Please help a new person at this with track securement.

[corey9212]

Hey Gene, yes it does look like a sickle and have a long straight bar pointing towards the track, the hole where it pivots is very small compared to other coupler pivot holes. They mount to the truck, you pull the truck off and then just twist  a bit and it pops straight up. I was looking at upgrading all my couplers to Kadees cause of the magnetic uncoupler (I think it is a really simple but cool idea.) I am also saving to run DCC but I need to buy the locomotives and two controlls (one for me and one for someone else to use at the same time.) Talk about expensive for 4 locomotives and two controlls.

[Jhanecker2]

Good Morning Corey,   If you don't want to go to a lot of trouble and are going to reuse the truck mounted coupler pockets Kadee makes an adapter called a talgo mount adapter. If you go this route make sure you also get their installation Tool . This will allow you to use Kadee couplers with "relatively " little extra modifactions to the coupler pocket. that of course depends on the type of coupler you use. Check out the Kadee website for more information .  I just went through that last month. It is truely amazing how many variations there are to coupler mounts. If all else fails , take two fingers of Scotch and try again on the morrow.  Skol!!!

[SteamGene]

If you are going to do nothing but run a train down the track, then a talgo mount is okay.  However, if you are going to do switching operations - dropping off and picking up cars - doing a fare amount of backing, then it is best to body mount.  In all seriousness, once you compare a new car, whether it be an Athearn kit or an Accurail, or an Atlas or Bachmann ready made, your old train set cars are going to look rather bad.
Gene

[corey9212]

Hello, I will probably for now just mount it on the truck cause SteamGeme has a really good point on the last part. I bought 2 brand new grain hoppers and sitting on the track with my other stock it put them to shame. I will probably use the old stock with new couplers on the trucks untill I can afford new stock. I'm saving right now for that DCC stuff ( It's going to cost me $661 for 2 locomotives, 2 decoders, and 2 controllers, ouch, lol.) The controllers I'm getting is the Zephyr Starter Set and the Digitrax DT400 Loconet super throttle, I tried them both out (along with other controllers) and found them to be the best for my layout (right now has one staging yard on each side, a mainline connecting them with sidings along the way for 3 industries, so lots of switching and lots of coupling and un coupling.)