Cranes and MOW

[murfling]

Hello all;
I have gotten, pretty much by accident, all the pieces to make an Amtrak Maint Of Way train in bright orange. My difficulty is, the crane and tender are the older Bachmann version that has those pesk truck mounted couplers that I can not seem to find Kadees or EZ mates to work, and the rest of the train has the EZ Mate/Kadees on them.
Does anybody know if the Amtrak crane body and tender house will go on the newer version that Bacmann makes? If so, I'll just buy an undecorated and make the conversion.
Thanx for your time
Jonathan

[WoundedBear]

Would these be of any help? Kadee has others similar. Seems it would solve two problems at once.

http://www.kadee.com/htmbord/page100.htm

I believe Kadee also has couplers specifically for the talgo style pocket.

Sid

[SteamGene]

Why not cut off the Talgos and body mount?
Gene

[murfling]

Thank you for your suggestions. To be honest, I've never tried to do any major modifiations to the running gear of any of my trains. The closest I have come is replacing the sides of superliner coaches to make Amtrak California cars, and though they look OK, I discovered I do not have the patienct for a lot of the minute things that go with it. I like to run the trains, which is why I fell in love with the Bachmann EZ track system. The closest thing to plug and play I have found. For me, if the decorated parts of the two crane sets are interchangeable, then that would be the EZ way out for me.  Just a Murphy thing, I guess.
Jonathan

[Stephen Warrington]

They should be, I got the old version and a new Silver series here and noneof the upper molds have changed.

Stephen

PS body mounting Kadees on these two cars is very simple cut off the coupler pocket on the trucks assemble a KD #5 or#148 and attach with a screw

[SteamGene]

Stephen is correct.  Body mounting couplers is one of the easiest things to do and a great way to learn to work with your cars.  As he says, cut off the Talgo after removing the trucks.  You may need a bit of strip styrene as a shim.  Now, here's the heresy.  I use TUBE glue to glue shim and pocket to the car. 
Gene