teeinox

I have had exactly the same experience of better running with close couplers, although I have only used them in conjunction with close coupling units (CCU). My guess is that because the CCU is mounted on the body, the tractive force of the locomotive is transmitted through the coach bodies and the couplers, not through the bogies. It's the same arrangement as on the prototype, and the rigid "bar coupler" effect of the close couplers acts similarly to prototype buckeyes. It means that the bogies do not handle any tractive force and so are more able to follow the layout of the rails. I'm a fan of the arrangement, and where my coaches are ready-fitted with CCUs, I always use close couplers. I have also equipped some elderly coaches with CCUs, not always an easy task, but with the same benefits.

Flushed with success from close-coupling the Sunshine coaches, I couldn’t resist trying it all over again on a Hornby ex-LMS 68’ 12-wheel diner. Little did I know what awaited me. A previous owner had modified the coach with side and roof overlays to convert it into the Stanier D1938 version, and while the workmanship had its problems, it was nicely painted, and looked magnificent. But how was I going to install a suitable CCU with a NEM socket? While the Keen Systems CCU was a possibility, the Keen website tells me that fitting it on this model requires cutting into the floor to recess the mechanism. Cutting large holes in underframes and so weakening them makes me nervous, but in any case, since the metal overlays on the sides meant I could not get the coach apart, it wasn’t an option. So my choice was the Hornby X6194 CCU kit which is the equivalent to the X9098M, but for their 12-wheel Pullmans. One of the difficulties with this model seems to be the ride height, of which the most grotesque manifestation is the strange cut-outs in the solebars. A previous owner had tried to lower the ride height, but had lowered one end more than the other and then added washers to increase the height again! As I do not have sharp curves to deal with, I filled in the cut-outs and adjusted the ride height to be level and match the Hawksworth coaches: no easy task. The X6194 CCM is like the X9098M except that the drawbar is longer to suit the 6-wheel Pullman bogies. But it was still not long enough for the diner, so it had to be lengthened. However, the headroom in the diner’s underframe was so little that the NEM socket hung too low. So, when cutting the drawbar to lengthen it, I also removed the cranked portion. By lucky chance, that raised the NEM socket to the right height. The photo shows the original and modified drawbars: As with the Sunshine coaches, the bogies had to be modified to accommodate the NEM drop. The original coupling arrangement features an oblong moulding designed to hold the tension lock coupling. This structure was handy because I could cut its centre out right back to the headstock, leaving two prongs to accommodate the NEM drop and so guide the drawbar. The photo shows the surgery: (In case you are wondering, the red insulating tape forms a shim to correct a previous owner’s butchery of the bogie boss which caused the coach to lean out of true. You may also notice plentiful residues of super glue. I have photoshopped out the worst!) I chose not to cut into the headstock which means that on the straight, the coach does not couple perhaps as closely as I might have liked. But that is the compromise I struck between closeness on the straight versus clearance on curves. Which brings us to the throw of the coupler. Setting the degree of throw was an entertainment. Initially, to accommodate the diner’s considerable length, I thought I should go for the maximum