couplers

[Anonymous]

i am just returning to the hobby (or way of life). i am now pursuing n gauge. i was into h-o earlier.
i am now having a problem with my knuckle couplers,all so far are truck mounted. i am having derailments often. which is best body or truck mounted. as i have decided the couplers are probably the culprits.
thanks in advance
charles

[DTomajko]

Are you using Kadees or Rapidos? Body-mounted couplers are usually prefered over truck-mounted ones and most folks convert to Kadee couplers or an equivelent knuckle-style coupler.Truck-mounted couplers usually cause the most problems when backing up long cuts of cars.Body-mounted couplers allow the trucks to follow their own path through trackage.However,if your track work is not perfect,or the cars are very light,or the engines are rough and jerky.You can try many things to help,convert to knuckle couplers,weight the cars to NMRA standards,(www.nmra.org),purchase a NMRA standards gauge to check the track and wheelsets for proper gauge.Also check the turnouts for misaligned or rough point-rails and clean the engine wheels and rails,(Kadee wheel cleaner & Walthers Bright-boy eraser respectively).I hope some of this helps.DTPa.

[Anonymous]

most of the rolling stock came with rapido. i have converted these to micro traim magnetic knuckle couplers (truck mounted). i have checked the track over pretty well,also wheel sets. i did change a few to a wheel set with a more pronounced flange. that helped somewhat. now most of my problem does lie in 50' stock not taking a curve to well. my main engine is an atlas sd35 that has no problems their.
thanks
charles