Just comparing notes.
Good luck!
Mark (Kadee user)
While they have made S scale couplers in the past, they are currently not in their product line. But I'm pretty committed to Kadee, so I doubt I'll switch even if they become available again.
Enjoy
Paul
Easy to tell, people with Kadee are hooked up. Other brand users are trying to figure why there cars will not stay coupled.
I hate Rust
I use Kadee's. #5, #148, #119. I tried Sergents on a trail basis and found them to be not to my liking.
Dr. Frankendiesel aka Scott Running BearSpace Mouse for president!15 year veteran fire fighterCollector of Apple //e'sRunning Bear EnterprisesHistory Channel Club life member.beatus homo qui invenit sapientiam
cudaken Easy to tell, people with Kadee are hooked up. Other brand users are trying to figure why there cars will not stay coupled.
This.
No reason to use anything BUT Kadee.
Michael
CEO- Mile-HI-RailroadPrototype: D&RGW Moffat Line 1989
MotleyNo reason to use anything BUT Kadee.
Ditto
Elmer.
The above is my opinion, from an active and experienced Model Railroader in N scale and HO since 1961.
(Modeling Freelance, Eastern US, HO scale, in 1962, with NCE DCC for locomotive control and a stand alone LocoNet for block detection and signals.) http://waynes-trains.com/ at home, and N scale at the Club.
Kadee for me. I've been using the #58's for quite some time now. I like the smaller knuckles, and I find they work fine with other cars that still have #5's on them.
I'm one of those guys who doesn't like the "Hand of God" swooping down from the sky to uncouple cars or throw turnouts, so I put a lot of effort into planning and installing magnetic uncoupling, too.
It takes an iron man to play with a toy iron horse.
davidmbedard said:
"Your right, why would some people actually want a realistic coupler? I guess they are willing to compromise and use Kadees.
Kadees are NOT realistic. Sergents operate like the prototype.
David B"
---------------------------------------------
Do you find any operational problems with Sergents as one person above stated?
I use Accurail Accumate Proto:HO they have automatic coupling and if you want magnetic uncoupling like Kadees and none of the problems of Sergents.
Try them you will like them.
Harold
MotleyNo reason to use anything BUT Kadee
Amen and pass the Kadee's...
There's never time to do it right, but always time to do it over.....
Everything sooner or later gets Kadee.......
Ray Seneca Lake, Ontario, and Western R.R. (S.L.O.&W.) in HO
We'll get there sooner or later!
Kadee if it is actually going to get used!!!!!!!!!!!
davidmbedard Your right, why would some people actually want a realistic coupler? I guess they are willing to compromise and use Kadees. Kadees are NOT realistic. Sergents operate like the prototype.
Your right, why would some people actually want a realistic coupler? I guess they are willing to compromise and use Kadees.
Yes, at work we always uncouple our cars by sticking a large magnet on the end of a telephone pole between the cars.
Dave H.
Dave H. Painted side goes up. My website : wnbranch.com
Modeling HO Freelance Logging Railroad.
I've yet to find the perfect answer. The standard Kadee knuckle, while oversize, works well and is easy to install.
In the '70s, I started using the Kadee #711 "Old Timer", which has a much better looking knuckle for my TOC rolling stock. However, #711 is not nearly as easy to install, and it can have a slinky action if the trucks are really free rolling. The same is true for the #714, which is the same coupler with an HOn3 trip pin.
The Sergent coupler is more realistic looking than even the Kadee #711, but is not the right shape for pre-1930. The earlier MCB couplers were smaller and more rounded.
Like a few others, I find the scale telephone pole held by the giant hand disturbing the realism of the scene. I prefer magnetic uncoupling, even doing the Kadee delayed dance, if need be. Personal preference.
The Kadee trip pins are no better or worse than unconnected air hose details in a moving train to my eye. Again, personal preference.
For my HOn3 use, I have bought and am trying out a few pair of the MT N couplers. These are closer to scale size for my prototype than the #714, and have improved coupling and slinky characteristics if I stick to the MT 1016 style. But I am not sure they are big enough to stay coupled consistently on my steep grades and 15" radius curves.
Still experimenting with couplers.
Fred W
....modeling foggy coastal Oregon, where it's always 1900....
I have used Kadees in various numbers since early 1960, have a large investment in them, no interest, no reason, to change them now. I am satisfied with the appearance, in fact, the couplers are the last thing to catch my eye when examing a model.
