I have all five of Jon Cagle's very fine "Standard Tank Car Co." tank
car kits and have been going through each of them doing doing much of
the preliminary work required like clean-up of the small parts and
tapping the u/f and tank bottom sheets for the long screws I like to
use for the trucks. As I do so some questions have arisen.

For the two-dome General American car, GATX 1638, does anyone have a
larger version of the photo that is on the instructions that can
offer me guidance on which style of bolster cover plate to use, oval
or four-leaf clover? Alternatively, from existing photos or other
evidence, is it possible to draw any conclusions about which style
cover plate was most common?

Speaking of photos, have any more photos of these cars surfaced since
these cars were released pointing to other possible schemes that are
not shown in Ted C's tank car guide book. If so can someone point me
to their reporting marks/car number and source? I am fine with buying
them if I know where to go.

Thank you!

Bill Welch
2225 Nursery Road; #20-104
Clearwater, FL 33764-7622
727-470-9930
fgexbill@...

Their coupler pockets are design for a Kadee #78 couple. Which has been discontinued. Anyone know of any still available?

Clark Propst

At 05:40 PM 5/11/2012 +0000, you wrote:

Their coupler pockets are design for a Kadee #78 couple. Which has been discontinued. Anyone know of any still available?

I didn't know they were discontinued. Most RYM kits (also discontinued) require them.

Andy

Clark, the #178 is the same box size as the #78, the coupler is one of the whisker types. Would that fit?
joe binish

At 05:40 PM 5/11/2012 +0000, you wrote:

Their coupler pockets are design for a Kadee #78 couple. Which has been discontinued. Anyone know of any still available?

78 or 178? There is no 78 listed on their site, 178 is still available. Comes in its own draft gear which you will probably need to discard. I have some of the SC&F tank cars unbuilt of course.

Andy

At 12:49 PM 5/11/2012 -0500, you wrote:

Clark, the #178 is the same box size as the #78, the coupler is one of the
whisker types. Would that fit?

Well crap. The 178 is just a 158 in the narrow box. The 78 had the coil centering spring like the old #4 and does seem to be gone. You would have to do some mods to the center stud of a coupler box designed for a 178 to take a 158.

Strange that the 78 has been dropped - it wasn't around that long. I bought some just a few weeks ago for an RYM car. Don't remember where though.

Andy

Clark Propst wrote:
"Their coupler pockets are design for a Kadee #78 coupler. Which has been
discontinued. Anyone know of any still available?"

Does the coupler pocket require the Kadee coupler draft gear?  If so, you can
use a #178?  If it only requires the coupler, you can use any Kadee centerset
shank semiscale coupler - the main difference between the #58 and #78 was the
draft gear.
http://www.kadee.com/htmbord/coupler.htm#HO-Scale


Ben Hom

At 10:55 AM 5/11/2012 -0700, you wrote:

Does the coupler pocket require the Kadee coupler draft gear? If so, you can
use a #178? If it only requires the coupler, you can use any Kadee centerset
shank semiscale coupler - the main difference between the #58 and #78 was the
draft gear.

http://www.kadee.com/htmbord/page78.htm - notice the different shape of the center and the coil spring. The SC&F and RYM resin kits have a molded coupler pocket with that type of setup for the coil spring. I am not sure if a 158 is a drop-in replacement or not. If not, I guess I need to go find more 78s pronto.

Andy

Hum, the little bags that contain the photo etch fret and brass grab irons also has a pair of couplers in them.

Jon may need to deal with the changes at Kadee, especially with the two new tank car kits he is planning to release.

Bill Welch

My understanding from talking to Kadee's Sam Clarke last weekend is that the VERY familiar bronze centering spring is probably on the way out--the dies are getting seriously worn. They like the whisker function very well, it holds up well in testing, and is simpler to manufacture. I gathered that you can look for ALL Kadee couplers, eventually, to be whisker type.

