Ah...it's nice to be back in chambers. As Head Judge I'll just don my robes...you know...the one with the stripes on the sleves...only mine have 4. There.

Hmmm. There were a few messages while I was gone. Looks like about 83 on couplers and about 71 on the RPCyc. How the heck can there be that many messages on couplers after everything known to man about them was written before I left town? Sigh. Hmmm...must be some interesting stuff in the RPCyc for all the messages. Now...where'd I put that beer? Oh yes. Ok...lesseee now.

Geeez. We're writing messages about the business practices of the RPCyc guys? Where's my gavel? Bonk! Bonk! Bonk! Order in the Court. We don't discuss the business practices of manufacturers...be they makers of resin cars or books.

83 or so messages on couplers. And I thought sitting through an NMRA Business Meeting was bad. Hmmm. Now there's a thought. Rather than Moderate Jail....

Mike Brock
STMFC Owner

--- In STMFC@yahoogroups.com, Rob Kirkham <rdkirkham@s...> wrote:

Correction - missing a crucial "out" - should read "it seems to me

that once

the magnet is held

close enough to raise the internal ball lock, a little loco power

in

reverse
would uncouple the cars without the modeller actually touching them"

Rob

You're not missing anything.

Jared Harper
Athens, GA

Tom, All,

Thanks much for following up on the Reboxx wheelsets.
As I mentioned to you off-line, John Burr at Reboxx
contacted me and asked if I'd send him some of the
Broadway trucks so he could do some accurate roll
testing. He seemed like quite the gentleman, so I
happy to help. Hopefully he'll have the answer for
everyone at PMS.

FYI, I'm sold on the Reboxx wheelsets as replacements
for all my rolling stock. The prorotypical appearance
of the code 88 wheelsets is very nice and they operate
very reliably on good HO track. Plus, the different
axle lengths--which allow you to get the right axle
length for different brands of trucks--eliminates most
unwanted sideways motion.

The problem is that Reboox wheelsets are pretty darn
expensive, so my replacement program for 125 cars is
proceeding rather slowly! The best price I've found is
through mail order at MB Klein, which has them for
something like $7.99/12 wheelsets.

See y'all at Naperville!

John Golden
O'Fallon, IL

____________

Message: 6
Date: Sun, 09 Oct 2005 01:48:56 -0400
From: "Thomas M. Olsen" <tmolsen@UDel.Edu>
Subject: Re: Reboxx Replacement Wheelsets for Broadway
N&W Hoppers

Bryan, John and List members,

Saturday afternoon I attended the Great Scale Train
Show at Timonium
Maryland. While there, I was able to speak with the
folks at Reboxx.
Here are some answers that touch on the axle data for
BLI N&W H2a
Hoppers and J.P.'s new coupler.

1st the coupler:

When I broached the coupler issue with J.P., he said
that there had
not
been a problem in getting anything produced in China,
but that the
reason he has not pursued it recently had to do with
the very severe
illness that he had last fall and spring. This
coupled (no pun
intended!) with a large back log of other business has
pushed the
coupler to the back burner. We must remember that
trains is not his
primary business, but a part of what he does. He
intends to return to
the coupler issue soon.

He has been following the Sergent coupler thread that
has been going on
on this list. His take on these couplers is that they
look very good
compared to the competition, but the ability to
uncouple them at a
distance and the fact that unlike the tried and true
Kadee's, they do
not center. Also,the requirement that someone has to
open the knuckle
if found to be closed. He also thought that the Kadee
has the edge
because the knuckles need not be open when making the
coupling which is
of great value when making up trains and switching.
His contention was
that there really is no substitute from an operational
aspect, there is
no substitute for the present Kadee couplers unless
these issues could
be solved to the point where reliability was not an
issue.


In regard to the Reboxx wheel sets for Broadway N&W
hoppers:

I spoke with John and gave him one of the trucks from
one of the N&W
hoppers from home. He first tested the as-is truck on
the roll incline
tester to see how well they operated. He said that
they rolled quite
well considering they were stock items. Then he
popped the wheel set
out and measured it to see what the axle length was.
After doing so,
his conclusion was that the WS10975 wheel set with an
axle length of
24.77mm was the most likely candidate to replace the
BLI wheel sets.
He
felt that the BLI truck would not stand up well to the
little coring
tool and to use one to clear the journal boxes, it may
cause the wheel
sets to be a bit sloppy. So, the upshot of this is
for now, you could
use the WS10975 wheel sets, but he would not recommend
wholesale
changes
right away, that a period of experimentation was
called for to
determine
that these is the most accurate axle length for these
trucks. The
WS10975 wheel sets come packaged 12 wheel sets to the
package.

