As I sit here converting yet another freight car to MTL body-mount couplers, I wonder yet again why manufacturers still insist on using truck mounted couplers. We've finally gotten over the Rapido coupler and replaced it with knuckle couplers of some sort (Kato, Accumate, MTL, whatever), but rolling stock STILL comes with truck mounted couplers. Why? HO scale has used body-mounts for decades; body mounting solves innumerable problems with coupling distance, tracking through turnouts (especially on backing moves, where body-mounts allow the truck to move freely), etc. N scale has come a long way since "toy train" days; we've got Code 55 track; we've abandoned pizza cutter wheels; we have engines and cars that are detail-correct down to the last rivet; etc., etc., So will someone tell me why manufacturers still insist on using truck-mounted couplers?? John C.
John,That is a very good question and its well past time we move from the dark ages and into the 21st century and lobby for body mounted couplers like we did for the other improvements you mention.. All the manufacturers would need to do is retool the car's frame/floor and add a coupler box.And those that is force to use 9-3/4" radius curves due to space limitions need to remember the HO guys that uses 18" curves has learn to down size their equipment and stay with certain wheel types and cars less then 57 foot.Even some 6 axle units will work on 18" curves. We have gone from the ugly truck mounted couplers with open pilots on locomotives to body mounted couplers with closed pilots.It only seems natural that our freight cars follow suit.
I think this will have to take a quite a few years if not decadesdue to many factors, the first being that every car produced would have to have remanufactured underframesand for most retooling the entire car as the bottom's are one piece with the bodyshell in whole. Also you've got to think adout the differant manufactures out there would have to agree to start on this convergence to an NMRA standard and that would be a push when you have manufactures like Atlas, Bachmann, Liftlike, Etc producing new lines but the same (well in a sence) old junk in a new box with a new title on it. Going back about ?? Kadee era 83-84 they started a line of body mounted coupler underframes that took a nose dive and didn't last long at all, most people don't even know that they existed but I think if MT would re-Run the series and fallowed through with their new lines being produced strictly with BM than it would start a frensy for the other competitors to fallow suit as MT is the Prototypliclist highest demanded company and with the detail age where in it would basically force other manufactures to fallow suit or they would start a scilent campaign to denounce it for obvious reasons of radious not to mention that all of you preexisting models would have to be retrofitted, droped, raised soonandsoforth. Now if they came out with conversions for other manufactures pre-existing cars (well standard cars like 40-50' boxes Gon's and common cars) than they may be able to force this into affect but like I said they tried this in the and it was a blunder but could in this day in age start a revolution that could catch on quickly and I believe Atlas would fallow suit to stay in the market and look at it as a marketing stratagy to say "yes where under MT but where right under and fully capatiable" and possibly gain an attraction to the New World. Well at least that's what I think, of corse I'm as sharp as a bowlingball.
Sadly the NMRA has never been overly concerned about N Scale since the majority of the members are HO modelers and even at that there is far more RPs then standards!!! Now do we really want the NMRA involved since they lack a NMRA approved coupler in HO? Why back in 83-84 N Scale was still considered by many as a "novelty" scale needing vast improvements if it was to be taken seriously and sadly many N Scalers wasn't ready for body mounted couplers since the majority of the locomotives was poor performers at best.. Now few of us used the MT pilot so we could improve our locomotives and close that awful pilot gap.
Not sure if this has been said yet, didn't read all the posts. But the short answer is tight radius corners and cost. Cost being a body mounted coupler would be one more part to add to the prossess, where as the truck mounted couplers are usually one part when installed, press fir the bolster and you are done, if it was body mounted you would have to mount the coupler, then the trucks, then check coupler heights. the Truck mounted couplers tend to be consistant and don't have to be checked for height usually.
Why remanufacture and retool cars already produced, just start making any new cars body mounted, after the idea catches on it may be worthwhile redoing old tooling, but then again how long can Atlas, Etc. keep churning out cars using tooling from the '60's even with improved painting and printing. Atlas's newer low riding cars are a step in the right direction and Intermountain's flatcars show body mounted couplers can be done too. Lets hope the follow through with these ideas and not chicken out like Kadee/MT did in the eighties, I have a few of the old body mount underframes and was dissapointed when they stopped making them. Nowadays I'd prefer them with Z scale sized couplers though, but that's another thread.:tb-biggrin: If it can be done in HO, why not N? Our trains are models too, not toys.
In my opinion body mount is best mount. Upside or downside depending on your point of view there's no need to wait for the manufacturers to do something... that only a small minority in the hobby desire. Why should I wait...I body mount my own couplers. Not a lot of fun but the rewards are better then I anticipated. We whine an awful lot here about what manufacturers and the "Need to do's". One in particular we dog almost daily. I can't say this to many times, "We are lucky to have the wide variety of products available to us, today". Lucky, I say! Now, unless you have me on ignore...get busy and install your own couplers. Well...yes I would like to see the industry change to body mounts... but what the heck...we just got them to add knuckle couplers. That's a big accomplishment for this generation. Grin! I got to get busy and remove the rapido couplers and add MTL's. Have fun!
We have to get rid of those tight radius corners, or be more realistic with what we try to run around them. How many HO cars these days have truck mounted couplers?, they went out with X2F couplers, N scale's should have went out with the Rapido couplers.
