couplers on new atlas n scale frieght cars

[Anonymous]

Hi, I`m just getting back into n scale and bought some new atlas cars, they have a new coupler that looks more scale than the old coupler from 30 years ago. Where can I buy or do they even make that same coupler on new atlas cars for me to convert all my old cars. I see Kadee makes a after market coupler but I like the ones on the atlas cars better.
any help will be geat,
thanks

[egmurphy]

[#welcome] Welcome to the forum. Feel free to ask questions. There are a lot of great people who post here who have a lot of knowledge to share.

This is the Accumate coupler. The easiest way to convert to these is to buy truck/coupler assemblies that have the accumate coupler. Atlas makes them in a couple of truck styles and your LHS should stock them. Remove and discard the old truck/coupler assembly and put on the new one using the original truck kingpin.

I could be wrong but I'm not aware that they offer Accumates by themselves to change out for the old Rapido couplers.

Regards

Ed

[retsignalmtr]

micro trains couplers work well with the couplers on the atlas cars. if you can't find accumates use the micro trains. i have not seen the accumates in the few shops that i go to and don't know any price difference between them. the only advantage to me of atlas putting the accumates on their cars is that i don't have to change the truck coupler sets and have all those that i removed laying around.

[Anonymous]

Thanks, Ido have alot of questions, I am planning a coal train from the WW2 era
in my state of PA. getting some bowser coal hoppers and converting to body mount couplers. does everyone like the MT couplers?

Thanks for all your help

[retsignalmtr]

i like the micro trains couplers. they look good and operate very well. i do not use the magnet uncouplers as i prefer the rix pix to uncouple the cars. the couplers on all my cars are truck mounted. mounting mt's on the bodies of hoppers might be a little difficult as there is not much there to mount anything. there is one problem that i have found with truck mounted couplers. backing up with a long (more than 15 cars) train over switches with short radius turnouts can cause derailments sometimes.

[DSchmitt]

MicroTrains couplers are the originals. Accumates are recent clones. (The MT patents expired) Every good train store I have been in has a selection of MicroTrains couplers. I didn't know that Accumates were available separately, but then I haven't looked.

I have read mixed reviews on Accumates in the N scale press. Most have said they are OK, but not as good as the MicroTrains.

[egmurphy]

What's better, Accumates or MT couplers? This is one of those ongoing questions in N scale that seem to have two camps with avid supporters on each side. I don't remember the question coming up recently here, but you can drop in at either the Atlas N Scale Forum or the TrainBoard N Scale Forum, do a search on "accumate mt coupler" and find more than you care to read about the question.

I don't really have a dog in this hunt, so let me distill what I've read on the subject into a couple of lines. MT's supporters tend to emphasize their reliability, especially if you are running long trains like on NTrak setups. Accumates appear to have had some really bad issues when they first came out, including a tendency for one coupler to ride up and over the mating knuckle (due to improper casting part angle?), and a tendency for the coupler box to come apart. Recent accumates seems to have resolved these issues, but are not considered as strong a coupler as the MT's. Accumate supporters criticize MT's "slinky" effect. The MT's have their coupler spring placed so that as the engine pulls the car the spring compresses, and then wants to expand, then contract, then expand... You can notice the yo-yo motion with only one car, but the effect is multiplied if you have long trains of MT couplers. There's more but that a very small taste of what you'll find.

I don't have a lot of experience, but I'll share what I have. I have a mix of couplers. MT cars that came with MT couplers I happily leave as is. Then I have a number of MDC cars that have MDC's dummy knuckle coupler. So far these have worked well and I haven't tried to change them. They seem to couple fine with both MT's and Accumates, and since I manually uncouple, it doesn't matter to me that they don't have an automatic operation. On all cars that I am actually changing out Rapido couplers on I'm using the Atlas trucks with Accumate couplers.

Why? Did I do exhaustive research on which is better, trials, read all available posts? Nope, in my relatively inexperienced state I went to my LHS and said I wanted to start changing out Rapidos, and he pulled some of the Atlas bubble pack trucks off the rack and said "Here's what you want." So far it's seems to work okay. But then again I have a small layout and don't run real long trains.

I am involved in trying to change out Rapidos with MT's on all my engines, since there's no Accumate option. So far it hasn't been fun. In fact, what I actually have is a pair of boxcars with rapidos on one end and accumates on the other that I'm using between my Rapido equipped engines and the accumate/MT/MDC equipped cars.

There you go, just to confuse the situation even more.

Regards

Ed

[retsignalmtr]

if you don't like the slinkey jerking motion with the couplers there is a spring that is made by mt that goes on the axle at the bearing point to retard that jerky motion. use it on several cars including cabooses. don't use it on all your cars as it might put too much drag on the locomotives