Okay, here's a quick question (well, maybe not so quick after all)... I recently purchased one of the new MDC 2-6-0 locomotives and I intend to use it for tourist train operations on my pike and on NTrak layouts. I'm going to detail up some of the short old-time passenger cars and a couple gondolas with benches and safety equipment installed for the passengers to ride in. The typical M-T N scale couplers look way too big for this train. My thought is to go the fine-scale route and mount Z scale couplers on the engine and on a few cars for it to pull. Has anyone here mounted Z scale couplers on their N scale equipment? On short trains of maybe 6-8 cars, Z scale couplers should work fine, but I haven't tried it yet. Which coupler models should I get? My LHS is a M-T dealer, so ordering the correct conversions shouldn't be a problem (receiving them, however, may be a different matter). AdThanksVance.
I mount MT Z scale couplers on the front pilots of my steam loco's, on diesels and on rolling stock. You need the MT Z scale # 905 which is pre-assembled. The Z scale couplers look great and mate well with N scale couplers. Stay cool and run steam...
The longest train I've tested is 30 cars with no problems. (12 of the cars were full 33' hoppers). The rest were 40' boxcars and some 50' reefers. Stay cool and run steam..... [ March 16, 2005, 12:16 PM: Message edited by: Powersteamguy1790 ]
I've had trouble with the 905s in ABBA consists--it didn't take much to pull the engines apart. I replaced them with drawbars or Unimates. Just for kicks, I equipped a few cars with body mounted 905s. When I put them at the head end of a 50-car train, they let go on a 2.5% grade. It looks to me that, if you are extremely precise in mounting them, you'll get good results.
Thanks for the tips so far. I'll stop by the LHS tonight to purchase/order some. What gauge have you used for checking the height? I was thinking of just pulling out my NMRA gauge and working from that measurement, but if a modified M-T gauge or something else works better...
sean: I use an adjacent car to adjust the height of the MT Z scale coupler. It's called "the eyeball method". It works well for me. I do use the MT gauge for all N scale couplers. Stay cool and run steam..... [ March 16, 2005, 02:45 PM: Message edited by: Powersteamguy1790 ]
