Couplers on 21" Passenger Cars

Kadees would be too tight for O-72 curves on the 21" passenger cars. Really need O-96 or larger to have Kadee's on the 21" cars. I would install wider curves (O-80) where the O-72's are located.

Unfortunately I can't. I used the widest curves I could and in most places they're O-81 or O-99, but on one churned I could only do O-72.

Joe Congemi posted:

Kadees would be too tight for O-72 curves on the 21" passenger cars.

Not true, in my opinion. I have only one short section of an 072 curve on the outside mainline track, of our layout. However, I have many GGD 21" scale heavyweight passenger cars, all equipped with body mounted Kadee #805 couplers, and have encountered no problems. The key is to allow just a bit more coupler swing, by filing away both sides of the Kadee gearbox opening, plus do NOT mount the gearbox too far back from the diaphragm edge at each end of the car.

Really need O-96 or larger to have Kadee's on the 21" cars. I would install wider curves (O-80) where the O-72's are located.

I feel your pain.... I have O 72 curves on my lower layout and the cars do not look very good on them. Especially, if you are like me and try to close the gaps up between the cars and run them on S curves in reverse!

On my upper deck I tried to learn. I used a minimum of 0100 shown below and they do fine but then, with one area I was force to create a 081 radii and the cars hate it.

Thanks Hot Water! I'll definitely give it a shot. The cars are beautiful and the 12 of them make an impressive train, but they're so prone to derailing I rarely run them for visitors. Really wish I could've avoided that O-72 curve. Cars look a little goofy going through it. 

I always forget that I cant run mine on our two inner loops that are O72 and then I try and have nothing but problems. I have seen them run reliably on O72 but you need to adjust the couplers out so the diaphragms don't hit.

Will Ebbert posted:

Thanks Hot Water! I'll definitely give it a shot. The cars are beautiful and the 12 of them make an impressive train, but they're so prone to derailing I rarely run them for visitors. Really wish I could've avoided that O-72 curve. Cars look a little goofy going through it. 

Again, just my opinion but, I would not bother up-grading the claw couplers between each car, since you can hardly see them when the train is running anyway. On my one Atlas CZ baggage car, I figured out a way to convert the Atlas claw mounting arrangement, to a Kadee, thus it was NOT body mounted.

For Kadees, you'd need the longer shank couplers. This puts more space between the cars and provides more swing, but your diaphragms may not touch.

Yes...see Matt Jackson's post above. Get yourself the Kadee #746 long shank couplers. I applied these to SCALE 80' Walthers passenger cars.....and they work. They now have a hidden coupler spring and will mate with Lionel....MTH....Atlas...Weaver...whatever you have. I run the scale stuff and the 3 rail stuff on GarGraves track.....wired DC and 3 rail AC......(but not at the same time....