couplers

[SteamGene]

WGL, before you order from Walther's try finding the same item at Trainworld, STDS, or other online stores; or see if you LHS will order it for you and give you a discount.  Unless you order from the monthly Walther's catalog's and buy sales items you pay MSRP plus s&h.  The same is true if you order directly from IHC. 
Whether the inserts will fit over two layers of pennies, I don't know.  I'd still recommend lead birdshot on the floor and in the compartments.  The IHC inserts are all a sky blue - floor, seats, walls - and probably need painting . 
I bought a bag of small bird shot years ago and still have about 3/4 of it left. It does wonders on such things as flatcars.  I used to weigh hoppers with it, but stopped, and in fact retrolighten hoppers as I find they don't need to be NMRA weighted to track well.  Wheel weights can be bought cheaply at an auto parts store, and again, one box will last a long, long time.

Yes, lead is poisonous.  Just don't swallow bird shot or use wheel weight as a throat lozenge.   Keep away from kids small enough to still be in the "taste everything" stage. 
Gene

[WGL]

 Ken S, my IHC smooth passenger GN cars look the right color (dark green roofs, orange sides) to me & match the colors of my EMD SD-45 GN locomotive.  I chose IHC, because of the price & because their ad said that the cars work on 18"r, which was all I had.  However, I just got some 22"r & built a second oval outside the one with 18"r, & plant to run my passenger train on the outside oval with its wider curves.
  Gene, I'll check other sources for the wheels.  I'll look for birdshot.  It certainly would adapt well to the available floor space.

[Ken S.]

Ken S, my IHC smooth passenger GN cars look the right color (dark green roofs, orange sides) to me & match the colors of my EMD SD-45 GN locomotive.  I chose IHC, because of the price & because their ad said that the cars work on 18"r, which was all I had.  However, I just got some 22"r & built a second oval outside the one with 18"r, & plant to run my passenger train on the outside oval with its wider curves.
  Gene, I'll check other sources for the wheels.  I'll look for birdshot.  It certainly would adapt well to the available floor space.

It depends heavily on the railroad. IHC chose one set of prototypes and released it in smoothisde and CS versions whether they were accurate or not. Mind you, Walthers released PRR, NYC, and PC dome coaches some years ago.

I'm wondering how well this new UP coach will sell with a price tag equal to a Rapido car. I'm also thinking about buying a Rapido car at some point since the EL is one of my modeling interests.

[WGL]

 Instead of lead birdshot, I thought, why not use BBs, which are steel & easier & safer to handle?  So I bought BBs.  They are much more expensive than pennies.    Covering the bottom of an 11" car to distribute their weight evenly, however, made the car about an oz heavier than its optimum weight.  I don't know why birdshot wouldn't have the same result.

[RAM]

I don't know how much lead is used in shot, but if you hunt ducks you can't use lesd shot.

[nickel plate road fan 121]

good question i'm going to modify my nickel plate road 759 with a pair of couplers for my railcars

[SteamGene]

My lead shot is probably at least ten years old.  I asked if it were still made and they sold me a bag. Yes, one can't hunt water fowl with lead shot. BB's are just too light to be of any use.  Pennies are one of the cheapest weights, but I'm not sure that it is actually legal to use them.
Gene

[Jhanecker2]

I think you are not supposed to deface coinage but using them for weights should not be illegal.  However I would use the 1973 or earlier coins , they were solid copper  and not alloyed with zinc  .  They are denser than the later issues.   John II

[WGL]

 Would the long shanks on my IHC passenger cars' couplers have something to do with these 11" cars being able to run on 18"r curves, & does close coupling require wider curves?  I saw some Walthers' passenger cars with a caution that they be run on no sharper than 24"r curves.  I haven't seen any 24"r Power-Loc track.  I have just added an oval around my original one using 22"r curves for my passenger train & leaving the inner oval with 18"r for my freight train.

[Guilford Guy]

If the IHC cars had working diaphragms its POSSIBLE that they could take smaller radius with a close couple. Their diaphragms are plastic, thus if they were coupled to close and went around a sharp curve, it would force the cars off the rails. I wouldn't stick with Powerlock. EZ Track has a much broader variety of curves. Your equipment will look much nicer on 36" Radii EZ Track, and may operate just as well. Walthers cars are far superior to IHC. I have a couple of their heavyweights, which are "Awesome." If you do give in to EZ Track larger than 24" get some Rapido Coaches. These are the best plastic coaches available in HO. BTW, some Walthers cars, such as the heavyweight observation, need a radius closer to 26" to run well.

[Pacific Northern]

There is a reason that IHC passenger coaches are 1/3 to 1/4 the price of Walthers or Rapido coaches.

Note that while many users resort to buying IHC because they will run on 18" radius curves so will Rapido coaches.

[ajp3751]

I ordered a set of IHC coaches more than two years ago and I wans't pleased with the results. They do run on 18"radius curves but they lack in weight and some detail which have already been discussed here.

They travel on 18" curves because of the way the coupler is mounted. There is a long coupler shank connected to the truck on these cars. This allows the coupler to move with the truck and not the car body. Long car bodies swing out on tight radii so body couplers wouldn't work for these cars on 18" track. Wider radii it will work and does look better. If you notice when you run your coaches on curves, they have a large overhang (which can be avoided using wider curves). Look at the couplers of two connected coaches on these cars. The NMRA coupling goes almost to the edge of the car to keep coupled. It is hard to have long cars coupled on short radius track.

I too started with power lock track years ago because that is what came with my first sets. I would recomend switching to EZ track as well if you have the finances to do so. As well as more EZtrack pieces available (wider radii, crossigns...) , Power lock track is connected (electrically) by copper contacts which can loose springyness and cause a bad connecting as track ages. EZtrack is connected by rail joiners which is a definate electrical connection. I have not purchased EZ track myself, but I played with it in a hobby store and liked what I saw. I am not going to buy it though because I am hoping to go to a cork roadbed and flextrack once I can get my layout built.

[WGL]

  Thanks for the recommendations & explanations about couplers.  I have invested a lot of money just getting started, so I will have to defer changing to EZ track, which is more expensive than Power-Loc, for a while.  Too bad Bachmann didn't have a train set in my local Fleet Farm, where I found the Walthers train set.
  A set of 8 smooth passenger cars, 11" each, makes a long train!  I had originally chosen heavyweight, not knowing the difference in length, but the train person at the hobby store explained that the era I want is the era of smooth cars.  Actually, I have 6 IHC smooth & 2 Athearn heavyweight cars (which have knuckle couplers).  Maybe I should switch to the era of shorter cars.
  Today, the Intermountain 49009S HO RTR F7A w/ DCC & Sound, GN I ordered is due to arrive, along with my first 2 GN freight cars.  I am eagerly awaiting it to replace my Walthers train set F7 for my passenger train.

[SteamGene]

The era of shorter cars is the 19th  century.  The standard passenger car length has been in the 80 foot range for years.  Both heavyweights and lightweights are essentially the same length.  Some model companies - Athearn and IHC for instance have built or build passenger cars that have been compressed a bit to make them compatable with a normal layout.  But they are models of 80 foot cars, even though they only scale out to be 60-70 feet long. 
Gene

[WGL]

SteamGene,
  Thanks for the information about lengths of passenger cars & eras.  I got out some of my 3-rail curved track for my Marx 0 set, laid them along the 18"r HO track & found that the Marx track has a slightly sharper curve, which is why 18"r seems normal to me.