Hi Group, I Have Various Athearn Rolling Stock. Flat Side Hoppers, Box Cars, Gondolas, Bulk End Flat Cars and the Green/Black Tank Cars and Other Pieces of Rolling Stock etc. OK, Some Have the "Plastic Wheels", and the So Called New "Metal Wheels" and Those Screw On Bolts for the Trucks (Ugh). My Observations, All the Cases or Most of Them Say - "Wheel Flanges Compatible With Code 55 Track". I Don't Have a Problem With That as I Use Code 80 Rail - MY Preference!. Next Statement on the Cases - "McHenery Knuckle - Spring Couplers With Magnetic Uncoupling". REALLY???.I Checked Most of My Athearn Rolling Stock and if I'm Correct, They ALL Have Accumate Truck/Couplers. I Know, as I Have Lots of Spare Accumate Trucks from Converting Various Other Brands of Cars to Micro Trains Truck/Couplers and the Trucks/Couplers Athearn Uses are the EXACT Duplicates or the Same as Accumate Trucks/Couplers. I've Seen the McHenery's so YES I Know the Difference - After All Bachman Bought Out McHenery, - Now Called Easymate. Notice the Same With Exact Rail and Fox Vally Models. Some are Accumate With Plastic or Metal Wheels, Truck/Couplers or Seperate Trucks and Body Mounted Accumate Couplers and Those Screw In Bolts etc. Most Interesting!. I'd Like a Bit More Honesty About Who is Using What Brands of Truck/Couplers and Why. I Figure Lisencing Has a Lot to Do With It.
Newer run Athearn has McHenry couplers, the older runs, cardboard box runs, have accumates. Not sure where you got this info from, but its wrong. Bachmann EZ Mates and McHenry couplers are not even close to being the same, much less the same company. McHenry was bought out by Horizon Hobbies a few years ago, Horizon also happens to own Athearn. The McHenry is a smaller coupler than the EZ Mate, and also has prototypical details that the EZ Mate does not. As for ExactRail and Fox Valley, neither of them make their own coupler, so they need to go to a third party for couplers. ExactRail on their original cars used Athearn trucks, first with accumate, then McHenry's when Athearn made the switch. Now they use their own brand of trucks with body mounted Micro-Trains (MTL) couplers. Fox Valley uses MTL trucks and couplers or MTL couplers that are body mounted. Has nothing to do with licensing, but on which brand they want to use. Most companies that use a third party coupler use the MTL coupler, or the Chinese knock off of the MTL coupler as the MTL is the go to standard for most N scalers.
