Hi Fellow Modelers,
I recently recieved the latest three of my Capitol Limited cars, the twin-unit diners and a Bird 16-4 Budd sleeper. For some unknown reason there was a delay in shipping the Deluxe cars (maybe hung up in the port congestion on the west coast?)
Anyway, when I opened the package and looked under the plastic tray I found a poly bag with a pair of draft gear coupler pockets with the pivot and whiskers and a carrier plate marked with the letter L molded in. Nearly identical to all the Walthers passenger car draft gear setups for the past fifteen years or so.
This got me curious since I had not found any information from Walthers about extending coupler or draft gear lengths so I took off one of the originals and measured .625" between the centers of the coupler boss and the pivot hole.
The provided extras measure .680" between the same points. That will give you an added .110 between cars so maybe Walthers is trying to get the minimum radius down to 18" for operating on layouts with tighter curves.
Has anyone heard or read anything from Walthers about this?
I am blessed with a 32" mainline minimum so long passenger cars haven't been a problem for me I just thought I'd pass along this recent development to anyone who may be interested.
Enjoy the hobby, Ed