N-scale couplers

[Anonymous]

First, I'd like to say hi to everyone. This has proven to be one of the most pleasant and informative online message board that I've run across in my net surfing, and i've been through a TON of them on various subjects and interests (professional computer geek here.) These forums have been an excellent source of information for all things railroading, both model and the real thing.
Anyway, I've been away from the hobby for 12 or 13 years or so and want to get back into it at the ripe young age of 27. Which leads to a couple of questions:

When buying rolling stock, what is the standard for couplers? Do they come with a standard type of coupler and if so, what is it or do they come with none at all and those will have to be bought seperately?
What are the methods of de-coupling cars in, say, a yard? Is there an easy way to do this manually or is there a trick to it without accidentally de-railing the cars with clumsy hands?
Again this is for N-scale, though it seems like it would be the same for HO.

Any help is appreciated, as it's been a long while since my last layout and am pretty clueless about certain aspects of the hobby at this point.

[MAbruce]

Welcome back to the hobby! I came back a couple of years ago myself after a 15 year break. The advancements in quality and variety have come a long way in N-scale.

I’m sure you remember, or even still have cars with the classic “Rapido” coupler. It’s the large square-ish looking coupler. This has been the standard since N-scale began. But early on, Kadee (now Micro Trains) introduced a magnetic knuckle coupler. However, they held on to the patent and didn’t share it, so this coupler didn’t get a great deal of circulation outside of their products.

Times have changed. The Micro-Trains couplers (MT) are no longer the only game in town. Although MT’s are still really the best (and come in the most variety) Accumate (by Atlas) makes a decent knuckle coupler that will work with MT. You will notice that Atlas has these on virtually all their recent releases (their locos come with Accumates installed but also come with Rapido couplers as an option to install).

There are also a couple of other styles of non-magnetic knuckle couplers (MDC & Kato). These work with MT & Accumates, but do not have the magnetic option. I’ve tried the MDC coupler as it came with a couple of their cars, and I was not that impressed.

The magnetic couplers automatically uncouple with the use of a special magnet that can be installed in whatever sections of track you want. They can also be manually uncoupled. I do not personally use the automatic magnetic option as I built my layout without any magnetic uncoupling track sections. I have used them on other layouts, and they work fine. I am considering installing them in my next layout.

It’s not hard at all to uncouple these by hand. It takes a long thin stick or straw (they even sell something like this for this purpose). You can easily do this without derailing anything – so long as you are not forced to reach into an obscure area (a point to consider when planning your layout).

My advice is to study, study, and study. These forums are good places, and the internet offers many more “free” places to find more information. Or you could invest in some how-to books by our sponsor Kalmbach.

[Anonymous]

Thank you for the information! This should prove to be helpful in making purchases of cars. Being on a tight budget leaves very little room for errors.

[Anonymous]

A "professional computer geek" on a tight budget? You're pulling our legs. ;-)

I'm glad to see you're asking the right questions, as replacing couplers is definitely a hassle and and unessary expense, if you plan right. I encourage you to go for the M-T couplers, which is what I'm doing now that I'm getting back into it in my 30's (I own a lot of marginally acceptable equipment which I acquired while in high school). I'm not installing magnets under my track, either, just like I'm manually throwing my turnouts.

Do you already own equipment which you hope to use?

[Anonymous]

I was recently at a train show and I purchased a Bachmann switcher which has no couplers on it (a solid 6 wheel). I am contemplating changing some of my stock to MT couplers. I went into the local hobby store and it had many different sizes of couplers. Where do I find which size I need to fit and whatnot? Is there some sort of list for coupler and which things they fit with?

[Anonymous]

QUOTE: A "professional computer geek" on a tight budget? You're pulling our legs. ;-)

lol, I spend my work week quality controlling the code that our offshore *cough*India*cough* vendor produces.

QUOTE: I'm glad to see you're asking the right questions, as replacing couplers is definitely a hassle and and unessary expense, if you plan right. I encourage you to go for the M-T couplers, which is what I'm doing now that I'm getting back into it in my 30's (I own a lot of marginally acceptable equipment which I acquired while in high school). I'm not installing magnets under my track, either, just like I'm manually throwing my turnouts.

These forums have an immense amount of very helpful info in them, (at least the first 80 or 90 pages, which is as far as I got) Just hadn't seen too many coupler questions, so I'd thought I'd ask. I wish I had kept my trains from my teens, but as teenagers do, I lost interest after a few years and sold everything I had for $80, and moved onto other hobbies. Mountain biking being the next one. Then age 16 rolled around, lol. Too bad more teens don't realize having their own job can afford alot of stuff, when you're livign at home with no expenses, instead of bugging mom and dad for handouts and complaining about it.

QUOTE: Do you already own equipment which you hope to use?

Nope. Just want to make sure I buy the right things when I finally do lay some money out, as opposed to wasting it on stuff that'll go unused.