OO gauge 3 link couplers

[43110andyb]

Having fitted hundreds of 3-links to my stock I can certainly recommend the Smiths instanters and I would recommend a trial run on certain items of your stock to see if it’s suitable for the layout!
   The look of the fitted coupling is the greatest reward in my opinion and outweighs any operational difficulties (we use them on Charwelton into the 80’s with over 350 wagons currently fitted).

 

 

Edited April 11, 2022 by 43110andyb
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[markw]

13 hours ago, The Johnster said:

Instanters were used on nearly all new stock that did not have screw couplings from the end of WW2 onwards, so the entire BR period up to the late 80s or early 90s.  They replaced 3-link, which remained in service on older revenue stock and especially XPO minerals until the mid 60s, and later on departmental and internal user stock.  A massive cull of older wagons between 1948 and 1960 saw them off on anything but XPO minerals, with such older vehicles as survived the cull being refurbished with instanters, and often with vacuum brakes as well.

The vast majority of unfitted wagons had three link couplings from new, BR only started fitting Instanter to unfitted wagons from the late 1950s and by then few unfitted wagons were being built.

https://www.antiquesnavigator.com/d-2616649/35mm-railways-negative-49165-13--br-16t-mineral-wagon-b81569-at-cheshunt-1965.html

[5050]

I use 3-link on all my stock - but my layouts tend to be small.  The best idea is - as someone has already said - to fit an iron wire bottom link ONLY (Smiths sell them I believe, i have some EM Society ones) and use a small magnet to lift the 'chain' onto and off the hook.  I magnetise an old pointed or curved needle file for this by rubbing it on a larger magnet occasionally.  Even in P4 I use the Smiths hooks as they are a sensible size and shape.  I do still have some of my earlier wagons with more 'scale sized' hooks and, especially nowadays with aging eyesight, I find them trickier to couple - but by no means impossible.. 

[SM42]

There is always the compromise of a more automatic coupling such as the tension lock derivatives on some stock, to make life easier if some shunting is required  with a 3 link on the other end with perhaps small rafts of wagons so fitted.

 

I use Smith's couplings. Overscale but not too noticeable and usable as a result.

I've found Peco medium radius points being used as a crossover do not cause buffer lock when propelling. 

 

For making up the screw links I use a piece of brass wire of the correct diameter for the links to form them around, pressing down on a pad of kitchen towelling to start the bend.

If you have the old track pin type I use a cut down dressmaking pin glued in instead.

 

The lightly magnetised needle file and a ferrous bottom link is my preferred method of coupling, but I  tend to do little shunting  preferring to watch trains trundle by. 

 

Fitting metal buffer head to wagons gives avery satisfying sound as you back up and slacken the couplings and picking the wagons up one by one is quite nice too.

Hopefully your miniature guard has wedged themselves in the brake van quite well as they go from 0 - 60 instantly 

 

Andy

[PMP]

Cutting to the chase, looking at the radius of the points on both your layouts, three link and screw couplings won’t work because the radius of your curves and set track point are incompatible with ‘3 links’. Realistically a minimum of around 3ft radius is what you need to be using before considering 3 links in OO.

Edited April 11, 2022 by PMP

[Pacific231G]

On 11/04/2022 at 12:52, Steamport Southport said:

 

Large layouts are exactly what they are useful for. But how relevant is a layout that dates from well over seventy years ago and was pretty basic even then? I really do hope we've moved away from the large train set. Certainly of it's time. 

 

https://railwaywondersoftheworld.com/model-railways.html

 

 

Most large layouts don't really "do" shunting, just like most real railways. As an example where did they do the shunting on the WCML and ECML. Certainly nowhere near the mainline it was all separate in yards.

 

As an aside I once heard someone complaining loudly at an exhibition that a layout wasn't authentic as it didn't have a station or goods yard for shunting. That layout? Stoke Summit....

 

   🤣

 

 

 

 

Jason

Well discovered Steamport. There are remarkably few photos of Edward Beal's own layouts in his books, not even in "West Midland".  I think it's unfair though to describe the WMR as a large train set as his emphasis always was on realistic operation rather than photo realism. Though his modelling of buildings was pretty advanced It may have been basic in terms of scenery (but then so were virtually all pre-war layouts before Alheeba State and the Madder Valley) but it certainly wasn't basic in terms of operation.

