So, what I did was order some 1030 MT's to take care of future issues. But since I was having the derailing problem as well, I just sent it back. Bought from Amazon, returned to Amazon and a replacement is already on the way to me within a total of 10 hours today. Not one cent out of my pocket including shipping. That is real customer service. If this one is a POS as well, I'll return it and get a refund.
I was also having some couple blues today. My Atlas Trainmaster with Accumates kept dropping its consist on a 9" radius rising curve. Now a 9" curve with a grade is challenge with any coupler, but accumate->accumate *should* work. It didn't. I replaced the stock body mount coupler with a MTL 1052 top-shimmed with an extra part from a 1015 set. Suddenly the engine held the consist up the slope. It seemed that MTL coupled better with the Atlas accumate cars than the accumate that came with the train! Moral of the story: if the couplers are giving you the blues, replace with MTL. If anyone figures out a way to convert the older Kato hopper sets to MTL, I would love to hear it. I tried a few different things and nothing works. The knuckle couplers that came with them just randomly uncouple at all sorts of inconvenient times.
When I first got into the hobby someone told me to convert every freight car I had to MT's and to never intermingle couplers. I took that advice and even though when the Accumates and McHenry's came along I did experiment with them but my results from such experimentation sent me right back to MT's. I found that MT's would hold together on a 143 car train while Accumates maxed out around 20-30 cars depending on type of car.