Regards,

Tom Olsen
7 Boundary Road, West Branch
Newark, Delaware, 19711-7479

John Golden wrote:

Guys,

Does anyone know the appropriate axle length for
Reboxx replacement wheelsets for the 70 ton trucks on
Broadway N&W hoppers? If so, please drop me a line at
Golden1014@yahoo.com. I've got nine cars that are
scheduled for new wheelsets and I want to make sure I
get the right ones. Thanks!

John


John Golden
O'Fallon, IL
http://www.pbase.com/golden1014

John Golden
O'Fallon, IL
http://www.pbase.com/golden1014

My geography must be bad, for I thought it was....
Bakersfield!

--- Anthony Thompson <thompson@signaturepress.com>
wrote:

Bob Webber wrote:

Spoken from the UP management booklet on how to treat loyal
customers. Screw 'em, life's tough then you die. Well put.

In California the saying is, "life is tough and then you go to Fresno."

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

I have Branchline UNDEC REA Express Steel Reefers I
wish to close out at cost. $15.00 ea. MSRP of $24.98


Shipping is $3.85 for first car, add another $1.00 for
each additional car.
contact me off-list at <midcentury@sbcglobal.net>
Thanks,
-Andy Carlson

Andy Sperandeo wrote:

I don't know how UP or SP dispatchers did it, but Santa Fe dispatchers' train sheets from the 1940s have a row across the top for train symbols . . .

SP train sheets had the same.

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

Jeff Aley wrote:

Why would one WANT to close the drains on a reefer? To keep out
vermin, perhaps?

On meat reefers, some cars complied with the recommended practice to retain the very salty melt water on board rather than dump it on the trucks, rails and bridges.

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

Andy Sperandeo wrote:

If the NMRA had the slightest influence on any of this, it's that the Athearn coupler box was meant to hold an X2f-style horn-hook coupler. And while that coupler was designed by an NMRA committee, and quickly picked up by manufacturers anxious to have a compatible coupler . . .

I think they just wanted a cheap coupler that was molded in one piece and that made kind of an off-hand gesture toward automatic coupling.

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 a message dated 10/9/2005 9:16:42 P.M. Mountain Daylight Time,
brockm@brevard.net writes:

And I thought sitting through an NMRA Business Meeting was bad. Hmmm. Now
there's a thought. Rather than Moderate Jail....



----> Oh NOOOOO! That's gotta come under the heading of cruel and unusual
punishment! <G> Mea culpa...I throw myself upon the mercy of The Court ...
regardless if I'm guilty or not! <VBG>


Take Care!

Brian R. Termunde
West Jordan, Utah

"Ship and Travel the Grand Canyon Line!"
Grand Canyon Railway
Utah District

In a message dated 10/9/2005 7:54:49 P.M. Mountain Daylight Time,
thompson@signaturepress.com writes:

Bob Webber wrote:

Spoken from the UP management booklet on how to treat loyal
customers. Screw 'em, life's tough then you die. Well put.

In California the saying is, "life is tough and then you go to
Fresno."



---> Really? Here in Utah it's "Life is tough, then you go to California!"
<G>

Take Care!

Brian R. Termunde
West Jordan, Utah

"Ship and Travel the Grand Canyon Line!"
Grand Canyon Railway
Utah District

rob the magnet raises the internal bb to unlock the knuckle, but does
not open the knuckle. when you pull away with whatever the unlocked
coupler knuckle will open but the other coupler knuckle will still be
locked. there is no internal spring like thing to open a knuckle that
has been unlocked. i have tried the couplers in antisipation of
sergent making them for o scale. i did not get sergent's uncoupling
tool, but made one up with s 1/8" diam magnet glued to a dowel. i also
acc'd a bit of wire which sticks down from the magnet's bottom. this
allows you to lift the ball and pull open the closed knuckle with the
wire. works great. hope that clears up any confusion. there is a good
link on sergent's website that reviews the coupler and has some hints.

woody

Gene the initial issues of the Kadee 58 and 78 couplers had a gap between
the knuckle and the rest of the coupler head. Made them look strange. I have
a bunch of cars that have gaps, but I still like the size compared to the 5.
The links below show both the gap and non-gap couplers.

Gap
http://www.kadee.com/ca/40ps1/4037l.htm
No gap
http://www.kadee.com/htmbord/page351.htm

Brian J Carlson P.E.
Cheektowaga NY

Denny,
First, thanks for the useful information (repeated below).

Second, to those of you who are more familiar with the two couplers
being discussed, I apologize in advance for wasting your time with
questions.

Third, El Paso never had much of a hobby shop and what we did have
closed a couple of years ago. If I am to see products "in the flesh"
a trip to Albuquerque, NM and Trains West is in order. Actually,
Trains West is merely mediocre but, compared to other West Texas, New
Mexico and Arizona hobby shops, it is pretty good. In order to see
products I must at least travel 275 miles to Albuquerque if not about
600 miles to Denver and Caboose Hobbies. Hence I rely on product
reviews, manufacturers web sites, this, and a couple of other
discussion groups for my information.

