Everybody wants close coupling and in recent years the main players in the trade have made improvements with this on coaches and some bogie wagons. Yet the humble 4-wheel wagon seems to have been left far behind. All my kit-built wagons are fitted with 3-link, but the rest mostly have the old tension-lock type. Now fitting 3-link to these is not always an easy job, due to the way they are moulded. So what can be done to make these close coupled, yet still go around my tightest radius, which happens to be about 22" in one siding only. By trial and error I came down to this. There is still a small gap between buffers when being hauled on this bend and this picture shows them on straight track at maximum extension.

I have used the original mounts and adapted short Bachmann NEM tension-locks. Now there are some that will say "why not fit X or W type". Now these all have their respective merits, but for me, the advantage was, it was cheap. The couplings were just sitting in a box, so why not use them. Sitting in the middle of a train, I don't think they are too obtrusive. I have now done most of my non-NEM stock and once you get going, it takes longer for rapid epoxy to set than it takes to convert. Next job is the NEM fitted stuff, but this may be no more than moving the mounting block inwards.