MTL coupler survey

[Chris333]

Saw this on the MTL home page:
http://www.micro-trains.com/

Left toward the top.

[tom mann]

I took the test.  Pretty easy to decipher the intent!

[ednadolski]

"No ‘slinky’ effect."

Sounds like someone is getting the message.

Ed

[Chris333]

What freight cars have hydraulic brakes?   

[davefoxx]

What freight cars have hydraulic brakes?   

Chris,

You never heard of an engineer dumping the hydraulic fluid when putting the train into emergency?   

DFF

[wcfn100]

Saw that yesterday and requested body mount conversions for freight cars. 

Jason

[C855B]

Uh oh. There's a catch in there... "manual coupling and uncoupling". Not an "or". Manual uncoupling I don't so much mind, but manual coupling is a deal-killer. Scale size and appearance, close coupling and no "slinky" effect + "manual coupling and uncoupling" = dummy coupler.

IMO "accidental uncouplings" is usually a trackwork issue, although I know firsthand it is a recurring problem running Accumates.

[learmoia]

Saw that yesterday and requested body mount conversions for freight cars. 

Jason

Me too.. Body mount conversions for hoppers!..

[peteski]

IMO "accidental uncouplings" is usually a trackwork issue, although I know firsthand it is a recurring problem running Accumates.

And accidental uncoupling of Kato couplers is also not due to the trackwork, but it is due to their design.  I just figured that I would throw this in here.

[peteski]

Chris,

You never heard of an engineer dumping the hydraulic fluid when putting the train into emergency?   

DFF

I answered that I wasn't interested in that feature.    Obviously the questions for this survey weren't composed by Joe, but by some marketing genus. 

[Kisatchie]

Me too.. Body mount conversions for hoppers!..

Yeah! I asked for that too when I took the survey.


Hmm... was the survey
for N scale or Z...?

[MichaelWinicki]

Uh oh. There's a catch in there... "manual coupling and uncoupling". Not an "or". Manual uncoupling I don't so much mind, but manual coupling is a deal-killer.

Agreed.

[peteski]

Agreed.

Again, to me the that question seems to indicate that whoever created this survey is no very familiar with model (and 1:1) railroading.  Even the 1:1 knuckle couplers couple automatically. 

[ednadolski]

Scale size and appearance, close coupling and no "slinky" effect + "manual coupling and uncoupling" = dummy coupler.

Or the Lee English Z scale couplers.   

IMO "accidental uncouplings" is usually a trackwork issue, although I know firsthand it is a recurring problem running Accumates.

I can get my MTL-equipped autoracks to "accidentally uncouple" almost at will.   All I have to do is slow the train on a downhill grade to about 5 scale mph.   They will start to pogo and then let go.   It's definitely _not_ the track, no other cars in the +60 car train have that issue.

Ed

[C855B]

I can get my MTL-equipped autoracks to "accidentally uncouple" almost at will.   All I have to do is slow the train on a downhill grade to about 5 scale mph.   They will start to pogo and then let go.   It's definitely _not_ the track, no other cars in the +60 car train have that issue.

Wellllllllll... if they're stock with the truck-mounted couplers, this doesn't surprise me. IOW, it's not the couplers themselves, it's the slop of the too-long lever arm resulting in misalignment as stuff bounces around. I had a similar problem with 86' auto parts cars. Once the couplers were body-mounted, the problem vanished... as did their ability to run on anything less than a 20" curve.