WOverdurff wrote: The important questions to be addressed are, what is the radius of your curves, how small a frog number are your turnouts, and are you running scale 65' and longer rolling stock?If your frogs and curves are broad enough the length of cars and body mounted couplers will not be a problem and may well improve operational problems that talgo trucks can cause, in particular the backing up of the train as already mentioned. Will
The important questions to be addressed are, what is the radius of your curves, how small a frog number are your turnouts, and are you running scale 65' and longer rolling stock?
If your frogs and curves are broad enough the length of cars and body mounted couplers will not be a problem and may well improve operational problems that talgo trucks can cause, in particular the backing up of the train as already mentioned.
Will
Another consideration in N scale is: Do you have the patience and skill to body mount couplers.
Both horizontal and vertical allignment must be correct. Poor vertical alignment leads to unwanted uncoupling. Poor horizontal alignment leads to derailments and/or uncoupling.
While some brands of equipment have pre-drilled holes for coupler mounting, most do not. It can take a good eye and careful measurement to get it right. If you are converting a lot of cars, carefully made jigs would be very useful. Some types of equipment require modification to provide mounting points.
If appearance is important, consider using Z scale couplers. They will couple with the N scale couplers, so all your equipment will still work together durning the transition. Of course proper alignment is even mor critical with them.
I tried to sell my two cents worth, but no one would give me a plug nickel for it.
I don't have a leg to stand on.
Except for a Athearn PA/B/A loco set and some of my passenger cars, I don't think there are any truck mounted couplers left on the HO-scale BRVRR. The few that I did have were converted to body mounts a long time ago.
Since my layout is small, with 20 1/2", 22 1/2" and even a few 18-inch radius curves in the reverse loop, I weight my passenger cars on the heavy side. Most of my passenger trains are 8-cars or less long and I don't have many problems backing the cars into sidings or through the reverse loop.
The only car that gave me trouble, recently, anyway, was a Rivarossi observation car with a truck-mounted coupler. Adding weight didn't help so I converted it to a body mounted Kadee #5 and all is well now.
Eventually, I will most likely convert all of the passenger cars to body mounted couplers to accommodate diaphragms, but for now everything seems to be working well.
Remember its your railroad
Allan
Track to the BRVRR Website: http://www.brvrr.com/
Well, I will take a somewhat contrary view. I will agree that with all other things being equal, truck mounted are probably more likely to cause issues, but I still have a bunch, especially on passenger cars, and I do not have any problems with derailments, and therefore I am not planning on changing. A lot of my cars have been switched to metal wheelsets, and they all have KDs or compatible. And my standard track test (when I have a layout) is seven passenger cars backwards thru turnouts and all, with a brass 4-8-4 pushing. Bigger than #5 turnouts to be specific. A lot of my cars are under NMRA weight standards, on purpose, and thus the truck mounted couplers add to stability on longer trains, which is what I like to run. The lighter weight helps the locomotives, too.
It's your railroad. Decide what you want, and the ramifications.
body mount. I had enough experience with side forces caused by coupler torque forces.
That goes back to Lionel O27 days. Removing truck mounted removes one problem of derailing.
You have to evaluate your needs and see where truck vs body mount works out. Some commercial passenger cars are coming with truck guided coupler pockets to help align the coupler for sharp curves, but the coupler is still body mounted.
Build your track right and use the right equipment... IE Hi-Cubes on 18" curves is a bit trite...
40'-50' cars better on 18" radius. Build/design wisely, there wont be problems.
I have seen the 'derailed by a cocked truck' syndrome in HO, especially with train set cars and X2F(?) horn-hook couplers. While VERY careful track laying can keep the beasts at bay, the only final solution is body mounting all couplers.
HOWEVER:
Having said that, the vast majority of my couplers are truck mounted, and will remain so. Of course, the 'trucks' are the kind the Reverend Awdry wrote about (usually prefaced by, "Troublesome.") The answer to the question, "When is a body-mounted coupler a truck-mounted coupler?" is, "When the body is that of a four-wheel (or 6 wheel) freight car."
Chuck (modeling Central Japan in September, 1964)
Your questions about car size and trackwork are good points. I have allready kept a 18 in radius on all curves, and all turnouts are #7 or greater (larger on main). As I model 1954 UP, most of the cars are 50 ft or less.
I have also wondered about the change in wheelsets, again, another problem with additional money on each car. I run on code 55 and have not had any problem yet, but have thought that if I was spending money to change to body mounted couplers, i would be needing new trucks anyway and that would be the time to upgrade to smaller flanges.
As far as the smaller flanged wheels, these can be a great cosmetic improvement without impacting operations. The "toy train" manufacturers addressed the flanged wheel with a "pizza cutter" style which lent itself to other possible problems especially on smalled code rail. The radius of the transition from tread to flange keeps the wheel on the rail, especially in properly weighted cars.
I would suggest that you convert two or three cars with body mounted couplers and improved wheels to see if you think the process is worth while for all if not most of your fleet. the cost of the "test" will be small in comparison to going to say DCC, but will be as much or more work.
Give it a try and see what you think.
Yep.
As an N scale PRR guy myself, I can also attest to the fact that while truck-mounted couplers work great in long drags, backup moves with long cuts of cars with truck-mounted couplers can be frustrating. I have a few body-mounted cars (Bowser H21a hoppers and cabin cars), but most of mine are still truck mounted.
I recently added a stub-ended staging yard, and so some trains have to back out of staging (through switches). No derailments yet, but if they start happening, I may have little choice but to start a massive re-mounting project. In the interim, my choice of sturdy Code 80 track and extremely careful tracklaying are helping offset some of the unfavorable physics. However, I do sometimes put a freight car on the ties in a switchback I have which serves the factory in town. Usually it's when I have a long cut of cars I'm pushing. I wonder is slack-action and the "slinky effect" exacerbates the problem.
Modeling the Rio Grande Southern First District circa 1938-1946 in HOn3.
I was invited to operate an N scale PRR railroad this weekend and noted that all of the couplers were body mounted. The operation was very good, although a lot of this was because of the excellent track work on code 55 rail. however, the experience got me wondering if it would be worthwhile to covert all of my engines and cars to body mounted couplers (as well as perhaps changing all the wheel sets to smaller flanges). However, at a couple bucks per car, this could be an expensive undertaking on something I already have.
so, what is your experience. Is it worth changing everything to body mounted couplers?