Oh, did I mention the Kadees are dependable. Sergeant may be also, but I don't care and I don't want to change. As far as being prototypical vs not prototypical, there are a lot of compromises made in the hobby, switch throws, most signals, the spikes I use to lay track, and on an on, but I still enjoy my layout.
Bob
Incorrect. Sergent just does the job a whole different route. And really, tit does it better because there's one less piece to fail catastropically, the coupler spring that takes to the netherlands on the Kadee is not on the Sergent Design.
Me? I started Kadee, but am slowly converting to Sergent. Mainly, because I planned to run a protoypical length Ringling train and didn;t think that the Kadee springsa could handle the stresses of a 60' long train. I eagerly await their passenger coupler type H.
And really, the lcoal club uses Kadee, so any engiens I run there will need to be converted back, or run with a conversion. Though actually, most of the stuff I bring won;t couple to the club stuff anyway, so it does A Sergent WILL mate with A Kadee. All you have to do is open the Sergent an coerce it closed around the Kadee knuckle,
-Morgan
The fact that they don't close on their own is why I don't like them, they open nicely though.
Strictly Kadee since I switched to HO i the early/mid 60's. I gave the "clones" a try when they came out but as has been stated earlier I like my trains to "stay" coupled, I'm sort of funny about that.
Right now I'm converting everything to those "short shank" Kadee's, a lot of work and expense for sure but I like the way the train looks when it all coupled together, makes quite a difference beleive it or not.
As for the Sergents (?), they're fine if you're doing a diorama or maybe a contest piece in my opinion but for my preference I'll stay with the Kadee's. I like to run semi-long trains, 25-35 cars and the Kadee's have one big advantage as I see it, reliability.......plus it's enough work just converting everyting to the short shanks let alone to a different style entirely.
As was said earlier, you can tell who's running Kadee's, they're the ones that stay coupled on those long trains.
Mark
I like the seargents but they're too expensive to retrofit all my cars. I have way too big an investment in the kaydees. And what cars I get that don't have them, I retrofit to kaydees. Ironically, I even have a couple of cars that I got that had the seargents on them. I had to take them off and replace them with kaydees.
John
I use both, & am new to Sergent & the Proto87 arena. I like the scale appearance of the Sergents & the availability & size options for my 'difficult to fit' models.
However, I use a lot of rolling stock with Kadee & Kadee compatabile couplers, so see no reason to change from their scale head x58 style couplers in std & whisker styles.
Things to think about 'now' are; Will you ever share your loco's & rolling stock, & need comatibility? Is scale appearance more important than ease of use or personal style? Cost of a complete system? each month I see a new car or 6, & perhaps a loco I just gotta have.
I have modified a couple Kadee couplers to couple to a Sergent trouble free, & have a bunch of each on hand for photo sessions.. After all, the first thing we do after oogling the new loco or rs is take off the couplers to start disassembly & detailing, so a coupler swap is second nature. It's your personal taste & working environment that should help you decide what you go with.
In some of my photos you will see Sergents if it is a real proto, or if I just shoot a running/working model it will be the Kadee. (I don't think I have any Sergents on anything I have posted as of yet).
Nothing but Kadees here. I used to be strictly a #5 user, then the whiskers came out; I'm sold!
Marlon
See pictures of the Clinton-Golden Valley RR
dehusmandavidmbedard Your right, why would some people actually want a realistic coupler? I guess they are willing to compromise and use Kadees. Kadees are NOT realistic. Sergents operate like the prototype. Yes, at work we always uncouple our cars by sticking a large magnet on the end of a telephone pole between the cars. Dave H.
I guess at your job they use the huge magnet between the tracks to pull the couplers apart, or is it buried under ground and activated by a huge switch mounted on the side of the earth?
Why can't anyone just answer the question without having to put their bias on why they choose what they choose? I'm sure it would make it easier for the OP to wade through all the personal opinions and just get a better answer to what he wanted to know.
To the OP, I now use Sergent couplers.
TONY
"If we never take the time, how can we ever have the time." - Merovingian (Matrix Reloaded)
I switched to Sergent Couplers a year or so back.
The fact that they sell a bulk pack now makes the conversion a lot less expensive.
Some notes that you may find of interest from my personal experience.