throw available. While this worked successfully when coupled to the Sunshine coaches, buffer clearances were down to the proverbial cigarette paper. However, I found that the narrower 20mm arc used on the Sunshine coaches was wide enough. The benefit of this reduction was that it caused the NEM socket to protrude about 0.5mm further out at its now reduced extremes of movement. This may not sound much, but on curves, every little helps! I have still to get my head around the geometry of close-coupling mechanisms. Problems, problems…. The real problem with this conversion was the lack of headroom in the underframe. This gave wheel clearance issues. The loop in the Hornby drawbar is designed to surround the underframe bogie boss. With a 4-wheel bogie, this is not a problem because the wheels are well out of the way. But with a 6-wheel bogie, because the loop is directly above the centre axle, there is a risk of flange contact, and this is exactly what I got. There wasn’t an elegant solution. I ended up changing the centre 13.1 mm plastic wheelset for a 12.5 mm metal one. Ugly, but it worked. The lack of headroom also complicated how to retain the drawbar. It meant that I could not use the X6194 kit retention plates because there was insufficient wheel clearance to install them. I had to find another solution. This was to fabricate the retention plates out of Plasticard. But, to avoid flange contact, they had to be designed to be thin so that they could sit between the front and middle axles, well forward of the drawbar loop. This was not an ideal shape or position for retention plates, but there seemed nowhere else they could go and it seems to work well enough. Here is a photo of the underfloor arrangement with a retention plate installed: Despite the challenges, test running was perfect. And the close-coupling seems to give a degree of stateliness to the ride! So here is the diner in an un-prototypical formation between a Hawksworth and a Sunshine: And for something a little more prototypical, Santa gave me a new Bachmann D2159 60 ft “Porthole” coach for Christmas. Here it is looking mighty fine with the diner: The gap between the coaches is too wide because the Bachmann one is fitted with Hornby close couplers which are too long. It needs ROCO ones, but I am looking for them at a reasonable price – some hope! Looking back on the whole experience, the main area for potential problems is the amount of headroom the underframe offers. With the Sunshine coaches I was lucky. However, a shallow underframe combined with large wheels, as on the diner, spells limited clearance and potential trouble. It’s always a journey of discovery; each type of coach has unique issues that require unique solutions. But I do think it shows why Hornby and Bachmann have adopted the design they have. For 4-wheel bogies, it has the advantage of keeping the bulkier parts of the CCU from being sited over a wheelset and so minimises clearance problems. Not so with 6-wheel bogies, of course, as I found out. And their design incorporates a self-centring mechanism. As to whether it was all worthwhile, the cost benefit analysis is interesting. The diner and CCU kit cost about £23. Adding metal wheels, as is usually required, it would have been nearer £29. Given this order of cost, I don’t think I would consider buying elderly coaches to renovate when there are better modern CCU-equipped alternatives available second-hand for about the same price or a tad more. But what made converting these coaches worthwhile is that they are not available as modern R-T-R. Now their running gear has been modernised, they have a new lease of life and are adding variety to the fleet. Oh, and I had a lot of fun doing it!