Finally, to my question. Denny, can you or someone else expand
on 'the notorious "Gap"' mentioned below? I don't know to what you
are referring.

I don't believe you mentioned the distance between coupled freight
cars and whether or not is matches or exceeds that of the prototype.
Any thoughts?

Thanks in advance.
Gene Green

--- In STMFC@yahoogroups.com, Denny Anspach <danspach@m...> wrote:

The recent interesting thread on scale couplers and boxes and their
applications motivated me to do some measurements and

experimentation

today on two new-in-box Fifth Avenue Car Shops Milwaukee ribside
double door boxcar kits, MILW 6600, and MILW 7037. Both cars had

the

standard moulded industry-standard draft gear boxes designed for

drop

in Kadee-type couplers, essentially identical to that found with
almost all other contemporary styrene and urethane kits currently,
and historically on the market.

My purpose was to first measure, and then install Kadee #78 scale
couplers and boxes on one car, and install Accurail Accumate Proto
scale couplers and boxes on the other, and compare experiences.
Note that I have been installing the Accumate Proto couplers for

some

time (about 100 cars), and this was my first experience with a #78.

Because the coupler measurements have been gone over a number of
times in the past on this list and elsewhere, I will simply

stipulate

that although both couplers have pluses and minuses in their

details,

both seem to look acceptably prototypical to me. The #78s, although
fresh from the LHS, had the notorious "Gap", which I understand has
since been corrected.

The measurement of the boxes against prototypes is listed below.
Understand that draft gear "boxes" or housings are simply seemless
extensions of the car's normal center beam or center sill, so are
really not truly ever prototypically "independent". Their

dimensions

should reflect this by only sharing the same cross sectional
measurements as the center sill.


In the figures below then, the "length" of the average prototypical
draft gear "box/sill" (such as might be common on any 40' car) is

as

measured from the outside face back to then nearest margin of the
body bolster.

Box Dimensions Kadee #78 AccProto
Prototype

Length OA 0.475" (3'5-1/4") 0.640"
(4'7-3/4") c. 4'4-10"
Width OA 0.258" (2'9-1/2") 0,236"
(2'8-3/4") c. 1'6" (over flanges)
Depth OA 0.125" (1'1") 0.139" (12") c. 12-

13"

Depth without bottom N/A 0.106" (9-1/4") N/A
Minimum length (cut) N/A 0.380" (2'9-

1/4") N/A

Detailing None (box is trapezoidal) Some
N/A

Preliminary Summary:

Both boxes are still much wider than the prototype (presumably a
functional necessity). The overall depths are pretty accurate. The
Accumate Proto box is long enough that it can stand in for the
entire sill from the bolster to the draft gear face. The Kadee is
too short in this regard. Shape and detailing (such as it is) is
superior on the AP. The unusual trapezoidal shaped of the Kadee box
is pronounced (presumably representing draft angles). This said,
however, once installed these box differences will rarely in real
time rarely be noticed.

Application:

I posted several days ago on the list my particular method of
installing the AP boxes and couplers on my cars, and that is what I
did today on car #1. Because the bottom or floor of the moulded box
on the car under frame already represented the defined plane for

the

coupler shank, I nested the AP box into the larger box only after
removing the smaller box's bottom lid. The AP box was also far too
long to fit into the larger box without alteration. I could either
cut the AP box short (which it is designed to allow to a defined
location [see above], or I could remove the back wall of the

larger

box, along with the short center sill section just behind so that

the

AP box in toto could be set it place with its end abutting the body
bolster- very prototypical. The latter is what I did.

After all tools were in place, the entire installation of the new

AP

couplers and boxes, and removal of all but the floors of the

original

moulded boxes took about 10-12" at most.

The second car was slated for the #78s. There was a cautionary hint
of coming trouble when I read the very first sentence of the
instructions on the packet:

"The #78 coupler is not designed to be used in the
'molded-on' round post coupler draft gear boxes [sic.]. We
recommend using our scale #58 instead".

Well, you learn why very quickly: The principal 0-48 (or 0-80)
fastening screw has the identical centering of the round post of

the

larger box (the hole in which is usually designed to house a much
larger 2-56). Well, this was solved by filling the old post holes
with some styrene rodding. Because of the relative shortness of the
box, I also trimmed the back wall of the moulded box and the

adjacent

centersill so that the #78 box could set right in. The trapezoidal
shape of the back of the box created only a minor fitting problem.