Uncoupling works very well. I find that I am fighting less with the the uncoupling process than I was before. Simply reach in, hold the wand on top of the coupler, and reverse the loco, and viola. And right where I want the car.
Smooth uncoupling seems directly related to the assembly process, so a little extra care can really pay off down the road. I now rub the inside of the ball socket with a #2 pencil for lubrication, and lightly file the inside part of the knuckle for smoother operation.
The second thing I love about them is how they don't uncouple. Once they are mated, they stay hooked, no accidental disconnects over delayed magnets, etc.
The third thing is they way they look. Not only do they look better, but they make trains look better, as the coupler gap is smaller, and this is not a problem even over short turnouts and the one piece of 18" radius sectional track on my test layout, on locos like the RS11s and with 50" cars.
The fourth thing I like is how they install, other than fighting with the spring (but you get better with experience), installation on almost anything is almost easier as the height is not as vital. Still important, though.
The fifth thing I like is the lack of car jerk - this is different than slack, and is more prevelent along other manufactures when cars at the end of the train bounce along forwards and backwards while being pulled along.
One thing is the importance of car resistance. Car weight is important (especially with metal wheelsets) for there to be enough resistance to make solid hands free connection.
The one challenge that some find as a drawback is with coupling; the couplers do have to be aligned to couple successfully. This requires a bit of experience (and I'm getting better, so it's becoming less of an issue). Kadees couple easily most of the time, the Sergents do as well, but only if they're aligned, but will do so even on tight curves.
This became more apparent and more work when making new connections, ie a different locomotive or car connecting than what was there previously, which requires alignment. On my first test layout the yard is in the middle of a 4x8, so reaching in to align things wasn't the easiest, but you do get better as you go. With a more shelf like (narrower) layout that I'm building, this will hopefully be much less of an issue.
Working them in is also necessary for good operation, besides the suggested method in the instructions, I connect and disconnect each car time and time again on a straight piece of track until the action works smoothly.
I was asked by a you tube viewer what the strength was. Specifically, could it handle 50 cars, or a 70 car coal drag? I didn't know, so I inquired with Frank Sergent, who was not only kind enough to reply, but kind enough to allow me to post his response below.
Seventy cars that weigh 3 oz would need about [70 cars X 3 oz/car X 0.01) = ] 2.1 oz of pull on straight and level track. That will require one average HO diesel to pull it. This isn't even starting to stress the couplers. No problem.
Seventy cars that weight 3 oz going around a reasonable curve, and up a 3% grade will need about [70 cars X 3 oz/car X (0.01 + 0.02 + 0.03) = ] 8.4 oz of pull. That's about 3 decent engines to pull it. Again, we aren't stressing the couplers at all.
Ten average diesels all pulling together will against a nail driven in the middle of the track will start spinning their wheels at about [(10 X 3.5 oz) = ] 35 oz of pull. The couplers will feel that for sure, but this is still no problem.
Twenty really good diesels all pulling against the nail can generate [(20 X 4.5 oz) = ] 90 oz of pull before the wheels start spinning. That's enough to make me nervous, but still below any sort of failure point as long as the couplers are assembled correctly.
Forty really good diesels all pulling against the nail will generate 180 oz of drawbar pull. That's just silly.
I don't think 70 cars would be a problem at all.
Back when Railmodel Journal was still alive, they printed a Performance Summary of locomotives in what seemed like every issue that was pretty useful. It gave tractive force measurements for all sorts of locomotives.
Thanks, Frank
So there you go. That should answer most questions on the drawbar strength.
Other observations:
The more you use them, they better they connect and disconnect, which reinforces the manufacture's insturctions on breaking them in.
I've also found that now, often I don't have to align couplers as often for them to connect, as they seem to be in the same alignment, even from different car to different car.
There can be problems with couplers that are too tight in the coupler box pulling cars off of the track. This may be negated by better trackwork and properly weighted cars, but be sure that the coupler moves freely within the box.
Sergents require a bit more work to assemble, and a bit more work to operate than a Kadee type coupler. This is neither a negative or an advantage, but a simple fact. I like assembling them, actually, its not a bad task. I also like how they operate, the action of uncoupling to me is nothing more than what a man on the ground would have to do.
Some of the nuances that can be annoying to people, such as aligning for coupling, are mitigated by a large degree with good layout lighting, and a bit of patience. Two things every layout can probably use.
