3Rd Rail couplers

ajcalco posted:

Is there a way to get 3Rd Rail passenger car couplers to work better? They use old style couplers with the pins for uncoupling.

Except for my SP Daylight scale passenger train set, I have up-graded all my GGD heavyweight passenger cars to Kadee couplers. I thus have had no problems, even with the original couplers on the Daylight set (the cars couple close enough that I didn't see the need to change to Kadees, and possibly damage the paint on the car ends).

At the very least I eliminate all the thumb tacks. Many times they get bent and cause some pull on the knuckles causing them to open. They are ugly and shouldn't be put on scale cars today anyway.

Swapping to Kadee is the best way but a lot of work. All I want from my GGD couplers is for them to stay closed. When I put together a passenger train, I couple them by hand and the train stays together.

Remove the thumb tacks off of the bottom. It will relieve most of stress which causes the couplers to uncouple. I am curently working on making a quick video on how to do this as I have just finished removing all the thumbtacks from my El Cap set. I have found the best way to to this is to remove the metal piece (which has the pin and thumbtack on it) from the bottom of the coupler. Then place it in a vice. Heat it with a blow torch in the area of the thumbtack to losten the weld. Then use a pliers to pull the thumb tack off. It will come off cleanly and without any damage to the rest of the assembly. I have seen others use a hacksaw or a dremmel but I have found that sometimes either of these tools can cause damage as the metal piece is very thin. I realize that some may disagree with my method but as I said, at some point I will post a video which will clarify this process.