gunrunnerjohn posted:It's not that difficult to replace the spring, but you do have to remove the rivet. The rivets and springs are readily available, I replace those with some regularity. Lionel also has the "cheap" version, the plastic knuckle with the little "spring" tab, but that loses it's spring pretty quickly so I tend to avoid those.
I don't see anywhere that Lionel has stopped putting springs in, all the newest Lionel stuff I have still has springs. I don't know where that idea comes from, but it's certainly not true!
Yes speaking historically as typical cost cutting measures occurred, First one even had a small metal stamped spring keeper that was discarded once they notched the rivet and so forth.
Some repros come without springs also and are less expensive. If you are running a train and not switching cars out use a twist tie to keep the latches closed and couplers connected.
The latch coupler trains were toys and required a lot of hands on care to keep going, connected and on track.
