I have been expirimenting with body mounting couplers and was wondering if any one else has.Is there any real advantage to this?I did it because I like to use helpers on "the hill"and if I have to much Help on the rear it makes the lighter cars derail.I also hope to eliminate or at least reduce the trains tendancy to stringline on sharp curves allowing me to run even longer trains.(this is not a real problem if I keep the lighter cars to the rear of the train,but could eventually become one as I get more cars)Any thoughts or advice?
Good morning.You are clearly on the right track here.Body mount couplers are vastly superior to truck mounted(less side to side forces applied to the truck).This will lead to fewer derailments,ex- cept in the case of poor track work.If truck mounted couplers was a real good idea,all rail- roads would do it,none do.Also of great import in this area,is proper car weight,most of us tend to run our equipment as delivered where weight is concerned,and,all that I know of,come with too little weight.Go figure.I totally agree with the direction you have taken here.But someone will most likely post in disagreement with everything I have said.Best regards. Gordon
<blockquote>quote:</font><hr>Originally posted by PLATINUM LINE: If truck mounted couplers was a real good idea,all rail- roads would do it,none do.<hr></blockquote> Actually they did, but only with longer equipment. UP's Turbines and U50 series all had truck mounted couplers, with decent results (no derailments were ever caused by them) EMD is rumored to be expermenting with a Truck mounted Coupler option on there HTCR-III design that will most likely be tested/released with the production model of the SD89MAC. Some longer cars are also fited with truck mounted couplers, but as mentioned it is all longer/heavyer equipment, for on smaller quipment the side forces would force the car off the track.
You can never have too much information.It doesn't appear that your comments about experimental truck and coupler configurations apply to the question asked by Dangerboy.I stand by my previous statement,if it was a good idea,all railroads would be doing it,none are. Regards Gordon
In regardes to the weight issue,I know some of my cars (if not all of them)are too light.My Atlas 2 bay covered hoppers are the ones that always stringline on one particular curve.(It's fairly sharp and at the top of a hill).But I don't yet have a scale to weight them to determine how much more weight to add.I plan to get one eventually.What really led me to try body mounting is the cars closest to the helpers derailing on the hill.
I have recently been experimenting in body mounts. I have a bunch of Atlas Accumates from all the new Atlas locos I've bought recently, that I body mounted to my 6 Con-Cor Superliners. After adding weight to the cars they now work great! I also have 7 Walthers Cryogenic Reefers that I put Micro-Trains body mounts and extra weight that now work great. Originally I thought that the curves on my layout might be too tight (12" radius) but not so.
The French developed the Talgo type truck but it hasn't been used over here on real railroad equipment service except in experimental trials. Toy train manufacturers used it starting with Lionel because of having to align their couplers to couple up on curves, and having too much side clearence between rails. It was simply adopted of HO when the manufacturers decided to go to plastic. By combining the coupler with the truck, they saved money. The Talgo trucks work alright most of the time on model equipment when pulling at a reasonably slow speed around a reasonably radiused curve. When we have had to reduce our curves down to 12" radius because of space limitations, we lose the ability to pull long strings of cars, and almost eleminate any chance of successfully backing a string into curves. It is just the laws of Physics. Try putting pennies in or on the lighter cars that do derail, until the car becomes more stable. Like in real life, you will need more engines to pull heavier cars, or you will just have to pull shorter trains, again, just like the real railroads do. It isn't gauge specific, it is physics. Make larger radiuses when you can.
For the past few months I have been revamping my whole entire freight car fleet. One by one I am taking each car and body mounting Micro Trains Couplers, replacing the trucks with micro trains "trucks without couplers", replacing the wheels with Micro Trains "low profile wheels", and adding weight to each car, and weathering them. I have found the Precision Masters body mount daapters to be usefull for all of my hopper cars, inclusing short cement cars and even some tank cars. For Atlas propane cars I used cast metal boxes from N Scale of Nevada. For Con Corr Auto Racks I used the kits from Sunrise. Roundhouse cars are pretty easy, all you need to add is a shim of .010 styreene to get the coupler to sit at the right height. Micro Trains cars all come with either a dimple or hole pre drilled. The newer atlas cars are pretty similar. The one thing that I havn't been able to test yet is my new weight standerds. I am making each car that is 50' or more weigh 1&1/2 ounce. Short cars such as cement hoppers and short tank cars get weighed in at 1 oz. I use an inepensive postal scale. I have always thought that the NMRA weight standerds were a little on the light side. I plan to use helpers on a large future layout that will have at least 2%-3% grades and lots of curves, loops, and reverse curves. I have not had a chance to test out my weight standerds in this situation yet. I am wondering how much power will be required to lift an 80 or so car manifist train up and over this future layout? Brian
Hi all, Has anyone tryed the Z-scale couplers for bodymounting? It seems that they look more prototipical in N-scale. The only Z-scale couplers I can find in the Microtrains pages are Marklin. Can they be mounted on Atlas or Microtrains rolling stock? Paul