"Large layouts" would also include those such as  Buckingham and Castle Rackrent but such multi-station layouts didn't and don't tend to appear at exhibtions- though Richard Chown did exhibit various combinations taken from the complete layout that included more than one stations. Peter Denny did of course use three link couplings.

It is largely a matter of taste but I'm afraid that to my mind a train set layout is one where trains simply go round and round and don't actually do anything else while the model railways (as opposed to railway models) that most grab me are those that model a complex system that moves things and people from place to place. It's the differenc between a catwalk where a procession  of models strut past and a stage where things actually happen.

 

It is true of course that most people modelling nowadays probably have no actual memory of shunting taking place as wagonload goods disappeared a long time ago and very little idea about how it was carried out. I do remember it (and far more recently abroad) and a lot of the yards where shunting took place were alongside main lines. I grew up in Oxford and Hinksey yard was both alongside the main line and busy with shunting.

 

I'm afraid that Stoke Summit, once I'd admired it as a piece of modelling, wouldn't hold my attention for very long but Tower Pier, Borchester Market, Bradfield Gloucester Square and even Leighton Buzzard (Linslade) often have.   

 

 

[Nathaniel]

Thank for all your tips. Viewing all the advice I will plan some stage to get some screw link and 3 link couplers. When citing them, they'll appear on one end of of one or two of the diesels and on the VGA van and any newer rolling stock for Ember Lane Depot first and see how it goes.

 

Regarding Earlswood, I'll review that at a later date. However, mentioning Earlswood I am giving up on the Tufts already used to decouple the tension lock's. Some just pop up even under full tension. Other times the coupling doesn't even find the tuft. So already made a little hook to manually pick up the coupling bit, to decouple most of the shunting work, getting torch to attach the hook to though, haha.

[The Johnster]

I use a wire-fixed-to-torch pole for uncoupling tension locks, and find it effective and easy enough in use.  A small led torch, IIRC poundshop and certainly not of any great cost or quality, has the 3-battery AAA holder, piece of old rail superglued to the barrel at the light end, stiff wire soldered to rail and bent to shape, something about 0.15mm will do, stiff enough to lift the hooks and flexible enough to be bent into whatever shape is needed.  It will need replacing about every 18months or so.  The torch casing is bright orange so that I can see where I've left it...

 

Reverting to tension locks from scale couplings is clearly a retrograde step, but was essential if I was to have a layout on which shunting took place at all, which was a fundamental requirement as I love shunting.  At least the modern NEM profile tension locks are less hideous than most of their 70s and 80s predecessors that I recall from the time before I adopted scale, when god were in short trousers and you could go on a world cruise for a ha'penny and still 'ave change.  I have been able to tune them out of my awareness when operating the layout; painting them a brown/grey weathering mix helps them to merge into the background.

 

I think I'd probably be able to manage scale couplings in 7mm, but I'm not in any financial position to go over to the Dark Side at my time of life, I'm just a poor pensioner (cue tragic violins) and am firmly wedded to 4mm.

[Enterprisingwestern]

On 11/04/2022 at 21:06, PMP said:

Cutting to the chase, looking at the radius of the points on both your layouts, three link and screw couplings won’t work because the radius of your curves and set track point are incompatible with ‘3 links’. Realistically a minimum of around 3ft radius is what you need to be using before considering 3 links in OO.

 

Not wishing to contradict what my learned friend has stated with which I concur, but just for interest in EM gauge, due to the temporary relocation of Wibdenshaw I now have an inside curve of around 820mm radius, the careful selection of locomotives, Bo Bo, and rolling stock, generally minerals and 4 wheel 10 foot wheelbase wagons allows use of the track, and an outer curve of 1015mm allows most, but not all, combinations of loco's and stock, but I'd still prefer the elbow room for a minimum curve of 1200mm or more.

 

Mike.

[DKGL]

I use a combination of 3 Link / Screw, and S&W. So, the bulk of my Goods stock are fitted with 3 Link/Screw, with some having S&W only, for shunting , and some others having a mix. The Cattle Wagon below, is fitted this way, S&W one end, with 3 Link on the other, and the following ones are all 3 Link. With Coaching Stock, I tend to use wire connecters within rakes, and S&W at each end. 

  

[57xx]

On 10/04/2022 at 12:53, Steamport Southport said:

Sorry for the long link, if you edit it, it won't go to the relevant page.

