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I never liked how low B’mann hung their couplers, one reason I never bought their stuff.
Problems are different scales and Body vs truck mounted.
Hartland is 1:24 and the B’mann Lil is ?
My solution was to buy compatible stuff.
John
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The question is: Would standards (coupler heights for one) be helpful - to us? And to the manufacturers? For us, this question is what a salt lick is to deer. There will be responses from those who have tried, and tried, and tried, to get a package of standards agreed to be followed by the large scale industry. No such luck even attaining manufacturing agreement with what is “G” scale? Is it a gauge?
So the answer is YES it would be helpful to the users - that’s us. NO, it is not important to the manufacturers because there is NO manufacturing competition. Other than PIKO producing some locomotives and an announced regeneration of LGB locomotives and rolling stock, that’s essentially the story.
Where is the need for LS standards on the strength of increased production of new products?
In contrast, the HO world will have, at any given moment, several new releases that may or may not be duplicative of past products. No matter, as among these new releases is the expectation, in fact a mandate, they fit what everyone already has operating on their layout.
The large scale world is void. Now, if only ATLAS or KATO would be nutty enough to enter and saturate the market place in 1:29 or 1:20. Here come the standards!
Wendell,
Did I misunderstand your post with regard to new locomotive offerings? Because there more than just Piko and LGB (when and if it returns). We have Bachmann and USA trains. Both making locos and cars; Accucraft as well. Maybe I misunderstood but there are players in the market. I have no dog in this fight. But a standard, whatever that is, would be nice. Getting them to do it, thats a different story.
We don’t need no stinkin’ standards.
All jokes aside, I’d like to see the Kadee coupler as the standard, as in H0 and 0 Scales.
Harvey,
This issue has been argued for 20 years. There have never been standards to the Large Scale (G) community and there never will be.
John Bouck said:
Harvey,
This issue has been argued for 20 years. There have never been standards to the Large Scale (G) community and there never will be.
Yup. As much as they could help, they just aren’t a priority for all the different manufacturers out there.
I think John’s answer from what I have read over the last two years is reality. There won’t be a standard. Which means you either buy all one brand or you convert to your own “standard” or your local club’s “standard”.
Harvey Henkelmann said:
Do you feel the lack of standards for large scale (in regard to size ratio and coupler height) has helped or harmed the hobby?
I thought I’d bring this up since I attempted to couple my Hartland rolling stock to my Bachmann Lil’ Hauler Christmas set, much to my dismay the coupler height is totally incompatible. This is one area where I believe a standard should be adopted.
What’s your take on the issue?
Harvey dont blame lack of large scale standards for that screw up, that’s entirely Bachmann/Kaders foul-up. The Lil Big Hauler lines appear to share some sort of common DNA with Bachmann’s Thomas line which also has the idiotic high couplers that make them incompatible with any other large scale line.
For whatever reasons Bachmann decided that the Thomas / Lil Hauler lines exist in a universe where no one would ever consider running them mixed with any other brand like LGBs Toytrain line. Al Kramer sells a converter block that comes standard with the Thomas line cars but for whatever braintrust decision they did NOT include with the Lil Hauler line.
I swear I honestly believe someone in Kader actively did everything they could to cripple the Lil Hauler line, which is a crime because they are great little engines and the line is good quality. But somewhere along the command chain really lousy decisions were made, like the high couplers, the lack of siderods, the lack of coupler adaptors, and then there was the apparent complete lack of any effort whatsoever to actually market the darn things, like at big box stores or during christmas or at garden shows or at any other location where non train people with kids might see them, then complain that they were not selling and eventually killing off the entire line. What the hell did they expect? I spoke to the US Bachmann rep about them and he wasn’t very happy at all with the way their Chinese masters had handled the line, I got the impression whoever was in charge in China didn’t know sheee-iiit about model trains let alone large scale.
PS the line is DEAD, if you want extra cars or engines you better buy them NOW because once they are gone they are kaput! Hans at Gold Coast has the bulk of the remnants, last weekend he was selling them for $15 a car and $35 for the tank engine. Better stock up if you like them.
