I picked up a prewar dump car and found that its couplers do not line up with the rest of my rolling stock, they are higher than the others. I thought of bending the couplers downward but was wondering if anyone else ran into this problem and what they did to fix it. Thanks
Bruce
This may be a dumb question, but are you sure it's the same make as your other prewar rolling stock?
I had that problem as well with a pre war dump car, the couplers were both box & pin but the top side on the box had a different design, one had similated coupler and the other just 2 side by side lines. They both had electro-couplers on the car.
Lee Fritz
Hello alcofanshdy,
yes, I've seen that too. Some of the prewar stuff has the same couplers, but they seem to come in 2 different heights. Mine are the "box" couplers, late pre war. Not an expert in this area...
But, how I manage is that they all seem to have slight differences in height. Some a little higher, some lower. I just find cars that fluctuate in height just enough to accomodate the higher coupler. You may have another car with a coupler slightly higher that will reach ? You just wind up with the same 2 cars always together.
But I would not recommend bending anything.
Paul
Thanks for the replys and info. For now this car will be on a siding. In the future I will be a little more careful when getting prewar rolling stock and will look closely at the couplers to be sure they will mate with what I have. I didn't realize there was a difference like that.
That's Great ! There are 2 distinctly different heights, same coupler !
Go figure....
these couplers are pretty stout, you won't cause any damage by tweaking them.
Dave
It's a TOY, A child's PLAYTHING!!! (Woody from Toy Story)
Lionel made prewar rolling stock in different "series", with different coupler heights even though the couplers looked about the same. I think of it as an O gauge series (more expensive cars) and an O27 series (less expensive cars). The prewar catalogs specified what engines and cars belonged together.
Great Explanation . There is usually a size difference on the cars, too.
The only info I found deals with the 3859 Type 1: "Introduced in 1938 was this operating dump car with couplers the correct height to match the 2810 series cars. The tops of its coupler boxes had two ridges running their length, and the trucks had nickel journal boxes. The dump bin was painted light red." Standard Catalog of Lionel Trains 1900-1942 by David Doyle, 2005 printing.
Trains, trains, wonderful trains. The more you get, the more you toot!
thanks for this info everyone, when I search for rolling stock in the future I now know there are different couplers even tho they look the same.
After looking at the couplers and the differences I guess I have a 3859 rather than the 3659. Thanks Pennytrains for the info and clearing this up for me.
alcofanschdy After looking at the couplers and the differences I guess I have a 3859 rather than the 3659. Thanks Pennytrains for the info and clearing this up for me.
Interesting as I didn't know there were 2 models of dump car that were similar. I know of the 3659 but not the 3859.
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