On30 couplers

[ppowell]

I bought two passenger cars from a dealer that was going out of business.
They have an old style couplers that do not work as well as the couplers on my new cars. How can I get some new style replacements? I have no local dealer.

[Tomcat]

Hi there !

I could get you masses of them since I do convert all my Rolling Stock to Kadee No.5 (if going to my Logging Layout) or Kadee 803/804 if going to my DRGW/RGS layout.

The worse thing is: I´m living in Germany - getting my odd couplers to you, even if they will be free of charge, would need to get the Shipment costs covered. Lots of them would fit in an air-cushioned enverlope, I trust.

If I can be of any help, just let me know. I´ll be happy to help you out.

Thank you so much.
Kind regards, Tom

[randerson]

PPowell,

I use Kadee # 148 couplers.  They are much easier to install than the #5's.
My opinion for what it's worth.

I order from Kadee on line.   

Cheers,

Rich

[ebtbob]

ppowell,

       I am curious,  can you tell us who the cars are made by?   If they are Bachmann,  the the Bachmann EZ Mate II can be used,  or as was stated before,  and even better,  the Kadee 148.
       

[Sherwood]

I have replaced most of mine from this era with the Bachmann EZ mate II which is what comes with the newer cars.  Make sure to get the right shank offset to match, the passenger cars you bought and most of the older freight cars came with "overshank" medium length EZ mates, although some of the cabooses needed to be replaced with center shank to get the right height.   (Look at the various ones in the hobby shop to see the difference)

The Bachmann EZ mate II are similar to and compatible with Kadee, so you can mix some Kadee replacements without replacing the ones on newer Bachmann.

If I had it to do over again, however, I might have made the modification mentioned here frequently to lower just the freight cars slightly by shaving off the boss on the top of the truck bolster, in which case they come out about right with center shank couplers and look a little better to most eyes - apparently there was a range of how low narrow guage cars really looked but the classic "hunkered down" look of the D&RGW and the two foot guage eastern roads is what most people envison.  I now have a bunch of cars for which I have bought the overshank replacements and am now contemplating replacing again with centershank after lowering.

The passenger cars are not so easy to lower, so for the ones you have the simplest solution is straight replacement with the right Bachmann or KD

There are more elaborate lowering and coupler replacement schemes that can look even better, but can be quite a project if you have to do a lot - see Harold's website.