Howard, those ATSF units are all equipped with couplers; ATSF refused drawbars. Most roads used the drawbar connection between the A/B. Most dumped that practice as you know early on. My #5484 A/B DRGW set was the only pair that remained drawbared assigned to Prospector service until 1964 when traded to EMD. DRGW converted to couplers on all the rest of the FTs and added ballast, re-geared and shoved them into helper service. Yes tight connections. No 5' gap between these miniatures. The concept is as real as it gets in scale. Most buyers of these fine miniatures are operating on layouts with at least 64" radius so it's not an issue. Even Jeff's modest layout has large enough radius for most any model. My PRB Daylight cars do complain but nothing else does. O/72 is completely out of the question. And even 54" radius or O-108 is too tight for the lion share of scale miniature 1/48 equipment. Yes these new Key units need a minimum of 60" to run.
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