Has anyone tried reducing the coupled distance between Micro-Trains passenger cars? I was considering getting a set but the gap between cars looks huge in the photos I've found except for the 44-seat coach. The 44-seat coach appears to have a more inward coupler mount compared to the others is this correct?
The couplers are all truck-mounted on the Alaska RR samples I have. They all come to the same spot relative to the body. You could cut the couplers off of the trucks and install body-mount couplers farther in so the cars couple closer.
I haven't given this much thought since MTL first brought out the passenger cars, around 2010. The main reason for the spacing is so the long cars can negotiate the 195mm curves without hitting each other, I looked at body mount couplers. Using the NMRA minimum radius datasheet d5g, I found that I would need to use about a 250mm curve as minimum radius. Since I'm an operating type with only 220mm curves, I didn't pursue it further. If you're looking at doing a static display, body mount would work well. Mark
To answer your question, I don't know if the coach is different but if MTL has some way they are doing it I'm sure you can replicate it. Other than body-mounting, there might be some way of modifying the truck mounts coupler arms to shorten them up, or maybe a Shapeways truck that has an arm with an ever-so-slightly shorter reach. (for example, I found some Buckeye trucks that were designed to accept body-mount 905's, so getting passenger car trucks/coupler arms designed like that isn't impossible.) FWIW, I've found that photos tend to make these types of "model railroad design compromises" seem much worse than they look in person. So yeah, if you're doing that Model Railroader photo shoot then it might be an issue, but otherwise....meh. It's a lot of work for little gain, and especially futile if you don't have larger curves to accommodate the body mount couplers. Having said that, I don't *disagree* at all with your assessment of the spacing--and it is something I would want to eventually fix, too--but I wouldn't let that stop you from buying a set and enjoying it in the meantime.