The second (and much bigger) problem is that unlike the AccProto
box, the depth of the #78 box *cannot* be reduced to accommodate

the

thickness of the moulded box floor already in place. Bummer. The
only solutions would be to 1) machine down the moulded box floor-

not

an easy job, or a job without hazard for those not prepared for it;
or 2) Mount the intact box on top of the old floor and then just

jack

up the trucks. Since I was not inclined to do the former (I have
tried it in the past and- what a lot of work!), and because the
latter could be undone, I mounted the boxes intact. To get the
couplers to a standard height (Kadee height gauge), however, I had

to

jack up the trucks a full .060" (the car looks like it is in flood
pants).

Well, after small squirts of Kadee "Grease-Em" in all the new

boxes,

both cars went onto the layout. All coupled well repeatedly with

each

other, and with other cars on a 42" curve. Sometimes I thought that
the #78 tended to couple easier, but if so, it wasn't consistent,

or

in the end- persuasive.

So, what are my preliminary conclusions, assuming my "given" that
scale couplers have to be housed in scale draft gear boxes: For

the

majority of kits out there with already moulded-on draft gear

boxes,

the Accumate Proto couplers would still seem to be near the only

game

in town.

Although I will be removing the #78s and replacing them with the
Accumate Protos, I will be saving the former to use on some brass
cars that do not share the same inherent problems of the moulded
boxes.

Two other packages of #78s will be returned to the LHS, to a great
extent because of the "Gaps"--, which *are* truly disconcerting.

BTW, these new Fifth Avenue DD ribside cars are beautiful, and
beautifully finished. I am doing some (but not a lot of)
redetailing, folllowing some of Mont Switzer's good suggestions
recently in MM. (I cannot work half as fast as he does- routinely).

Denny






--
Denny S. Anspach, MD
Sacramento, California

Correction - missing a crucial "out" - should read "it seems to me that once the magnet is held

close enough to raise the internal ball lock, a little loco power in reverse
would uncouple the cars without the modeller actually touching them"

Rob
----- Original Message -----
From: "Rob Kirkham" <rdkirkham@shaw.ca>
To: <STMFC@yahoogroups.com>
Sent: Sunday, October 09, 2005 8:27 AM
Subject: [STMFC] Sergent Couplers

Maybe I'm missing something, but it seems to me that once the magnet is held
close enough to raise the internal ball lock, a little loco power in reverse
would uncouple the cars with the modeller actually touching them. Without
the ball engaged, the couplers aren't locked and there is nothing to resist
their opening and releasing.

Or am I missing something?

Rob Kirkham






Yahoo! Groups Links

Maybe I'm missing something, but it seems to me that once the magnet is held close enough to raise the internal ball lock, a little loco power in reverse would uncouple the cars with the modeller actually touching them. Without the ball engaged, the couplers aren't locked and there is nothing to resist their opening and releasing.

Or am I missing something?

Rob Kirkham

--- Patrick Wider <pwider@s...> wrote:

At the risk of going slightly off subject, D&G makes
HO-scale passenger car trucks such
that their springs actually compress and the trucks
actually equalize. And in case there's
still any lingering doubt due to my screw-up: THE
COMPANY IS STILL IN BUSINESS!!!!!

I have Used the D&G trucks on quite a few models of passenger cars and
I really like them. They are truly works of art from any perspective;
aesthetic AND operational.

Demetre Argiro

Hi folks,

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This DVD (also available on VHS) is approximately 1 hour and 20
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The DVD also includes some never before seen footage of Dick
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You can order this DVD for $29.95 plus $3.00 shipping through my E-
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Please add $6.00 shipping for all international orders.

Thanks,

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In a message dated 10/8/2005 7:07:55 PM Eastern Daylight Time,
ehansmann@adelphia.net writes:
While there is no model image, does anyone else find it odd that the
lettering images for the car are NOT of an N8b caboose? This is quite a
mixed message in my book.
That could be because it is an N6b. There never was such a class of cabins
as N8b.

Rich Orr

Ben Hom wrote:

Recently, I wrote my contact in Walthers product development
regarding these and other lettering diagrams now used to illustrate
available paint schemes. These almost always contain incorrect
lettering "fonts", profiles, or other incosistencies leading buyers
to believe that Walthers failed to do their homework, potentially
costing them sales. He replied that product development had already
voiced that concern, but were vetoed by marketing (whose idea it was
to use these diagrams.)

I have not been involved with this project, but I know the people in
the PRRT&HS who are working this project, and I'm confident that the
final product will be much better than represented in those
lettering diagrams.

=================================================


Thanks for the info Ben. That sure is an interesting school of marketing
that those Walthers boys attended. "Show 'em this, but sell 'em THIS!" I had
thought this was proven as a poor marketing model, but what do I know.

I hope the new N6b cabins are a strong match for the prototypes.

Eric Hansmann
Morgantown, W. Va.
Survived 13 years owning a retail store...
Now selling the merits of West Virginia University to students and
families...