I didn't even read this whole post you wrote but this is exactly my point. you hit it right on the head, this would be a jump start for manufactures to get on the train or stand back and think it will faulter
Well... I'm for body mounted couplers too... but I know that there are some issues which make them more of an 'optional' enhancement item than standard item on rolling stock. Turning radii of some model railroad layout may be too tight to handle body-mounted couplers. It's not an either/or item that a manufacturer could easily supply both types of couplers. They tend to go with the more universally accepted coupler mounted method and leave the alteration to the modelers who know their layout can handle the body mounted couplers. On a related issue. For several years I've been talking about automatic coupling and uncoupling using DCC; and today, I found that KATO is doing factory installed DCC coupling/uncoupling on their Heavy Mikado. Very expensive though... $450 bucks... NO DISCOUNT. Could this be a wave of the future being started by Kato? See the link to Kato KOBO site. http://www.katousa.com/Kobo/E-NMikado.html
Why? Because their listening NOW and now is the time to "Whine" if you preffer, look at MT's web site and read the company history about it and how they have evolved from a kadee company to a "booming N scale groth that has created the split" Why do you think where getting what we have now? It's through Request. where do you think N scale would be if their where no one requesting, submiting suggestions. Have you noticed that almost every manufacture has a suggestion section? it's their for that very reason they want your money and to get it they want your input so they may produce somthing that will sell. Look at the Kato SD70ACE's you think it was a fluke or by popular demand? I do agree with you about not waiting on anyone to start I body mount most of my cars and I say most cause right now I'm working on my Autoracks and 89' flats which is a chore but the fact of the matter is if they do it than it's that muchmore time out of the workshop and int the layout running. Just as Westfalen said How long can they reproduce the same ole junk from the 60's. I praise Atlas for their Cabooses but if your going to put a title of "Masterline" on the box it should be a new model not a rerun of an old clunker with accumates and updated print cause the car is the problem, Look at the detail they've put into their Engines, do you see the old Yougo style GP30's in the newer runs? so why use an old austrian car to this day? I'm sure it's paid it self many times over to make a new version. In the long run if they keep producing old cars with new "names" their just going to keep slipping away. They have made vast improvements with some cars, new releases but I think their more focused in their O line and it's an opinion not a demand.
One thing is for sure, It don't hurt to ask. I wrote MT asking about the body mounted series and if they would consider remanufacturing them on a trial basis to see how well they would do because Their was a fire here and lost many MT's but the Chassis are fine and their all body mounted Couplers now and since Athearn is not producing the original under frames for the RH MDC cars I tinkered around and found that the 50' chassis fit like a glove and looked killer after chopping them ugly stirrups off, almost as if they where made for the car.
If HO was first invented say, 40 years before N, then we can expect body mounted couplers as standard around 2038.:tb-biggrin: I say it's about time we got ahead of the HO guys. Whatever the date, they still went out and N scale should follow suite.
Maybe the issue should be what is the acceptable minimum radius for N scale, the pioneering manufacturers did us a great disservice packing those 9in and smaller curves (I have some old Bachmann track of about 7in radius) in the early train sets and setting in stone coupler and truck standards we still have to live with today, and Atlas carries on the tradition by making 9 1/2 inch radius code 55 track. The DCC uncoupling is interesting but they don't tell us much about it, I'd like to see a photo without the tender shell to see how big the mechanism is and how it works. You can uncouple the engine from the car behind it but for serious operation would have to have all your cars fitted and at the price I can't see myself doing that. You can uncouple the road engine by DCC but still have to switch the cars the old fashioned way.
Maybe I'm wierd ... I don't know ... but I don't have the time or patience to start body mounting couplers on cars. If they were already done then fine, I would invest the extra $$$ to buy them. The cars I do have that are equipped with MTL couplers run fine with truck mounts. I am a "good enough" person I guess when it comes to my equipment. Well that's my two cents worth! Cheers! Adam
I have both. Seem to work together ok most of the time. I think the point about the engines having the body mount couplers is a good point. Obviously demand driven.I would love to see some picures of the MT body mounts that were mentioned. Also I have noticed some of the newer cars have pre drilled holes for body mounted couplers even thought they are truck mounted from the factory. How about a truck mounted coupler that could be removed and body mounted as an option?
Benny,Sorry but you are mistaken..KDs started catching on in the 60s and body mounted couplers been the norm since the 50s except for the cheap train set cars and locomotives. Even today modelers aviod freight cars with truck mounted couplers.Passgener cars and long wheel base cars has a different set up except for certain brands of passenger cars.
I consider the likes of bachmann and lifelike to be the main core of the hobby - because that is where most people found the hobby. Those cars did not cease the X2F nor the Talgo truck until the 1990s. Mantua held on to theirs for a long time too....up to the end, if I remember right. I was still finding X2Fs in Athearn New Stock in 2000. This was standard equipment across the boards only a few years before. The kadee coupler HAS been around since the 60s which I find amazing how resistant any manufacturers are to actually just using that coupler instead of designing their own. But they all go the hard route... The plastic knuckle couplers have only been going for the past 10 years ago - they started strong only After the patent on the Kadee winded down.
