Why are my couplers pitching upward on my Broadway Limited Kitchen Car?

Hello John

Did you by any chance show this to Lionel and ask them about the issue  yet?

Larry

I do not have these passenger cars, however here are photo's of my kinematic coupler mounts from the large autoracks.  They seemed to work quite well. There sure is a difference in design.

Larry,  I have sent an email with pictures to "Talktous".  I have previously been told by Lionel Service that there are no parts available for any of the new passenger cars.  Lionel Service said, "I should send all 24 of my cars back and get all my money back".  

The 35 cars I have from the first run work fine now.  I don't understand why they would remove the outriggers that added to the stability of the kinematic plate, in favor of a thin plate with no stability.  The absence of the Top washer Glide is necessary to rub the car floor bottom and help keep the coupler horizontal and from tipping upward, damaging the diaphragms.

There are no answers from Lionel other than send them back to the dealer.  Someone at Lionel told my dealer that they "never said to return the cars for a refund".  Yet I have an email from Lionel that's says "send the cars back to the dealer".  I guess the dealer gets to keep my money?  Yes?  No?  Are we playing games with semantics?

Sincerely, John Rowlen

I took apart my Wabash Dining Car Kinematic Coupler and discovered that the post for the coupler is longer on the Wabash Dining Car and shorter on the Broadway Limited Kitchen Car.

The Shorter post allows the knuckle coupler to tilt upward more and rub the Diaphragms of the car.

MY ERROR:  The Kinematic plate on the Wabash Dining car has short outriggers and is the same as the Broadway Limited Kitchen Car.  The Wabash car was the last car I previously purchased from the first run and was in for service.  (Perhaps I am thinking of my C&O or NYC ESE cars.)

I am posting pictures of the two cars so you can judge for yourself.  I tried to position the cars so you can see both posts.  It appears to me that the older Wabash Car has a longer post to ride against the bottom of the car, helping keep the coupler from raising upward into the diaphragm.

Lionel spoke of changing the car heights, but Dean at Lionel said the couplers are the same.  He did not mention the "coupler posts" which appear different.  The newest Broadway Limited car is in the foreground.  I believe it has a shorter glide post.

Thank you for your input.  I do not want to tear-up my cars if it can be avoided.

Sincerely, John Rowlen

John Rowlen posted:

There are no answers from Lionel other than send them back to the dealer.  Someone at Lionel told my dealer that they "never said to return the cars for a refund".  Yet I have an email from Lionel that's says "send the cars back to the dealer".  I guess the dealer gets to keep my money?  Yes?  No?  Are we playing games with semantics?

Sincerely, John Rowlen

1. Figure out who will take them back and give you a refund and send them back.

2. Get a set of similar cars from MTH ( or another manufacturer) put them on the track and get on with your life.

I don't care how faithful the Lionel cars are to the prototype. If you can't put them on the track and run them whats the point?

Lionel and /or your dealer will not get the message if you fix every defect or error Lionel produced on these.

Maybe its because Lionel has a few hundred moguls to put new gearbox assemblies on? A handful of repair techs don't have time to fix multitudes of passenger sets on top of it.

Perhaps Lionel needs the cars returned to the dealers and then to Lionel so they can return the inferior product to the factory. Let’s not forget, Lionel is the customer of the China factory putting out defective product. We’re all upset with Lionel but hopefully they recoup most of their loss as a result of poor factory quality.

Thank you everyone for your comments.  It is Sunday and I have lost track of time caring for my 91 year old mother who has been in and out of the hospital. I stay the nights by her side so she knows where she is.  The trains in the basement were something to do as I cared for these past 27 years after my father's death.  I have been waiting to detail these cars as my vision is failing, gone in one eye. I am grateful to be able to do the detailing work I have done in the past three weeks.

We discipline our children not to be mean, but because we love and care for them.  As a life-long Lionel train operator I wish only the best to Lionel, but like our children, I cannot solve all their problems.  Some problems they have to solve for themselves.

romiller49 posted:

Perhaps Lionel needs the cars returned to the dealers and then to Lionel so they can return the inferior product to the factory. Let’s not forget, Lionel is the customer of the China factory putting out defective product. We’re all upset with Lionel but hopefully they recoup most of their loss as a result of poor factory quality.

We think it's expensive just to ship stuff back to NC.  Can you imagine the bill to ship stuff to and from China?

Unavoidable to procure the product to begin with, but I would bet it's not cost effective no matter what for the other way around.

Looking at the pictures don't know that the Wabash post is longer as the spring tension looks tighter on the Wabash. Maybe that is making the post look  longer on the other end of the coupler.

I have two scale Lionel passenger sets. The PRR 18 “ aluminum Congressional Set and the NYC Heavyweight set. Both from several years ago. They don’t exhibit the same issues as I think the couplers are different.

One of the complaints about the PRR set was that the windows were wrong and the body of the cars were too high over the wheels. Was the change in the type of couplers an attempt tohavethe cars ride lower?

Also, the first post has four pictures what is that little white thing in the last picture with what appears to be wires. Is that some sort of circuit board.

