Tuesday, August 9, 2016

Coupling up

While the default N gauge couplings work fine in general operation they do have a drawback i have found on curved track where its difficult to uncouple or recouple stock. Now this is a bit of a problem as my MPD solely consists of curved sidings! I've therefore begun a trial with Kadee/knuckle couplers which i had 4 of. Now i can't use these universally as some stock (most of the wagons) do not have NEM sockets and can't easily change their couplers without surgery which a) i don't want to do and b) the knuckle couplers arn't cheap and i can't afford to change everything!

So if i do decide to go with knuckle couplers, which seem to work great at coupling and recouping on curves, i will operate a mixture of knuckle and default couplings. It could be split like this:

Locomotives / Coaching Stock - knuckle
Multiple Units / Wagons - default

I will of course need 2-3 wagons as translator vehicles with different couplers at each end. I think it will be doable from both an operational and financial point of view though i shall continue trials for a few more days before deciding for good. Here we see the Class 22 and the CCV coupled up with the knuckle couplings.