I can't begin to number the times I have been involved
in conversations with other modelers (including many
members of this list) around more "pedestrian"
modelers where terminology such as: r+3/4 LDE ;
hutchins Dry Lading Roofs; ASF Ride Control trucks;
Universal power brake housings, etc. etc., creates
great amusment. Besides being offered some
well-meaning advice (get a life!) or worse, people
seem to understand every endeavor has its terminology.
Great prototypical advancements would be hindered if
we modelers were ignorant of what we desired.

Now, having said that, let me mention some news about
Dan Hall's latest styrene door offerings. Dan told me
that the tooling is pretty much done on three
Youngstown doors:

l) The 4/6/6 improved Youngstown door as used by many
10-0" IH boxcars built in the late 40's and beyond. Of
importance to me were the 1000's used on both SP and
Great Northern 12 panel boxcars.

2) The 5/6/5 improved Youngstown door ( a concurrent
variation of the above door. Used by SP and many other
RR's.

3) The "Overnight" interim improved Youngstown door
made famous by its use on Southern Pacific 10 panel
ACR riveted 40' boxcars used in the Overnight express
service SP had between the Bay Area and LA, CA. I
think maybe some IC boxcars used this door also, but
its use seems to be primarily SP.

Due to my impatience, and desire to have these in time
for Naperville, I am getting a large quantity of these
doors in bulk (that means no packaging for you PE's
out there), and will be offering them to everyone
there.

I have not seen these yet, but early shots were sent
to Terry Wegmann who has ruled in their favor. I will
also bring the current Superior doors Dan has for
those who have had a difficult hunt finding these for
themselves.

See many of you in Naperville!
-Andy Carlson
Ojai CA

On Oct 11, 2005, at 11:08 AM, Justin Kahn wrote:

Following this thread through several messages, I have to say I have always
preferred sprung trucks, even though most springing is too stiff to actually
work in smaller scales (it is more likely to work in O scale, but I am not
sure I want to weight freight cars enough to accomplish the effect). It may
not be entirely rational, but I began model railroading when sprung trucks
were a considerable improvement over the low-relief cast sideframes previous
available, and as my sartorial tastes were established in college, never to
change much since, so my preference has always been for sprung trucks
wherever possible.

Jace, I'm always mystified when people express a preference for sprung trucks because it seems obvious to me that the springs never actually work, even to provide a small degree of equalization, and (aside from the San Juan O scale trucks) they look AWFUL. Kadee's HO scale trucks are admirable in most respects, but seeing all that daylight through the space where there should be four or five heavy springs totally spoils their appearance. When I use Kadees, I CA pieces of black-painted styrene behind the springs, an expedient that I find greatly improves their realism. Sprung trucks may have appeared to be an admirable new development fifty years ago, but now that we have a wide variety of highly realistic non-sprung trucks, I avoid them whenever possible. (I wonder if someone could make San Juan's idea work in HO scale?)

Richard Hendrickson

On Behalf Of ed_mines

12 days from St. Louis to New York City area. That must be
some sort of a record.

Hmph! Another couple of days, probably make it to Boston . . .

SGL

On Oct 11, 2005, at 10:23 AM, ed_mines wrote:

If injection mold tooling is expensive to produce did Terry Wegman
loose his shirt (or a lot of time) on the PFE -21 kits?

Certainly he invested a lot of time. But Terry is apparently motivated less by commercial considerations than by proving to himself and others what he is capable of doing as a toolmaker. Once the tooling is finished to his satisfaction and he has made enough test shots to confirm the results, his interest quickly evaporates. Andy Carlson seems able to get some product from him, perhaps because they are personal friends, but otherwise it's like pulling teeth.

Richard Hendrickson

Jim,

I concur with your thoughts that any new couple should be have coupling
capability with what is considered the norm or standard in operation.
But, I am not so sure that the market works this way. History has a
different story to tell.

When the 5s first were introduced, a then much younger me, managed to
talk my father into a trip 50 or so miles down the highway to Tulsa for
the single reason of purchasing a few pairs for a try. At that time, my
layout was populated with various versions of the X2F coupler. And the
thought of converting the entire fleet of freight cars was
mind-boggling.

The 5s soon became my standard coupler and over time, and it was not
that long, most, but not all, of the fleet was converted. There were
those cars that were believed to be just too toy-like or just not that
good of models to warrant the time, money, and effort of conversion.
Some of these are still in a box out in the garage.

