Atlas 2nd QTR Announcements [coming soon?]

[Mark5]

I guess in early April we'll get the April/May/June catalog ... time for my quarterly fix!

[title changed to avoid confusing SPFs]

[3rdrail]

I guess in early April we'll get the April/May/June catalog ... time for my quarterly fix!

Boy, you threw me for a loop. By "Q2" I thought you were referring to PRR's 4-4-6-4 duplexes!!!    Wow, if Atlas were to make one of those, as it was the highest horsepower steam locomotive ever built, a lot of SPFs would be euphoric!

[Walkercolt]

My only reservation about Atlas cars are the Accumates and their problems. The accumates aren't bad, but they do have a problem of dropping the darn pin and derailing your train. And changing some Atlas cars to MT's doesn't work too well(tankcars). Accumates are a little long of shank too for my tastes. Of course, I don't do sharp curves that need the longer shank either. Atlas is doing better and better with the quality and detail of their cars. Some of them give Red Caboose and Micro-Trains a run for your money.

[Greyryder]

My only reservation about Atlas cars are the Accumates and their problems. The accumates aren't bad, but they do have a problem of dropping the darn pin and derailing your train. And changing some Atlas cars to MT's doesn't work too well(tankcars). Accumates are a little long of shank too for my tastes. Of course, I don't do sharp curves that need the longer shank either. Atlas is doing better and better with the quality and detail of their cars. Some of them give Red Caboose and Micro-Trains a run for your money.

I like the Accumates for the fact that if I don't have any spare couplers, I can run them, untill I can replace them. Otherwise, they're removed before the car ever touches my track. They may not be as good as MT couplers, but at least they're relatively compatible with them.

Couplers aside, Atlas is making some realy nice cars, these days.

[wm3798]

Universal Accumate Repair Kit.

I dig them as long as they don't separate on the down grade...
Lee

[Wlal13again]

Accumates beat Rapidos....

[Greyryder]

They look nicer than rapidos. I have a switching layout, and before I got everything switched over to MTs, there were times I swear rapidos would have worked better. The trailing coupler on my only good loco would occasionaly uncouple for no reason, and one of the cars had a couple that had to be forced together with other accumates.

Having had some HO train sets when I was a kid, I can say that accumates are better than horn hook couplers. At least you can get accumates to uncouple, when you want them to.

[wes_sutton]

Is it just me or are the more recent Accumates more reliable.

Two or three years ago they would seem to just disintegrate with the merest touch sometimes, but have not had this problem for a while now.

Wes

[POVC]

Is it just me or are the more recent Accumates more reliable.

Two or three years ago they would seem to just disintegrate with the merest touch sometimes, but have not had this problem for a while now.

Wes

They have gotten more reliable.  I understand that the tooling was modified to make the latches bigger so they would stay together better.

I think most of the people who complain about the exploding accumate couplers haven't used any built in the last 2 years.

Tim

[Walkercolt]

Wes and Tim, I think they are getting better, but occassionaly one "blows-up" on me. Hope the new McHenry coupler isn't a headache. I don't think anything is as bad as Rapidos.... just built with too much "slop" in them.

[Ed Kapuscinski]

I'm with Tim. I use them all the time on NTRAK layouts, and I have no trouble with exploding couplers in normal use. My only problems occur during storage and transport where the cars slip around in their box.

Other than that, I really like them, partially because I REALLY enjoy avoiding the MTL Tax.

[Walkercolt]

Ed, I would enjoy avoiding the MT "tax" too. I don't think the Chinese are as good at assembling Accumates as the girls in Talent,OR are at assembling MT's. Or just maybe, after 30+ years the MT coupler is just a better mousetrap. Also, the Accumate trip-pin rides at.010" above the rail as opposed to the MT pin riding at .020". Awful easy to catch on rerailer crossings and turnout frogs, and hard to adjust and not pull out the pin. My feeling towards the Accumate is "close, but no cigar". I run them 'til they screw-up, then do something...either replace them with another or go MT where I can. A very imperfect solution.

[Mark5]

Dunno how this became a coupler thread ... 

o - Kadee/MT couplers - work great but there's that slinky effect on grades ...
o - Accumates - no slinky but couplers stick out too far on most (but not all) of the Atlas trucks. Quality good but not as good as MT.
o - McHenry - remains to be seen.
o - Kato - enables close coupling on their SD40-2s (something MT can't seem to figure out) but the couplers have compatibility issues.
o - Rapido - couplers for Neanderthals.

Off topic: I'm looking forward to the "Spring" catalog!

[Walkercolt]

Well, it's my fault about the couplers, sorry. I don't know if Accumate needs a little more engineering work or just better QC...and a shorter shank. The Kato semi-dummy couplers seem to work very, very well together. Ran my Super Chief for 4 hours and never had a bit of trouble. Nearly as good as Unimates!

[Mark5]

Well, some of the newer Atlas Accumate trucks (tooled in the past few years) don't have the long shanks. So ya can't make a blanket statement like that anymore.

But most of them are still way too long - so I still gotta replace them (like on all my 55T fishbellies) or re-deploy them to "cushion underframe" cars. 

Sadly, though many end up in the "excess" pile.

I wish MT would try a little harder on their SD40-2 conversion couplers. The gap on the "short" conversion (2004) is still way too large. >

But maybe Atlas will announce a SD40-2! (pipe dream here)