acela hpp-8 and acela cars....

[taylorg01]

My son is searches the Internet so....

Last year Santa brought him an acela hpp-8.  It had the product registration card and nothing else in the box.  Took me a while to figure out how to get in and install the decoder.  It has standard knuckle couplers.

Santa has been asked this year to bring him some acela cars.  These cars, as I have looked at a pair of them up close, do not use standard knuckle couplers and instead use some weird pocket/clip thingy.

My son has asked santa that if he brings any trains to please set them up on his layout-in-progress.  I have no idea how Santa is going to connect these cars to the hpp-8.

I know Santa is a smart guy, but if I could help him figure that out, it might just speed things up for him and lighten the load.

Summary is:

hpp-8 with the stanard knuckle couplers and no instructions or additional parts in the spectum box

need to connect to

acela cars that do not use standard couplers.

thanks.

[Jake]

Well, the thing is, in the real world HHP-8's never pulled the cars found on the double ended Acelas, those cars were made for and only for the Acela train set (Real life train set, not the Bachmann one) they did however pull Acela regional coaches. (http://www.bachmanntrains.com/home-usa/catalog/?function=detail&id=1120)
Those do have knuckle couplers, and are pulled buy the HHP-8's, so those may be a better choice for your son's railroad.

Bachmann also has quite a selection of other Amtrak coaches that you may want to look at here: http://www.bachmanntrains.com/home-usa/catalog/?cat_id=114&start=0&sortOrder=id

Good luck!

[Conrail Quality]

Jake is correct, HHP-8's don't pull Acela cars. They usually pull Amfleets, like in this picture:


If course, if you want to break the rules, the HHP-8 model can pull the Acela cars with the use of a Kadee #18 coupler. http://www.kadee.com/htmbord/page58.htm

[taylorg01]

breaking rules...?  That hpp-8 has been pulling super liners.  The deal is that we have a small layout and he likes the double-ended hpp8 over the regular acela power.  He has one amfleet car (Riverossi), but it is an older version.  He wants to run a short Acela consist and that's why he's asked Santa for those cars.  He really doesn't need another engine of this type and he can use that hpp-8 with just about anything.

I saw the conversion couplers in a catalog the other night so we'll get a pair of those.

Thanks for the responses.