So when the thought of converting to something as great looking, and as
prototypically operational, as the Sergent coupler came up, it was a no
brainer. Convert I will. Granted, I now have a layout on which a total
of two dozen cars will fill every need for operation. And even then
only about half of these would actually be on the layout at one time,
so conversion is not the issue it would be if there were several
hundred cars lined up at the RIP track.

Most of us did convert relatively quickly to the 5s when they became
available. And there was no compatibility with the X2F at all. What
there was was a better coupler. That was enough. Yes, I can think of
"improvements" to the Sergent, and I am still wondering about use on
passenger cars with diaphrams, but as none of the passenger
accommodations on my layout had diaphrams this is most likely a
non-issue. The lack of my personal "improvements" is not enough to stop
the conversion.

While the Sergent is not perfect, it does look real good. And from what
I have been reading in this thread, it appears to operate well. What it
does not have is the big pin thingy. That is the big selling point to
me along with the prototypical operation. I am looking forward to
having some in-hand and into operation soon.

Back to the original theme... we will convert when we see there is
value in the use of the product. We did this many years ago and we will
do it again.

Just my two cents worth. Thanks for reading.

--- Bill Keene
Irvine, CA


On Oct 11, 2005, at 7:09 AM, Jim Betz wrote:

  There are several aspects of couplers and most of these have
been discussed in the previous posts:

    Appearance, coupling distance, reliability, size, size of draft
    gear box, whether or not they have a magnetic pin, how strong
    they are, how well the train stays together during operation, etc.

  If my memory serves me correctly in the following of this thread
no one has mentioned the topic of "interoperability".  If you are
building a contest/shelf model you don't care.  If you have a layout
where all the freight cars are "controlled" and you -can- all have
the same couplers on them then you don't care.  If you don't do
any ... or very much ... switching then you don't care as much.  But
if you are talking about a layout that has lots of different guys
bringing their equipment to operate then you care - a LOT.
  On layouts where lots of people are contributing the current
"standard" coupler is the Kadee #5.  Simply because that is what is
on most of the cars in most of the train cases.  Not necessarily what
we might like to admit but it is "the truth".

  So my point is that if a new coupler is going to be accepted ...
rapidly ... it needs to operate well with the #5.

  And, regrettably, none of the "better" couplers we have out now
operates as well with the #5 as they should.  That's probably due to
a design aspect of the #5 (that little 'lip' on the very end of the
face?).  But the bottom line is that if a new coupler doesn't play
well with the existing #5 then its acceptance is going to be slower
than it would if it did - considerably.

  BTW - the #58s and #78s don't seem to couple and uncouple with
each other as well as the number 5's do either!  They're "acceptable"
but they aren't as reliable as the #5's when using an uncoupling
ramp -and- they take quite a bit longer to uncouple using a pick.

      - Jim ... dreaming of an HO car with operational cut levers
                that 'interfaces' with the #5 ... I've always been
                a -big- dreamer ... but I still have a large supply
                of #5s and continue to install them on all but a
                few cars.


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[Non-text portions of this message have been removed]

Elden Gatwood asked:
"Didn't the N&W have a similar experience with the BPa (am I getting
that one right?), but just elect to seal the door?"

Actually, they did both sealing the door and rebuilding the cars:
http://spec.lib.vt.edu/imagebase/norfolksouthern/full/NS2868.jpeg
http://spec.lib.vt.edu/imagebase/norfolksouthern/full/ns048.jpeg
http://spec.lib.vt.edu/imagebase/norfolksouthern/full/ns046.jpeg


Ben Hom

Eldon,

Sounds like we'll be going back to RPCyc #1, and building the odd cars we've been scratching our heads trying to figure out how to build. Thanks Rich, it is well worth the wait!

Fred Freitas

"O" scale again!

The plastic couplers made by San Juan Car Co. are excellent in
appearance, and will mate with Clousers, and even Kadees. I have an
easier time working with brass - just a personal preference!

HOWEVER, I wish San Juan Car Co. would make a GOOD PENNSY FREIGHT
TRUCK in "O" scale - something we have been waiting MANY years for!
There is so much demand out there for a good plastic Pennsy truck that
the SJCC owners could retire on that one product alone! A. T. Kott

The following discussion is "O" scale only, because I have never had
any HO.

