Last week I picked up an HO Spectrum passenger car, used. Nice looking car. I changed the couplers over to KD5's. Inside this car there is a mechanism linking the truck to the coupler box so when the truck swivels the coupler box, and coupler, swivels too. This is the first time I have seen this, was it considered a successful design? The downside I see is the coupler has a lot of up and down play.
Any info would be of interest. Thanks
That sounds like a Talgo coupler, but is the mechanism inside the car? A Talgo usually has the coupler attached to the truck, so they swivel together. This allows longer cars to take tighter curves because the couplers follow the curvature of the track. It's not prototypical, but sometimes our restricted spaces require some adaptation.
Talgo trucks with attached couplers work, particularly in the forward direction, while being pulled. The geometry sometimes fails when a car is being pushed in reverse, as the forces distribute differently and derailments are more common. For that reason, many modelers replace Talgo couplers with body-mounted couplers, particularly on short cars where the tight turns don't matter.
I still have a few long passenger cars with old Talgo trucks. In addition, I have a few Rivarossi cars with body-mounted "swing" couplers with two rotational axes to allow the cars to navigate tight turns while maintaining the advantages of of body-mounted couplers. These couplers are not attached to the trucks at all.
It takes an iron man to play with a toy iron horse.
These are not the Talgo trucks, I am familiar with those. On this car the truck and the draft gear box are separate, they are body mounted couplers but inside the car they are linked together so the draft gear pivots when the truck swivels. It is an interesting arrangement.
I bought a small fleet of these to serve as commuter cars because I needed a lot of them and at the time, they were cheap. My experience with the couplers was the same as yours. I finally decided to remove the mechanism and body mounted KDs. That got the couplers to the correct height but I soon discovered the trucks were very stiff and derailments were frequent. Most of these cars ended up being static scenic elements in a modest sized coach yard. A combine and a diner ran well enough that I run them in trains with other equipment.
Bachmann passenger cars now have a high end MSRP. I don't know if they are an upgrade from these old Spectrum cars, but at that price, I'm not going to find out.
I purchased three of these initially about 15 years ago, and found another two at a local train show. I don't mind the mechanism, but it allows the couplers to droop quite a bit due to the lengths of the levers and the pivot they use. So, I had to find Kadee couplers that would couple between the cars. It has worked...takes the usual fiddling any new rolling stock takes, especially if was NIB from years ago, or barely used, because the previous one or two owners couldn't be bothered or simply didn't know how to fix them so they'd work reliably. I'd get more if I needed them, now that I know how they work.
I bought a 6 car set of the heavyweight cars over 30 years ago. I wanted them because they were a good likeness for Pennsy. They had the linkage that connected to the trucks to pivot the coupler. I wound up removing the linkage, and body mounting the KD's. The cars did not roll much, wound up removing original wheels, replacing with KD 36" wheels. This disabled the interior lighting, but the cars roll great. I also remember having to sand a little off the bottom of the 4 wheel trucks to keep from dragging going over switch frogs. Just inspect this closely.
I love the Diner, great looking car.
Paul
Road Foreman of Engines I bought a 6 car set of the heavyweight cars over 30 years ago. I wanted them because they were a good likeness for Pennsy. They had the linkage that connected to the trucks to pivot the coupler. I wound up removing the linkage, and body mounting the KD's. The cars did not roll much, wound up removing original wheels, replacing with KD 36" wheels. This disabled the interior lighting, but the cars roll great. I also remember having to sand a little off the bottom of the 4 wheel trucks to keep from dragging going over switch frogs. Just inspect this closely. I love the Diner, great looking car. Paul
I don't know why I never thought about replacing the wheels. This was about 15 years ago. This was before I got in the habit of replacing the wheels on kit built freight cars, mostly Accurail. I use 33" wheels on those but I think I have some 36" wheelsets in my collection. I'll give this a try.
I just went back to look at my cars again to refresh my memory. I bought these when they first came out, and they originally had horn hook couplers, with the pivoting linkage. I body mounted the couplers. The Diner and Combine had 6 wheel trucks, the Pennsy road name coaches had 4 wheel trucks, very little clearance above the rail, even with 36" wheels. It's just the 4 wheel trucks that were suspect, and needed modifications. I bought die cast metal 4 wheel trucks for the Observation from IHC (?). Pennsy sometimes used them on the obs, or at least on the Business cars ,pictures I've seen.
Appreciate the replies, this coupler arrangement doesn't seem too reliable with so much up and down movement, I will most likely body mount these couplers. Just curious what others thought of these Spectrum cars. Thanks.