Close coupling of passenger cars with diaphragms

[Anonymous]

What are some of th best ways to gewt more or less prototypical closse coupling of passenger cars with diaphragms? I've used Walthers folded-fabric diaphragms but they seem to give too long a vestribule. I assume it depends on the brand of car and of diaphragm, but I woukld like to hear some suggestions And especially for short radius curves from 24" up.

John Lane

[rogerhensley]

At the risk of making somebody unhappy, I use a folded diaphragm with striker only on one end of the cars and set my coupler distance closer. The diaphragm does not actually touch the next car, but is so close that you can't tell unless you get your eye right down to it. This allows free movement on tighter curves without interferance between diaphragms.

Roger

Roger Hensley – [e-mail]
== http://www.nmra.org/beginner/ ==
== NMRA Beginner Pages ==

[Anonymous]

John; Roger Hensley has a good suggestion above, but I'm interested in what minimum radius he operates on....Roger.. ? Trouble is, when you want to do it on 24" radius (HO)you have a problem. Full length passenger cars just aren't meant for small radii. They don't look good, even when they can be coaxed around them. Shortening up the coupling distance for diaphragm-fitting purposes isn't possible on small radius curves. So without wishing to be the Devil's Advocate, I don't think nicely fitting diaphragms are possible on 24" radius curves , unless you drop back to 'Harriman-length' cars of the 60-odd foot long variety...Regards / Mike

[Sperandeo]

Hi John,

See "Standards for Passenger Cars," by Chuck Hitchcock, on the MODEL RAILROADER section fo this web site (click on the logo at left). Chuck's approach works well for full-length cars on 30" or larger curves, and I use his standards for my own cars. they would probaly work on 24"-radius curves if you limited yourself to shorter passenger cars like Athearn's heavyweights and streamliners, the Con-Cor smoothside cars, and MDC's Harriman cars.

Good luck,

Andy

Andy Sperandeo
MODEL RAILROADER Magazine.

[rogerhensley]

I run Athearn shortey cars on 24 inch radius curves. I do also run a couple of baggage & RPO cars that are shorter. Mike is correct about regular length cars looking very bad on 24 inch curves. Not only do the look bad, but the have derailment problems, :-)

On a small layout, shortey cars look correct. It is only when you combine them with full length cars that they look out of place.

Roger

Roger Hensley – [e-mail]
== http://cid.railfan.net/eci_new.html ==
== East Central Indiana HO Scale Railroad ==

[Anonymous]

hello everybody,
close coupling for passenger car in staight line is easy but when comes the time of curves:ouch!
so,here in europe,we have a close coupling system that Roco as given to us in 1976-and many have adapted since then as a standart delivery-.since then we have close coupling in staight line and in curves.
see Roco's catalogue for further details-many conversion kits-and we have here some artisans that produce this "magic"item in etch brass sheet very easy to assemble.every passenger car is provided with this item in europe.
any question,give me a shout!
all the best,
nicolas,ireland