too tight. Once I replace my temporary loop with my intended layout the tight curves will be gone and likely the derailment problem will be too. In the meantime, I'll leave the Kadee G-scale knuckle couplers on all my BN equipment, and I'm keeping hook-and-loop couplers on my UP equipment for now as I don't want to buy more couplers until I'm satisfied with the ones I have so far.

As I haven't done any track work recently to show, here's a picture from elsewhere in the garden. Looks like May! In the future, trains will be running just behind the rhodie.