Couplers:
I obsessed over the scale coupler problem for years in "O" scale -
did not like the appearance of Kadees at all, but did not like the
plastic or brass dummy couplers common to "O" because, although they
looked good, they did not operate - you had to pick the car up to
uncouple.

PSC made some "operating" couplers in brass kit form, but they did
not operate reliably and were hard to build up. PFM also made some
nice looking brass couplers which operated well and reliably, but
they were discontinued (I think - could not ever locate more of
them). They had spring-operated knuckles. I had experimented with
early Clouser couplers - a nice scale appearance (actually a
traction coupler or an early type D coupler), but they were hard to
assemble when first brought out by Bill Clouser in the late 1960's.
The castings were rough - it took me about one hour to assemble one
pair of them with tedious filing. This cleanup had to be done,
otherwise, they would not operate.

Then, in the mid-1980's, Chicagoland Hobbies in Chicago had some
Clouser couplers that were very nicely cast, not rough castings like
the 1969 Clousers. It only took 10 minutes to assemble a pair, and
the operation was superior. I was sold on them on the spot!
Contacted Clouser and bought 400 pair (in "O" scale, things have a
very bad habit of disappearing when the manufacturer decides to
discontinue them - you have to get them while you can). Best money
I ever spent!! They operate flawlessly, but do not uncouple
automatically - you have to use a wand or install (and MAINTAIN)
operating cut levers. Cut levers work great on passenger cars with
diaphragms.

Draft Gear:
The next problem was what draft gear to use. I created a design
similar to a Waugh draft gear on the prototype, and used it as a
draft gear/coupler centering device. It is built up from brass,
only uses a single spring, and consists of 7 parts. It is simple
and durable. In "O" scale, part of the function of the draft gear
is to protect your expensive brass car from damage occasioned by a
sudden stop - like running the loco into a dead block with a heavy
train. My draft gear consists of two channels, each 1/2" long, with
the outer one being 1/4" X 1/4" in size, and the other being smaller
so as to fit snugly inside the first. This smaller channel has two
slots cut straight across it, and two small pieces of flat 0.050"
brass fit in them, but are just short of touching the walls of the
outer channel. A spring is placed between the brass pieces to press
them against the sides of the two slots. A bent 0.030" brass strip
C forms a yoke which slides over and under the spring/brass piece
assembly. At the end of this yoke, a hole is drilled to mount the
coupler.

First, here's how it works: When you push the coupler into the
striker plate, the shank pushes up against the front brass piece,
which, in turn, pushes the spring. The first brass piece moves
inward until it hits the other side of the front slot. If you make
the slot so that this motion is a scale 2-3/4", you will duplicate
the prototype travel of a standard freight car draft gear of the
1940's. If you pull on the coupler, the brass yoke pulls the rear
brass piece forward until it hits the front of the rear slot. There
is a mild centering action with this setup - the spring resting
length is longer than the two brass pieces installed in the slots,
so there is pressure on the coupler shank if it is done correctly.
The coupler shank has to be cut off square and the pivot hole
drilled precisely the correct distance from the cut off end for good
centering action without any slack.

This is designed to be used with scale striker plates of various
designs. The striker plates are soldered on the end sills first.
Then the coupler/brass yoke/spring/two pieces of brass are assembled
next. The larger channel is soldered to the floor of the car.
Then, the smaller channel with the two slots is placed upside down
in the larger channel, with the one brass piece in each slot. The
inner channel is moveable at this point, so it can be adjusted to
provide the 3" of clearance between the horn of the coupler and the
front of the striker plate. Then the channels are spot soldered
together. It took longer to write this than it does to finish one
freight car.

How do you make the striker plates?? Make them out of styrene for
your specific car, then have them sacrificially cast in brass! If
you are really anal, you can also cast the outer channel with dummy
details of the prototype draft gear, but you will have to mill it
smooth or the brass pieces inside will not slide correctly.

The result is a true prototype action draft gear! It is really neat
to see the cars bunch up slack on the downhill, and strech it out on
the uphill grade. The prototype draft gear acts the same way - it
resists the coupler shank being pushed in for a travel of 2-3/4",
then sets up solid. Same action when the coupler is pulled out.