The conversion has been really successful. I'll be posting how I got on. Done the write-up, got to do the photos. Probably after Xmas. teeinox

A cautionary tale. I too have been converting a LMS 68' diner to take a CCU with NEM sockets in order to use the Hornby/Roco close-couplers. I really didn't fancy the idea of cutting a large hole in the floor to accomodate the Keen base plate. So I used an adaption of the Hornby X6194 CCU kit designed for their 12-wheel pullmans. There were still clearance problems, but soluable ones. And the only thing I had to butcher was the drawbar in the kit, plus change the centre axle in the bogie for a 12.1 mm one to avoid flange contact with the drawbar. teeinox

Thanks, folks, for the replies. I knew about the Keen system, but wasn't sure whether they offered an NEM socket. I think they do, but the installation issues would probably have been similar. And as the Hornby kits were doing nothing in my spares box, they got used! I have a parcels train, composed of elderly models, each one of different type and manufacture (as an authentic parcels train should be) which I would quite like to convert to close coupling, if nothing else so that they can be attached individually as tail traffic. However, it involves 4-wheeled, 6-wheeled as well as bogie vehicles, each one with unique issues. So I am pondering, pondering..... teeinox

This is my third go at getting this post right! Oh technology! Most of the coaches I have are second-hand. The newer ones have NEM sockets and close-coupling mechanisms (CCMs) which I find very successful. But when it comes to the more elderly coaches, couplings are a problem. They usually come with either huge tension lock couplings, freakish arrangements, or things which are just plain broken. So I decided to see whether I could convert some elderly coaches to NEM sockets and CCMs. And this is the story. I already have a set of Hornby Hawksworths which are close-coupled using Hornby’s standard Roco-derived couplers, and they would set the standard. But I wanted to include some Sunshine coaches in the set to create that authentic GWR/WR “mixed” appearance. The only RTR source of Sunshine coaches is the Mainline/Bachmann version. Dating back to yesteryear, coupling arrangements are ancient, so the challenge was whether I could convert them to NEM and close-coupling. Given the risk, this had to be a cheap experiment where if the surgery involved ruined the coach, it could go in the bin. That problem was met by eBay yielding a knocked-about Mainline Corridor Second at £12.40 including postage. The other ingredient was Hornby’s NEM close-coupling mechanism X9098M which Hornby sold to enable you to convert its lighted Pullmans to NEM sockets. I had a couple of sets surplus, so they came free. The first issue was the gangways and the buffers. Mainline gangways are shorter than the Hawksworths, but the buffers are much longer and not sprung, and given they are part of the character of the coach, I really did not want to shorten them. So I did some initial measuring of the distancing of the Mainline coach in relation to the Hawksworths, and, given I do not have anything sharper than second radius curves, it seemed that it could work with the gangways set really close on the straight and no buffer issues on the curves. The other issue was ride height and wheel clearance. The Mainline coach runs low, so I put a plasticard washer over the bogie spigot to lift it to the correct height. With that adjustment, the CCM fitted perfectly in terms of height, width and projection. While the drawbar required some minor trimming, no packing or butchering of the coach was needed. However, the action of the mechanism is not identical to how it operates on the Pullmans, and so the installation had to be rather different. It was trial and error to place the pieces of plasticard for the stops and to shape the guiding cam to fix on the headstock. The result was to give the drawbar a 20mm arc of movement which was adequate. The photo shows how it fits. The drawbar is held in place by the plastic retention plate which comes as part of the kit. The plate fitted perfectly between the solebars, but I could not locate it in the same position as Hornby does because that would have stopped the pegs on the drawbar reaching the stops. So it had to be located to the rear of the underframe bogie boss. Dampers, made out of foam pads, are glued onto the retention plate. They help reduce the lateral shake from which these coaches seem to suffer badly. As for the bogies, a slot needed to be cut in the headstock to accommodate the NEM drop. The slot is 6mm wide. This allows the drawbar some play: necessary because the trajectory it takes on curves is not the same as that of the bogie. The surgery was easy enough, but it does weaken the bogie structure. The wheelsets run O.K., but over time, who knows? Here is a picture of the modified bogie: And when everything is put together, we get: The test runs were fine, with no gangway clashes, buffer locking or derailments over points. Here is how it looks coupled to a Hawksworth: still a gap, but much better. So, since I had another spare set of CCMs, I bought another coach, the Replica Railways version. The process was the same, though no height adjustment was required because Replica Railways had corrected that. However, the big issue that surfaced was buffer length. The Sunshine coach buffers are long, and if two Sunshines are to be close-coupled together, the length of buffers prevents engagement, still less going round any sort of curve! One solution was to shorten all the buffers, probably by a minimum of 2mm. The other was to shorten the buffers on one end of one coach by a drastic 4mm. I chose the latter because the Mainline coach already had one buffer shank snapped off (what do you expect for £12.40?), so I was faced with replacing that anyway. The downside is that it is not a flexible arrangement. The Mainline coach can only couple at its shortened buffer end to the Replica one, and I cannot couple any further Sunshine coaches together to form a rake. On the other hand, I have maintained the original, distinctive appearance of three sets of buffers at the cost of mutilating just one buffer. The photo shows how it looks. Test running showed that when propelled on reverse curves, the full-length buffers locked behind the gangway connector buffing plate on the “shortened” coach. Some judicious paring away of its plate seems to have solved this, but clearances are tight. However, when hauled, there isn’t a problem as shown here on a 2nd radius curve: So, a successful experiment; the coupling arrangements are modernised, they run well, and they look the part. The bad news is that the X9098M kit now appears to be out of stock, and I am not convinced that Hornby intend to make any more.