I'm just trying to wrap my mind around this.  Doe anyone have a clear comparison between the former couplers and the new ones?  The photos posted by John and Clem look similar.  Not ever having to deal with these before I just want a clear understanding of whats happening.

Marty...it appears to me from John's pictures that the cut out in the floor of the car at the end of the car is not there.  The post within the coupler thus has no guide.  Also, the post is shorter which allows the coupler shaft to tilt the end of the knuckle upward which then rubs on the diaphragms.  Could be that Lionel removed the cutout guide in order to give the option to fit a scale Kadee in its place.

Since some of you may try to "solve" this problem if you are not going to install a Kadee...so just shooting from the hip here since I don't own any of these cars and am going only on the pictures in this thread:  Perhaps gluing a piece of appropriate material (plastic, wood, or...?) of the correct thickness would bring down the floor so that it supported the post farther from the bottom effectively pushing it down and away from rubbing on the diaphragm.  Just my 2 cents...what do I know?

John Rowlen posted:

I took apart my Wabash Dining Car Kinematic Coupler and discovered that the post for the coupler is longer on the Wabash Dining Car and shorter on the Broadway Limited Kitchen Car.

The Shorter post allows the knuckle coupler to tilt upward more and rub the Diaphragms of the car.

MY ERROR:  The Kinematic plate on the Wabash Dining car has short outriggers and is the same as the Broadway Limited Kitchen Car.  The Wabash car was the last car I previously purchased from the first run and was in for service.  (Perhaps I am thinking of my C&O or NYC ESE cars.)

I am posting pictures of the two cars so you can judge for yourself.  I tried to position the cars so you can see both posts.  It appears to me that the older Wabash Car has a longer post to ride against the bottom of the car, helping keep the coupler from raising upward into the diaphragm.

Lionel spoke of changing the car heights, but Dean at Lionel said the couplers are the same.  He did not mention the "coupler posts" which appear different.  The newest Broadway Limited car is in the foreground.  I believe it has a shorter glide post.

Thank you for your input.  I do not want to tear-up my cars if it can be avoided.

Sincerely, John Rowlen

Thinking you could measure them with a caliper? Having had 3 of the large freight cars come from dealers with the couplers pulled thru and hanging so they need to go back in for repair I'm done with these style of couplers.

I believe that would be the appropriate fix. Just lay a piece of styrene on the floor to take up the gap and make the coupler slide in the correct up/down fore/ aft range.

As far as the UP cars. They are too much of a goner. They need to be converted to Kadees so the cars can be brought in closer.

Lionel has the people who have the ability to answer our questions.  Maybe they even have a caliper to compare the length of the coupler posts on the first run 21" passenger cars to the  coupler posts on the second run. 

I called at 3:00 P.M. and the machine said it was not during their normal business hours.  Yet the hours stated in the message indicated that they should be open and answering their phones.

Lionel needs to know that every OGR Forum Member wants them to be successful.  We have a large investment in their trains.  They know potential solutions, even if it means making new, longer coupler posts.  We can wait for parts to be made.

Dean, Dave, Ryan ... TALK TO US.

I know this much....we ALL need to find better ways to call attention to problems with product.  If we continue to FLOOD the forum with negative and personal comments about manufacturers and their employees, there will soon be a day that you will get NO interaction with those manufacturers.  Nothing wrong with pointing out problems but KEEP THE PERSONAL JABS at bay otherwise OGR will intervene and either start putting folks in moderation.  Just play nice and make your point at the same time....

I tried putting styrene on the floor and it pushed the black guide into the wheels on the truck, binding the wheels so the car would not roll.  Trimming the plastic back more, away from the wheels will cause the black plastic to bend downward at the wheels.

A longer glide post on the knuckle coupler is the correct solution.

There is the correct way, ... and then there many half-azzed ways.

Anything we use must travel in the Glide path of the black plastic shield, lower the coupler, not bind, and not impede the rolling wheels of the car.

Here is a picture of the Wabash Dining Car coupler post from run #1 on the left and the coupler post from my new Broadway Limited Dining Car on the right from the current run.  Please look at the visible difference.

Looking at the two it looks as if the post on each is even with the top of the plate.  So just changing to a longer post may cause the coupler to angle down and be un level.

The heights of the post and the bracket had to change because we lowered the ride height of the cars. Since these are body mounted, had we not changed these parts, the couplers would be sitting on the center rail...

We did not "whack off" any parts of the bracket. We did not remove any springs or clips or whatever else. We did not remove or change the channel that the guide goes in. We simply lowered the height of the pin and the bracket.

The couplers operate as expected. I have quite a few sets here and have tested them and they are just fine. Of course the couplers are going to push off to one side when you're backing up a passenger train, real ones do too! Physics.

John - if you have a few cars where the coupler is touching the diaphragms, then the bracket may need to be bent down just slightly. You can check to see if it needs adjusting by coupling it with another car (try a freight car or loco) and see if the coupler is either higher or lower than the couple on the passenger car. If it is, then slightly bend the bracket. Takes seconds. For what it's worth, I've only seen this issue on maybe 1 or 2 cars out of a couple of hundred.

The sky is not falling. Take a breath.