Reply to "shelf couplers&operating groundthrows"

Originally Posted by Mike DeBerg: Mike: Thanks for your interest. We're beginning to think we were the only 2 men in scale that wanted shelf couplers. My friend who's a member of p48,actually made a double shelf coupler by scratch for himself& scratch built like that,it was quite impressive. He has about 20 tankers himself&since the Protocraft couplers are brass stock,he had to make his shelfs from,I'm guessing here,but probably from some type of brass&it was rough to put it mildly. He said he'd never do it again. He has to make a ,"Master coupler,"&after that Protocraft could assist with the tooling. Protocraft makes couplers with a standard cut lever. This is what started drawing me closer to O Scale. To answer your question about compatibility,I imagine the shelf coupler would be made to work with Protocraft&San Quan Car Co couplers which will mate together. This will be like Sergent's couplers in HO-you either make a total conversion or not at all,which's fine with me in O Scale,as I only have Rolling stock which can be easily converted to Kadee&anything that's got Kadee pads for mounting will accept protocraft's draft boxes also. I just was ready to convert all my HO to Sergent when they experienced production problems which've been cleared up since last year.

I want the most prototype couplers as possible&not to trash any coupler brands, Kadee or the standard Lionel type coupler,but so far,the 2 co's mentioned are the only companies that meet my standards.

To answer another question,would it be single or double shelf,(?)he'd mold for double I'm thinking,but if you wanted a single lower shelf,I'm thinking all that'd be required would be to remove the upper shelf.

I spoke with Atlas about other issues&asked them about the thought of doing shelf couplers,but at this time it's a,"no," with hedging towards the future. I realize O is smaller in modelers,but shelf couplers both upper&lower are a must for modern day freight. Same with prototypically working ground throws-O has the needed size advantage for such a product but where's it at? I use sliding derailers on sidings,to protect runaway freight cars from rolling onto mainline trackage,but where's it at in O scale?

There's been no discussion of F couplers,so E shelf's are probably it if the market would support them. Youare my 1st reply that's interested in such products,so maybe we'll have to try to figure out a way to make our own couplers or for me,I might just stay in HO,but with no disrespect to HO,I hope I can move up to O Scale.

Thanks again for your interest.

Best Regards,Al