The Clouser coupler is now available from Norm Buckhart (see the
Proto:48 website) and is as nice as the ones I am using. He has the
Clouser patterns and has them cast at Valley Brass & Bronze, so they
are excellent. The couplers do have a smaller shank (4" X 5") than
the prototype.

This coupler problem bothered me for a long time, but I am OK with
the above solution. The key design parameters are the spring
dimensions and spring constant, and the ability to slide one channel
inside the other so that you can accurately position the coupler
from the striker plate easily. A. T. Kott

Tim, if I recall correctly MR actually did the test you suggest. It was
right after the McHenry and InterMountain plastic couplers came out. A check
of the Mag Index maintained by Kalmback should pop this up, look for coupler
reviews. It may have been the Feb 1996 issue. I recall they did a weight
test to determine if the couplers would part or break.

Doug Harding
Iowa Central Railroad
http://d.harding.home.mchsi.com


Tim O'Connor wrote: Tony, that's a great question and it seems to me like a
perfect subject for a magazine article... maybe RPCyc, because none of the
major mags would publish an article that might point out flaws in an
advertiser's products...
Seems like a simple test could be devised, X pounds on the drawbar with a
pulley system. Each brand could be tested for its load failure and then we'd
know exactly how much strain they could take! Also, they should be tested
over 48-72 hours as well to test for durability when subjected to smaller
loads over a period of time. (A problem especially with plastics.) It might
also reveal the weakness of some coupler boxes as well, since the boxes
might fail before the couplers do.

Justin Kahn wrote:

As for replacement working leaf springs, have you looked in the PSC
catalogue? Years ago Kemtron made them from copper and they were (as I
recall) also full-elliptical as contrasted with the stamped steel
semi-elliptical Silver Streaks (not that modelers back then weren't happy to
have Silver Streak kits and trucks--at least I was).

That's a very particular copper alloy, beryllium copper, a very strong and stiff material used for non-ferrous springs (plain copper would be, bluntly, awful). Terrific stuff when cold worked, but hard to form into shapes. The Kemtron parts were excellent.

Tony Thompson Editor, Signature Press, Berkeley, CA
2906 Forest Ave., Berkeley, CA 94705 www.signaturepress.com
(510) 540-6538; fax, (510) 540-1937; e-mail, thompson@signaturepress.com
Publishers of books on railroad history

--- In STMFC@yahoogroups.com, "wmcclark1980" <walterclark@e...> wrote:

--- In STMFC@yahoogroups.com, timboconnor@c... wrote:

William, only one problem: If your magnet is moved away from the
ball (upwards) then the effect of the magnetic field is diminished as
the inverse square of the distance. To work, your uncoupling lever
would have to move a magnet DOWN closer to the top of the coupler
so that the ball would rise as the magnetic field got stronger.

Just wait for the Barger coupler. (Hopefully not too many years

hence.)

It will have a real pin, just like the prototype. At least, the 1/32

scale

version had one!

Tim O.

I've been thinking about trying to make real, functioning top

operated

coupler release bars to use with the Sergent couplers. I looked at
the size of the pieces and think it can be done, just by someone

with

better eyes and steadier hands than I have. Anyway, the idea is to
use a small piece of those super-strong rare-earth magnets at the
point above the coupler, so moving the down bent end of the coupler
release bar up would lift the magnet, thus lifting the little ball
inside the coupler.

Tim,

I knew it was too good to be true, and I'm glad you explained it so I
can understand before I did something really crazy like actually
trying to make it work. That would have been frustrating, to say the
least.

Walter M. Clark

Tim,

I've thought more about this idea, while it may very well seem that
I'm trying to bring a rightfully dead idea back to life, PLUS, I admit
I've never seen a Sergent coupler,except in photos, the following
thought crossed my mind (which, some of my friends, as well as others,
would say is the shortest trip in history). Instead of using a small
piece of magnet on the release rod, drill out the top of the coupler
to provide access to the location of the ball. Substitute a vertical
piece of wire the thickness of the ball (plus or minus, it would take
some experimentation to get it right) and use the vertical wire in
place of the magnetic ball. Lift the release rod, the vertical wire
pulls up, allowing the coupler to open. When the release rod is
lowered the wire would do exactly what the ball does, locking the
coupler closed. You'd have to provide a limiting stop to keep from
pulling the wire all the way out of the coupler, but that wouldn't be
too hard, I think. Also, and this is an improvement of my first idea,
you could drill from below and use something of the same mechanism for
bottom actuated couplers. Now, if you or anyone else has a reason (or
more than one, I'm easy) why this won't work, fire away. My familial
tremor will prevent me trying this so I'll end with what several of my
college mathematics professors would say, "The proof is left to the
student as an exercise."

