couplings availability

[SweenyTod1]

When I first posted this subject, it was just to highlight the shortage of couplings and how frustrating it is. However, I did not expect all the responses, most informative I must say and two of you kind souls packaged up and posted me a selection of your surplus stock.  You know who you are and you have been thanked more than once in my PMs to you. So I will leave the subject there, again with a thank you to you all and hope that Bachmann will try to keep a regular supply to the retailers. After all, in my younger days, the motto was, " the customer is always right!" So please Mr.Bachmann take note, there is a demand for accessories as well as your main products.

Good wishes to all,

Stay well and stay safe,

 

Tod

[Tyke119]

An update, of sorts. I’ve had a prompt reply from Barwell re Bachman 36-030 and 36-061 couplings, they still don’t have a release date and to keep checking their website for a delivery date.

[No Decorum]

1 hour ago, Tyke119 said:

An update, of sorts. I’ve had a prompt reply from Barwell re Bachman 36-030 and 36-061 couplings, they still don’t have a release date and to keep checking their website for a delivery date.

At least Bachmann has changed 36-061 to “awaiting”. Last time I checked it was “arrived”, which led me to wonder why it was taking so long to get them to retailers.

[The Johnster]

James' Trains, an American chap I found browsing through the Shapeways site, which shows how bored I must have been at the time, does 3D printed instanter and 3-link couplings as well as coupling bars suitable for fixed rakes of coaching stock.  You get a print of a coupling (in the 'short' position for the instanters) with an NEM 'antenna' fitting on each end, which fits into the pockets on the vehicles you wish to couple.  No connection happy customer. 

 

I have two rakes of mineral wagons (loaded and unloaded), 22 vehicles altogether, which I have equipped with these instanters, leaving the tension locks on the outer ends of the rake of course.  The rakes cope well with 3rd radius turnouts, hauled or propelled, and are very smoothly reproduced with a good level of detail; even the little horns for short or long position operated by a shunting pole are there.  They come in a sort of translucent plastic which needs painting, and you remove them from a sprue.  There is a 'step up' from the pocket height to set them at drawhook height and they are printed attached to a drawhook at one end and over one at the other.  Versions with no step up, or a step up at one end but not the other, are available.

 

This means that I have now got a stock of short straight Bachmann, with some Hornby and Oxford, NEM tension locks, and have replaced those on other stock that had lost hooks or become otherwise damaged.  Pockets and mounts are available separately, mounts from Parkside and I can't off hand remember where you can get pockets from.  This might be useful to those of you who are. waiting on Bachmann for couplings, and if you have fixed rakes of stock that can be coupled with 3-link or instanter I can unreservedly recommend the James Trains couplers.

 

Googling 'James' Trains' should get you to his webby.  Prices are in dollars, then Shapeways charge you in Euros, but a pack of £25 worked out at less than £20 including delivery by UPS in a big brown van, plus of course you get the t/ls you replace free; win win!

Edited October 12, 2020 by The Johnster

[Tyke119]

Impressed  with the Shapeways instanter couplings, they are featured on Chadwick Model Railways; 
https://youtu.be/EbRS5vClYY0

However  I’m hands on  uncoupling single wagons from short trains of 4/5 wagons and no fixed rakes ; I’m waiting patiently for Bachmann !

[No Decorum]

I’m happy to report that Bachmann has updated the availability of 36-061 (short straight coupling) to Mar/Apr. Likewise 36-030 & 36-064. 36-027 is still available from some retailers but seems in short supply.

[The Johnster]

With luck my stock of short straights, already dwindling, will last 4/5 months.  

[D9020 Nimbus]

On 12/10/2020 at 16:18, The Johnster said:

The rakes cope well with 3rd radius turnouts

What's a 3rd radius turnout? I wasn't aware such a thing existed …

[Rhydgaled]

On 24/08/2020 at 17:55, The Johnster said:

I think that what probably happens is that Bachmann make them available in cycles, so we are expected to stock up on each type long cranked short cranked long straight short straight, so that there are never full stocks of all types in the shops, which is annoying.

Oh dear...

 

I just found this topic after placing an order with The Model Centre (being the only place I could find with all the other items I was after in stock, and I'm keen to minimise the number of deliveries) which included a pack of 36-055 Bachmann OO Gauge DMU Couplings Straight (x10) which they listed as "On Order With Supplier". I was thinking they'd get stock within a few weeks. Is my order (5 items including these couplings) going to be stuck with them for months?

Edited January 11, 2021 by Rhydgaled

[The Johnster]

This is impossible to say.  I have had stuff on order from another supplier for over a month on a similar basis, only two items.  I could not say if the both items are 'on order', as the suppliers' site simply tells me they are 'pending', or if it just one of them and they are awaiting the other one to save, by which I mean not incur extra, postage by sending them both to me at once. I hope that, if this is the case, the item they have in stock will be put aside for me, so that when the missing one turns up further delay is not occasioned by the first item now being sold out!  I would appreciate knowing if this is the case, as the two items are both widely differing cost and my 'need' (notbody needs a model railway item, real needs are shelter, food, water, and clothing, the rest is just first world entttlement, and I am using the word in the marketing sense) for one is much greater than the other.  If the item I want more is in stock and the order is held up waiting for the item of lesser need, I'd like to have the option of paying for the postage of the needed item and paying postage again for the lesser needed one when it becomes available, but that's not the way online ordering works so I have to put up with the situation. 

 

She'll be coming round the mountain when she comes, and there isn't much we can do about it but accept that situation and be patient and philosophical.  But it is difficult to be patient and philosophical when a project, or perhaps a planned layout, is being held up by the delay.  The supplier concerned did not state that he was out of stock when I ordered the original items, and possibly wasn't, but became so while my order was in a queue or was genuinly expecting an imminent delivery that did not turn up.  Modern retailing relies for efficiency on a 'just in time' system of distribution and delivery that means that large warehouse and storage facilities are not needed, and items, especially the smaller ones, are manufactured to order, which we see in the 3D printing market.  You go to Curry's or somewhere to buy a washing machine and the store is huge, so one tends to assume that there is a huge warehouse out back to feed it, but there isn't; it's just a showroom displaying things they sell, but that have to be ordered from a distribution depot, which in turn may have to obtain them from the manufacturer, who probably subcontracts like our RTR producers do, and everything arrives 'just in time'.  Great when it works, but there are all sorts of points in the procedure where delay can be introduced and nobody ever plans for them.

 

That's retailing in the modern world I'm afraid! 

[adb968008]

In any crisis consumables are the first things to dissapear off the shelves.

 

in the real world its eggs and toilet rolls.

in our world its couplings and track.

 

unfortunately eggs are laid fresh daily locally, couplings are made in batch 6500 miles away and are probably stowaways on a container of higher value stuff.

[Tyke119]

Latest availability from the Bachmann website ; 

36-030 and 36-061 now April/May

[Tyke119]

...Available now! 

[The Johnster]

Get 'em quick before they run out again, folks.