PS PS these are the coupler adaptors the seller is ana.kramer on Ebay, they’re like $4
Devon-
The active advertisers in Garden Railways with the newer products appear, to me , to be LGB and PIKO. USA and Bachman have their dedicated following while PIKO is the newer one on the block and LGB is the come-back kid. So these two are entering a dedicated group of consumers whereby it is unlikely USA or Bachmann would want to make any engineering changes to accommodate PIKO or LGB – or vice versa.
Wendell, the only elephant in the room regarding LGB is their infuriating recalcitrance to sell spare/repair parts, which according to Hans at Gold Coast they haven’t done many spare parts since Marklin took over the company. Whats available is mostly NOS according to him. I don’t know if that’s 100% accurate, but I know personally spare/repair parts can be a real PITA regardless of which company.
Wendell Hanks said:
Devon-
The active advertisers in Garden Railways with the newer products appear, to me , to be LGB and PIKO. USA and Bachman have their dedicated following while PIKO is the newer one on the block and LGB is the come-back kid. So these two are entering a dedicated group of consumers whereby it is unlikely USA or Bachmann would want to make any engineering changes to accommodate PIKO or LGB – or vice versa.
Gotcha, that makes more sense. i figured I didn’t quite get what you were meaning.
It’s a real shame (and turn off to a beginner) that there is no coupler standard. It sure would be a nice dream if ALL large scale couplers were compatible with one another. Devon, pinch me so I wake up! (http://largescalecentral.com/externals/tinymce/plugins/emoticons/img/smiley-undecided.gif)
Joe, yes that is a real turn off for beginners.
and the different Scales all running on 45mm track. I thought Hornby [Meccanno] at 4mm were bad enough, while the rest went HO.(http://www.largescalecentral.com/externals/tinymce/plugins/emoticons/img/smiley-frown.gif)
There is indeed a standard, the manufacturers don’t all follow it.
http://www.nmra.org/sites/default/files/standards/sandrp/pdf/s-2_2010.09.pdf
Greg
As a new comer, and I still consider myself as such, the different scales doesn’t bother me in the slightest. If your a purest you can pick one and stick with it. But if you want to play with standard or narrow or whatever having one track is nicer than having an HO layout and then a having to have a separate HOn3 layout.
But the coupler type and height thing is a bit annoying.
The NMRA’s coupler standards Greg linked to above (dealing with coupler height, nothing else) have been around for quite some time. They draw from LGB and Kadee standards; LGB with regard to the height for hook-and-loop couplers, and Kadee with regard to the height for “G” and “#1” coupler heights.
There is adherence. Accucraft’s couplers on their 1:20 equipment is set so the centerline is 1 1/8", despite that being about 3/16" too low to be prototypical. Bachmann’s 1:20 equipment is likewise set at 1 1/8" centerline. In addition, the Bachmann, Kadee G scale, and Accucraft 1:20.3 couplers are all nominally compatible. Likewise, you’ve got Bachmann’s “Big Hauler” line, LGB, Piko, and TrainLine all making equipment with hook-and-loop couplers set to a 3/4" centerline. I believe USA Trains still includes hook-and-loop couplers with their models as well.
Having said that, there are also outliers. For instance, Bachmann’s Thomas trains use hook-and-loop couplers, but at a different height from the rest of their line. If I recall, their “Li’l Big Hauler” couplers are likewise different from others. Aristo, Bachmann, and USA use knuckle couplers, but they’re set to the 3/4" centerline of the hook-and-loop, not the higher centerline of the Kadee knuckle couplers.
Alas, what you’re not going to see is any one single coupler standard for large scale. We actually looked at that after finishing the wheel and track standards, and decided essentially not to go there. There was zero manufacturer support for it, and even the modelers were against it. We found folks modeling 1:32 and 1:29 using the #1-scale couplers who were adamant in their refusal to put oversized couplers on their models. We had 1:20 modelers using Accucraft’s prototypical coupler saying “why should I use something that doesn’t look or work prototypically?” That was a distinct case of “two strikes, you’re out.”
However, all is not lost. We’ve seen the Kadee draft gear become something of a de facto standard in its own right. Bachmann cloned it on their 1:20 stuff. USA includes mounting pads for Kadee couplers on a number of their models. Kadee has an expanding array of adaptors which allow us to use their couplers on more and more models.
Realize, too, that Kadee became the de facto standard in the smaller scales despite the NMRA having a standard coupler.
Later,
K