Walter M. Clark
Time stopped in November 1941
Riverside, California

Gene and list,

It might be quite legal for a short line like the Mason City and Clear Lake (the original name of the Iowa Traction RR) to acquire a PRR flat car by wrecking it. If a railroad has an accident with another's car, it can either fix it or pay its owner the net liquidation value. If the car had quite a few years on it, it was no doubt cheaper to pay the NLV to the PRR than repair it and return it to owner.

Since it was now legally the property of the MC&CL, it could do what it wanted with the car, including make it into a snowplow. I expect this is exactly what happened.

Gregg Mahlkov

--- ed_mines <ed_mines@yahoo.com> wrote:

If injection mold tooling is expensive to produce
did Terry Wegman
loose his shirt (or a lot of time) on the PFE -21
kits?

Ed,
Terry does not have that many shirts. BTW-His name is
spelled with two Ns....Wegmann.
-Andy Carlson

Just got my copy of RP CYC12 today. Nice book.

12 days from St. Louis to New York City area. That must be some sort
of a record.

I guess the staff gives me special treatment. My recollection is that
I bought every issue direct from RP CYC headquarters. I was a
subscriber too.

Ed

Jerry, no argument there! :-)

I forgot to mention that Terry has sold large quantities of his PFE
reefer kits to Intermountain, who sends them to China for assembly.
I suspect he's sold more that way than to the few hundred that he
has sold to us Naperville nutcases...

Tim O.

Terry has an expensive (read that ineffective) marketing dept.
BTW he has all the PFE -21 kits HE wants...

Jerry Glow

--- In STMFC@yahoogroups.com, timboconnor@c... wrote:

Ed, Terry doesn't have to pay himself so this cuts down on his
overhead considerably.

A number of fine toolmakers have independently done injection molds
for us: Terry (R-40-18 and variants), Paul Lubliner (Genesis F

units),

Cannon (diesel detail parts), Jimmy Booth (numerous parts and

kits),

Dan Hall (box car doors). I'm sure there are many others. Long ago

and

far away an independent toolmaker had done wonderful tooling for a
PFE R-40-23 reefer but a vendor found out about it and rushed a kit
into production.... and that pretty much killed off that

toolmaker's biz

from what I heard. (I may have left out few salient details.)

Terry and

Jim do work for other vendors too, Paul sold his stuff to Athearn

(but

retained rights to continue with Highliners), and Cannon of course

has

become a minor cult (to which I belong). :-)

Tim O'Connor

If injection mold tooling is expensive to produce did Terry

Wegman

loose his shirt (or a lot of time) on the PFE -21 kits?
Ed Mines

Oops,I was thinking of an offset TRIPLE.Sorry 'bout that.Armand Premo

Ed, Terry doesn't have to pay himself so this cuts down on his
overhead considerably.

A number of fine toolmakers have independently done injection molds
for us: Terry (R-40-18 and variants), Paul Lubliner (Genesis F units),
Cannon (diesel detail parts), Jimmy Booth (numerous parts and kits),
Dan Hall (box car doors). I'm sure there are many others. Long ago and
far away an independent toolmaker had done wonderful tooling for a
PFE R-40-23 reefer but a vendor found out about it and rushed a kit
into production.... and that pretty much killed off that toolmaker's biz
from what I heard. (I may have left out few salient details.) Terry and
Jim do work for other vendors too, Paul sold his stuff to Athearn (but
retained rights to continue with Highliners), and Cannon of course has
become a minor cult (to which I belong). :-)

Tim O'Connor

On Oct 11, 2005, at 10:19 AM, ed_mines wrote:

--- In STMFC@yahoogroups.com, "Gatwood, Elden" <Elden.Gatwood@h...>
asked - "P.S. So, what are the real reasons no one is doing the
alternate standard offset twin hopper?"

Calm down, guys. Someone IS doing it. All things come to those who wait....and wait....and wait.

Richard Hendrickson