This hobby seems to create, or facilitate, the need for folks to argue about what in truth is nothing more than useless minutia. I hold that the hobby has enough room for many approaches, and the Sergents represent another option for the modeler, and depending on your criteria and needs, may be a better or worse choice than others. That though, is up to you.
I do recommend that anyone interested at least pick up a couple of sets, and try them out first for themselves before deciding they are great, or horrible.
Hope this information is of use to you.
I'm trying to model 1956, not live in it.
jasperofzeal Why can't anyone just answer the question without having to put their bias on why they choose what they choose?
Why can't anyone just answer the question without having to put their bias on why they choose what they choose?
Remember, you put your bias on your answer too when you said they "operate like the prototype".
Except for Alexander link and pin couplers and those on large scale live steam type models, NO couplers, not Sargent, not Kadee, operate like the prototype. EVERY model coupler makes certain compromises on the prototype. EVERY model coupler has its strong points and weak points.
What every modeler has to do is to choose which compromises they want and which shortcomings they want to live with.
Sargent has advantages visually. Sargent has advantage operationally with less slack and other issues mentioned above. Kadee has advantages operationally in that they couple more easily and can be coupled and uncoupled in areas outside a person's reach. If you use manual uncoupling (a pick or bamboo skewer) to uncouple Kadees, then there is virtually no difference in how much you have to reach into the scene to uncouple cars. With Sargents, since you may also have to reach into the scene to open knuckles and since they aren't centering, you will have to reach into the scene more often to couple cars too. For people with access or eyesight issues that may make a difference.
Sargents may be difficult to use on passenger equipment with diaphrams since the top of the coupler will be in accessible. Kadees can be uncoupled with a magnet from below.
I use primarily Kadee, primarily #58's with the more scale sized head. Although I do not use the magnetic ramps, I have not cut off the "air hoses".
I use Kadees, cars that comes with anything else get swapped to #158s. Two reasons, first, too much investment in Kadees, which work great, and I have other things to spend my money on. Second, I operate in module groups and the cars often get interchanged so compatability is a must.
As far as the philisophical side, couplers have long been a contentious issue. In many cases its not about what looks better, molre realistic operation or ease of installation but rather the time, effort and cost to replace. Kadees look fine and work great, is ti worth that time, effort and cost for marginal gains (percieved) in peformance or looks?
If you like the Sargents, go for it, I've heard great things about them. Who knows, maybe in 40 years, they will be the defacto standard for "serious modelers" just as Kadee did in the 60's and 70's.
Ricky
I use both. I put Sergent couplers on a string of 40 foot Roundhouse reefers, but practically everything else will retain Kadees.
Sergent couplers are totally incompatible with other brands, so if you use them everything must be converted that is going to connect with them.
What I did was have cars at the ends with a Kadee on one end and a Sergent on the other.
It would seem we have two solid camps of support for the Kadee and Sargeant (sp) couplers, and each camp has solid reasons for their choice. The number of freight cars I have accumulated over a lot of years makes the cost today too expensive to give up the Kadees, even if I wanted to. I have operated on a layout recently that has the Sargeant couplers and after I got used to working with them, not too bad, good appearance, but still the choice for me comes down to what I have already work just fine, and with somewhere around 800 freight cars total on the layout and on the shelves in the staging/molehole area, I won't even consider changing because the pros are outweighed by the cons for me.
The one problem for me is that I have a lot of industrial tracks out of reach of my arms/hands/fingers in uncoupling cars. The kadee magnets are just fine for these spots and I have about 95 percent sucess on first time coupling or uncoupling with Kadee couplers. Not sure how I could do the same with the Sargeant couplers with the same sucess rate.
But as one person posted, time will/may change as us old timers fade away and the younger guys become dominate.
That's what we did in the 1960's only it was with an X2f couler on one end with a Kadee on the other as some guys preferred the old X2f couplers so for them to run on your layout you needed a "conversion car".
Personally I'd be just as happy with a good brass scale size "dummy" coupler such as the Cal-Scale coupler and I would probably have converted to them if Bowser hadn't raised the price to the level of the Kadee's. I just like to "run trains" and am not the least bit concerned about "switching" and such. As for "uncoupling"..............I use the old 5 digit crane as much as I use my electro magnet uncouplers, don't really know why I have them now.
Hey..........how many of you remember the old "straight" pin Kadee couplers with that rather bizarre uncoupler they used?