 

Use the Link button on the toolbar (the one that looks a bit like a 3 link... )

 

Then you can do a short link to Wizard.

[moore43grm]

On 11/04/2022 at 18:12, 5050 said:

I find them trickier to couple

 Not to mention uncoupling !

 

[The Johnster]

On 10/04/2022 at 15:02, Nathaniel said:

May I ask what is the difference between instanter and screw versions?

There are basically 4 types of couplings on ‘traditional’ standard gauge UK railways, as follows:-

 

.3-link, originating from the earliest tramroad railways.  3 links of heavy chain, one attached to the drawhook of the vehicle, a central link, and a third one over the drawhook of the coupled vehicle.   There is a good bit of slack in a long train and smooth running requires considerable skill on the part of driver and guard to avoid ‘snatches’ which are liable to break the couplings and divide the train, but they are the easiest couplings to use from a shunter’s perspective.  Lasted in revenue service up to the demise of XPO mineral wagons in the early 60s, and longer in departmental and internal user industrial usage. 
 

.Screw, introduced on the Liverpool & Manchester, and more or less universal on passenger and NPCCS subsequently.  A ‘D’ shaped link attached to the drawhook of the  vehicle, with the straight part of the link having a screw thread into which a solid threaded rod screws to the link at one end, and to the 3rd piece, a similar ‘D’ link which goes over the drawhook of the coupled vehicle.  The screw piece is tightened with a tommy bar (so that the buffer heads are touching, with ‘2 threads’ visible each side of the tommy).  This sort of arrangement is called a bottle screw and is used in chaining down loads and tensioning chains in engineering.  In conjunction with sprung or pneumatic buffers it is used to eliminate slack in the couplings, to prove a smoother and safer ride, especially at speed.  Still in use. 
 

.’Buckeye’ couplers, based on the American Janney knuckle buffer/coupling.  Used on passenger stock in ECJS and subsequent LNER coaches, then introduced to the Southern by Bullied, and used on BR mk1 and subsequent gangwayed stock.  In British use, the coupling is hinged so that the buckeye can be dropped our of the way to reveal a conventional drawhook to couple the vehicle to non-buckeye stock. They are used on connection with ‘Pullman’ gangways which have a steel buffing plate.  Conventional buffers are provided but are retracted when the buckeyes are being used.  Steel collars that hang on hooks next to the buffers are placed over the buffer shank when they are in the ‘extended’ position for coupling to ‘normal’ stock.  They provide an even smoother ride than screws, and better resistance to telescoping in a collision.  
 

.’Instanter’ couplings, a version of 3-link developed on the GW in the 20s and used increasingly from WW2 on.  Adopted as standard coupling for new and ‘refurbished’ freight wagons by BR, but note that ‘XP’ wagons has to have screw couplings to run in passenger and NPCCS trains.  The central link is pear shaped, which means that it can be used in a shortened position, which reduces the gap between buffer and provides less coupling slack, suitable for faster running, or a long coupled position suitable for unfitted trains and easier shunting. 
 

3-link, screw, and instanter couplings are available from Smiths and others in model form in 4mm scale. 

[Wheatley]

On a previous EM layout I had a 24" radius curve on an industrial branch  around which I could just propel a rake of 16t mineral wagons fitted with Slater's 3 links at dead slow, provided the loco was very short with minimal overhang and had reasonably large buffer heads. Between the wagons was no problem. A re-gauged Hornby Class 25 with scale sprung Oleos had to have the Smiths screw coupling pivoted to work the branch but just managed it. 

 

That was 30years ago. My now 53yo eyes struggle with 3 links and the goods yard on the new layout is at the back and too far to lean over. Having gone back to OO I'm currently switching the fleet to Lincs automatic couplings which work alongside the now-cosmetic 3 links, or a hybrid based on the P4me coupling which featured on here about 15 versions of RMweb ago - a sort of simplified AJ  which is compatible(ish) with the Lincs. 

 

If you want to go mad Jim Smith-Wright had an article in MRJ many moons ago describing how to make working vac pipes in 4mm using bits of round elastic or jewellers gimp and tiny disc magnets. If you want to go completely insane Mike Clark (Masokits) will sell you a fret of etched bits to make a working British Standard gangway, scissors, locking clips and all. 

Edited July 12, 2022 by Wheatley