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@...
Publishers of books on railroad history

Hello group,

As Andy and others have pointed out the old #78 coupler has a special shank and centering system that's unique only to the #78 coupler. The inside of the #78 box has a wedge or chevron shaped centering post that matches the pivoting hole in the #78 coupler. No other coupler works on this post. Several smaller manufacturers have molded their coupler pockets for the #78 coupler with the chevron pivoting post.

Not long ago we changed the centering post inside the #78 box to the standard round post to accommodate our "whisker" couplers. The original #78 was difficult for the average modeler (if there is such) to assemble so we assemble the #78 here at our plant. To save a great deal of labor we looked into using our #158 scale head whisker coupler in the #78 box and when we knew the whisker couplers would work in the narrow box we went ahead with the change. The #78 has been discontinued as a retail product but has been replaced with the #178 using the #158 coupler in the modified #78 box.

However, all is not lost concerning the #78 coupler. The #78 is the coupler we are using in all of our freight cars so we are still producing the #78 coupler for our in house use and we'll continue to do so until we get around to changing over to the whisker couplers in our cars, an eventuality.

Upon special request we will sell the #78 coupler "only", no box, with centering springs for #2.35 per pair plus shipping, directly from Kadee. Also note that the coil "centering spring" for the #78 is the common #622 "knuckle spring" used in the #5 size of couplers.

Thanks Tony for your comments too.

Sam Clarke
Kadee Quality Products


From: lnbill
Sent: Friday, May 11, 2012 11:19 AM
To: STMFC@...
Subject: [STMFC] Re: Southern Car & Foundry tank car kit questions



Hum, the little bags that contain the photo etch fret and brass grab irons also has a pair of couplers in them.

Jon may need to deal with the changes at Kadee, especially with the two new tank car kits he is planning to release.

Bill Welch

--- In STMFC@..., cepropst@... wrote:

Their coupler pockets are design for a Kadee #78 couple. Which has been discontinued. Anyone know of any still available?

Clark Propst

At 06:19 PM 5/11/2012 +0000, you wrote:

Hum, the little bags that contain the photo etch fret and brass grab irons also has a pair of couplers in them.

Cool. So I just need to find 78s for my ~~10 unbuilt RYM kits.

Andy

At 11:42 AM 5/11/2012 -0700, you wrote:

simpler to manufacture. I gathered that you can look for ALL Kadee
couplers, eventually, to be whisker type.

The only issue I see here is that the bronze spring provides some thickness and in some manufacturer's draft gear a whisker coupler may droop a little. But that's easily fixed with a shim, which is a lot easier than fixing the opposite problem. I encountered several cars from Athearn and BLI that did not have room for the ubiquitous bronze spring without binding, which was a pain to fix before the whiskers came along. I probably use whiskers now at an 8 to 1 preference over the bronze. I also stick with the large heads on longer cars - but I don't think those will be going away any time soon.

I also have another growing Athearn bluebox collection of clone couplers and springs including the Walthers #5 clone and bronze springs. Amazing how fast that box fills up... when it's full it goes on ebay like the last one. Got $12 I think.

Andy

At 11:57 AM 5/11/2012 -0700, you wrote:

Upon special request we will sell the #78 coupler "only", no box, with centering springs for #2.35 per pair plus shipping, directly from Kadee.

Excellent... the best run company in the MR business strikes again. Thanks Sam :-)

Andy

Probably, but the casted center pin is grooved for the 78 spring. I was figuring on buying a package of the 178s. But, I haven't found either in the hobby shops I've visited since I bought my last SC&F kit.
Clark Propst

Thanks Sam, I had been meaning to contact you to see if you still had inventory, but the thread came up here first.
Clark Propst

By gosh, Bill is right! There are couplers in that parts package! I just stopped construction at the instruction step saying to install 78 couplers, which 'I' didn't have.

When I build this SC&F kit I shouldn't need anymore tank cars. But, someone is always coming out with something new as a temptation...
Clark Propst