Microtrains trucks and couplers

[Maletrain]

Turbowhiz, Why do you say that MTL Barber Rollerbearibg trucks are not drop in replacements for the Kato trucks on those Kato Coal Porter cars?  I don't have any of the MTL trucks to try, but did put a MTL Bettendorf truck without coupler on the Kato car, and did not see any problem.  With a coupler attacked to the truck, I would expect them to be at the correct height. So, what is the problem the needs work?

[turbowhiz]

Turbowhiz, Why do you say that MTL Barber Rollerbearibg trucks are not drop in replacements for the Kato trucks on those Kato Coal Porter cars?  I don't have any of the MTL trucks to try, but did put a MTL Bettendorf truck without coupler on the Kato car, and did not see any problem.  With a coupler attacked to the truck, I would expect them to be at the correct height. So, what is the problem the needs work?

I thought that trucks won’t clear the bolster posts, but although the BLMA trucks don’t fit it turns out the MTL trucks do, learn something new every day! (I thought they had the same bolster hole size… Obviously not it turns out.)

That said, they still don’t seem to work without modification, since the MTL talgo box top doesn’t have proper clearance around the suspension strip supports. The coupler box catches, especially if the track isn’t perfectly level, and it will derail. In my super casual test I just did now it didn’t work. I suspect you should find the same issue with the Bettendorf truck too if you check closely. I think you would be able to trim those suspension support edges down and get it working, although I didn’t try myself. I was testing with the Barber type MTL truck.

The Kato trucks are suspended off the bolster with those “contact strips” on the bottom of the car and poke up extensions on the Kato truck. When you swap them out, that feature isn’t there, and you will run into clearance issues. That and the Kato “box” section is lower profile too.

The MTL truck also isn’t prototypically accurate for the car, but I expect that’s not the principle consideration here for you. I’d still try gluing the Kato trucks first, unless you want operating couplers on these cars.

[Maletrain]

At this point I have the MTL trucks on the way, so I will just have to see how it goes when I put them on the cars.  I will try a few first.  I can also jam a few Kato couplers and try them through the #4 crossover.  We did get different results on coupler side-to-side movement in our tests, so I am not sure what to expect there.  As for being prototypical, I think the MTL Barber Rollerbearing trucks are as close as MTL gets, with 3 coil springs and roller bearings.  Do you know of other non-Kato trucks with MTL couplers that are more prototypical?

Edit:  I just put some Bettendorf short shank MTL couplers on 2 of the Kato Coal Porters that I brought home, and ran them around my home test loop with no apparent problems, including over a vertical anomaly, pulled and pushed.  And the cars don't seem to rock without those Kato leaf springs + vertical rods on the trucks.  I will be testing them with the Barber version of the MTL trucks in a 36 car long train at the club, with all of its trackage issues.  I'll let you know how it goes.

As for the Npossible option - not at the club with club equipment.  At least not until other members come around to using them.  However, I will be taking some of my own equipment to the club that I will have converted to Npossibles to see how well they handle that trackage.  That may at least spark some interest there.

[nkalanaga]

I've wondered since the 70s what would happen if KD/MT ever shut down, for whatever reason.  Now we know, and it's as almost as bad as I thought. 

The only good(?) thing is that there are compatible alternatives available now, even if they're not as good. 

Yes, I know, we're all supposed to change to the N-Possible Coupler, but I doubt that that will happen for a LONG time.

[Jimbo]

The latest N-Scale unobtanium?

Probably not.  Those of us converting over to N-Possibles probably have a surplus, including me.

I suppose I ought to start listing them in trading post.  Looks like I have a project for the weekend…

Jim

[Maletrain]

WOW -- Point 353 messaged me on the 29th that Midwest Model Railroad has the 10-packs of MTL Barber Roller Bearing Tucks with short extension couplers in stock, and this morning, the 31st,  I got my shipment of 3 packs delivered to my door.  That is FAST!!!

Gotta love TRW and Midwest Model Railroad.  Turns out, I had ordered from them before to get my Npossible couplers, but didn't really look at their store for other things.  Given this performance, I think TurboWhiz picked an excellent shop to be his in-States source for us to acquire his Npossibles.  And, after perusing the Midwest website store, I think they will be getting a lot of business from me, going forward.

I did put 2 pairs of the MTL trucks on a couple of the Kato Coal Porters, and I do see the issue Turbowhiz mentioned about potential interference of the MTL coupler box with the car underside ribs if the car is on a curve and encounters a vertical angle in the trackwork.  Considering that my club's N scale layout is "blessed" with many such vertical angles in its trackwork, I will not be surprised if there is a problem somewhere.  But, it looks like it would be easily solved with a file or Exacto blade to remove a tad of the undebody rib on each side.

Regarding putting an Npossible body mounted coupler on these Kato Coal Porters, there really isn't much to attach them to, and it looks like they would be quite high without some sort of filler piece on the car underbody.  Just for kicks, I might try one with the coming "loco box" and a brass strip that is drilled and tapped, then glued to the car underbody.  But, that is an issue for the "N-possible journal" thread, not this one.

[cbroughton67]

24 Kato Coal Porters that have uncoupling problems during open house runs. 

Kato offers drop-in dummy close-coupling knuckle couplers for the coal porters (they also work between F-units, etc. for close-coupling). These should at least address the uncoupling issue.


https://store.katousa.com/product/close-coupling-knuckle-coupler-truck-mount-n-scale/


Chris

[Maletrain]

cbroughton67, Those dummy couplers look like what is already in the trucks I have and are causing the uncoupling problem.

The issue is that the Kato coupler pockets are an open slot along the top and down the front.  So these dummy couplers are designed to tilt up when pushed together, with their shanks moving in that slot, so that they can come back down coupled when in tension.  But, they somehow seem to have one side riding up in the slot while underway on the club layout, occasionally coming uncoupled and breaking the display trains. 

To stop this from happening, I would need to fill the front part of the slot with something that goes down as far as the top of the coupler, or almost that far.

I did make a test T out of black plastic strip angle material, where one side of the angle rests on top of the coupler box and the other part of the angle material is cut in so that it fits down the front of the slot.  I didn't want to just put a piece of angle in front of the pocket because that restricts swing of the coupler from side to side. But maybe that isn't a real problem, given that Turbowhiz thinks his work fine with the whole coupler immobilized with glue in the pocket.  If that is the case, then it is much easier to use glue than even using the angle material in front of the pocket.

But, anyway, I now have enough MTL couplers in hand to convert all of the cars, and then they can also be uncoupled as well as coupled.