I was just doing some idle perusing on THAT buy & sell site & saw a vendor offering 'Universal Couplers'. These are supposed to be able to work with both knuckle & horn hook couplers.
I thought that this could save me a lot of time (especially with those endless specialty freights I've assembled that are all horn hook) in converting the entire fleet to Kaydee or Rapido that could be better spent working on wiring or landscape. Just as an aside, I've been doing just that, aided by the Kaydee kit for drilling & tapping screw holes for body mounting.
So what's the consensus? Worth looking into?
Paul
If you are going to remove the existing couplers and replace them with those things, why not just replace them with kadees in the first place?
Probably not. If you have horn hooks and KD's, they will still be incompatible with each other. So the universals don't really enable any two cars to be coupled together. You would need to convert either all KD's or all hornhooks to the universals. If you're going to do that, I would just work on converting the hornhooks to KD's.
The other thing is how well do the universals really work with KD's or hornhooks - I don't know. You would have to experiment.
Instead I would make a couple of transition cars (KD one end and hornhook the other) so that you can run trains with both until conversion to KD is complete.
I have no experience with these. To my eyes, they don't look very prototypical, and I would have to be shown before I would believe they would really work well with all available couplers.
My first thought is an expression I heard many years ago: "One size fits none".
Tom
My guess is that the seller is unloading his surplus "Kadee-clones" (that came with his RTR and/or kits) to recoup some of the cost...
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Time...It marches on...without ever turning around to see if anyone is even keeping in step.
I suppose they could have some utility for one's locomotives and certain transition cars if you are in the midst of a massive coupler change-over from horn-hook to Kadee/knuckle. But eventually you'd want to be totally switched over (presumably not to the horn hooks although stranger things have happened).
For a time as a youth I came into a collection of older cars equipped with the venerable Baker coupler (the kind John Allen used) so I had two transition cars. It was such an annoyance having to always remember to include those two cars that it actually helped speed up my resolve to swap out all the Bakers.
Perhaps these hybrids work very well but I have my doubts. Sort of like how sleeper sofas are mediocre at both functions -- or dinner theater: never the best dinner or the best theater.
Dave Nelson
Please... convert everything to Kadees mounted at the proper height, and wherever possible, in Kadee draft gear boxes.
.
Frustration and disappointment ruins enthusiasm in this hobby. Go with what works and is proven. "Will Fits" are rarely a good solution in any situation.
-Kevin
Living the dream.
Paul,LOL! I haven't seen those universal couplers in years and I thought they went into the history books. No,just go with KDs since those universal couplers didn't work all that great..
Keven,KD couplers are universal and will work in any coupler box that's one reason there's a large hole at the end of the shank. The second reason that hole is there is because its the same size hole found on the X2F coupler that was once the defacto standard coupler.
Larry
Conductor.
Summerset Ry.
"Stay Alert, Don't get hurt Safety First!"
When Kadee's patent ran out and all the clones appeared, MR ran an article that tested the different brands for compatabilty with one another and Kadees. I tried to find the date of the article. A google search turned up a few forum threads from 2002. A seach of this site, as usual was no help. I'm sure one of the forum members will reference the magazine date.
On my layout, Kadees are "universal" because they all work with each other or with the Kadee clones that I haven't had to replace yet.
It takes an iron man to play with a toy iron horse.
slammin When Kadee's patent ran out and all the clones appeared, MR ran an article that tested the different brands for compatabilty with one another and Kadees. I tried to find the date of the article. A google search turned up a few forum threads from 2002. A seach of this site, as usual was no help. I'm sure one of the forum members will reference the magazine date.
MR July 2000. HO scale magnetic knuckle couplers by Jim Hediger.
Nay. This is a common sense situation, like half the topics started on MR. As others pointed out, if you have to change out to put in a universal coupler, then you might as well go with the old reliable hobby standard, Kadee. People keep preaching Kadee for good reason, they do the job very well and reliably as long as you mount them to the correct height and they can center properly.
/issue resolve. You may close this trouble ticket now. ;-)
Rio Grande. The Action Road - Focus 1977-1983
To answer your question. Nay
Doesnt anyone use conversion cars anymore?
i have had experience and they do work, albeit I an not sure if they are the same ones but you can see ads for them in the oldnmrr magazine issues allow with some other weird stuff but for temporary they do work with themselves, kadees and horn hooks. so make good transition car couplers.
PM Railfan Doesnt anyone use conversion cars anymore?
Not since the day of Moses..Even those awful plastic KD wannabes will work with KD coupler.
Hi Paul:
Apparently they are plastic. That would stop me right there. All my stuff has metal Kadees. I don't have any Athearn locomotives so I have no worries about shorting when consisting.
Dave
I'm just a dude with a bad back having a lot of fun with model trains, and finally building a layout!
hon30critter Hi Paul: Apparently they are plastic. That would stop me right there. All my stuff has metal Kadees. I don't have any Athearn locomotives so I have no worries about shorting when consisting. Dave
Dave,While the older BB locomotives requires KD couplers with insulated shanks their RTR locomotives has coupler boxes including the former BB GP38-2,GP40-2,SD40-2,SW1000 and SW1500.
BRAKIEDave,While the older BB locomotives requires KD couplers with insulated shanks their RTR locomotives has coupler boxes including the former BB GP38-2,GP40-2,SD40-2,SW1000 and SW1500.
Thanks Larry,
I have 3 Athearn BB locos, with hard wired Digitrax decoders, and I have had no problem with any Kadee couplers, #48, with the whiskers, shorting anything out, installed in the coupler boxes. Snap off the plastic bottom part, and install the Kadee, the same way the horn-hooks are installed.
Mike.
EDIT: I'm no electrcal genius, or a decoder installion expert, but I'm thinking the fact that you have to isolate the motor from the frame during decoder installation, it eliminates any coupler problems, or else it's the black paint Athearn has on the frames.
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I had some of these years ago. I was using horn-hooks (when everything was sold with them as standard) and a friend was using Kaydees. I outfitted a couple of my engines with them so I could take them with me when we operated on his railroad. They worked OK, but really didn't uncouple as easily as the kaydees on the magnetic ramps.
Jeff