#9e with 200 series cars?

since the #9 is one of my true favorites I ran down to train room and put a few cars behind my gray 9,,,,,i think it looks great,,,,also mth did a xmas #9 it has 200 series cars in that set also,,,,

mine hook up just fine,,,but is all modern equipment ,prewar could be different

Terry,

You're the man! Thanks! Thinking about grabbing either the grey or orange.

Thanks!

Sunrise

both super nice,,,,but l love those big toasters !!

terry hudon,

   Looks fantastic to me!

PCRR/Dave

thanks pcr !!!

Got the 2 tone green one, but never pulled freight cars with it. Great loco.

Steve

looks great to me.

thanks steamer !

You can make better looking trains today by mixing and matching from the whole pre-war period. The manufacturers back then were limited to what was offered that year or what they were trying to get rid of. 

If you think about it, the 418 series passenger cars were sold with the 408 locomotive, which also pulled all the 200 series freight cars.  So the #9, which also came with the 418 cars, would naturally fit with the 200 freights.

There's no difference in coupler height between vintage and MTH on the 200 or 500 series freights; I have mixed consists of vintage and reproduction in each series, and they couple right together.

Terry, I see you have the Brookside Dairy car from the Burlington Vermont TCA convention in 2008.  My neck of the woods.  Don't see too many of those, but they must be out there. Mine is coupled between vintage 212 gondolas, they're all the same height.

david

David,

MTH cataloged the 9e w girard cars. Aren't the girard cars more along the lines of 500 series in coupler height?

Sunrise

I have several sets of girard cars with 392's and the frames of all the 9's are the same ,they,girard cars, ride on the blue comet trucks however so shouldn't be a problem  

hojack ,thanks I'm in pa just like the standard convention cars,,but I wish they would stop already with this reefers and box cars,,,,,i know ,there are only so many types of cars but,enough,i have the tca crane,,,,often think of selling it tho,,,who know ,thanks again terry  

The Girard, Blue Comet, and State car sets are very similar in design, variations on a theme, and are a kind of progression in that order, each set getting longer and more elaborate.  They're all the same coupler height.  

Again, thinking it back through, the Girard car set was also cataloged with the gunmetal gray 392.  And the 392 was cataloged with the Blue Comet cars and the 200 series freights before the 400 came out. So they gotta all be the same coupler height.

Of course, the other wild card in this is that some of the larger-sized locos came through with a drop coupler for the smaller cars:  I have a 400 with a drop coupler on the tender that pulls my 500 series freight, even though the 400 was never sold with the 500's or the smaller 300 series passenger cars.  Don't know if that's the case with the #9 but it's possible.

Could be, that's a different question. I was focused on the 9E/Girard car/200 series freight question and the subject of the 400 on the 500 freight was an afterthought.  I'd have to look sometime.

david

The 9E should will work fine with the 200 series freights. It was utilized with the larger passenger cars like the Girard cars. The #8 would have been used for the 500 series freights as it also handled the small passenger cars.

As for the 400E, the odd part of that loco is that the tender does not line up with 200 series freights. I can't remember if it's too tall or short, but it does not match.I don't recall a factory tender that used a drop coupler for use with smaller cars.

The 390 was the only loco that I know of that was available with 2 different tenders: 390T with 500 series trucks  for 500 freights and the 390TX with 200 series trucks for 200 series freight cars.

ARNO

My 400E lines up with my 200 series cars just fine.  Did you by chance mean 500 series?

Thanks for all that have replied...I see that the #9 matches the 200 series cars.  What's confusing is that the MTH Comet 400e matches the comet cars, and as hojack has stated are the same coupler height as the girard and state cars. The comet 400e will not match up with 200 series cars or the 418 passenger cars. I learned this the hard way with my LCT red comet 400e.I was hoping to pair it with my circus 200 series cars but the couplers are not aligned.  So...how can the #9 match the 200 series cars and the girard cars at the same time?  Now just to decide on the orange or grey. Perhaps the grey is a little more versatile but I do like bright colrs in tin. Decisions Decisions!!!

Sunrise

Sunrise

My 9E does not match 200 series cars. I checked with a MTH dark green 9E.

My 418 cars are the same height as 200 series cars. State cars match up with 300 series and Girard cars.Plus 500 series cars.

The high top 9E looks better than the flat top. Green and Orange are high tops. Grey and two-tone Green are flat tops.

As I look at the photo I posted. The 9E is mated with 2 sets of 418 cars and Girard cars and 300 series cars.

Two different coupler types. Lionel must have done something with the couplers to make the sets match.

Jim,

Awesome! Easy to understand why I was confused. Thanks!

Sunrise

Yes : some of the larger-sized locos came through with a drop coupler for the smaller cars.

But, I'm not aware that there were "two different coupler types". Can anyone produce evidence of two different Lionel Standard Gauge latch couplers? However, they dropped the coupler.  This is not determined by the wheel size.  Not all cars with 200 series wheels have the same coupler height.

Please notice that there are different and conflicting responses thorughout this thread:

- Terry posts picture of 9E coupled to 200 freight and says they hook up fine.

- Ron states 9E will have trouble connecting to 200 freight.

- SWHiawatha notes 400e tender lines up with 500 series freight.

- Arno states 400 tender does not line up with 200 series freight.

- RideTheRails says 400e does line up just fine with 200 series freight.

- JimC says 9E does not match 200 series freight.

- JimC says 9E mates with 418 cars (which have 200 series wheels.)

- everyone agrees 9E matches Girard cars which have 500 series wheels.

david

Agreed.  And the only difference between CP-8 and CP-21 is the length of the shank. Using one or the other coupler does not alter the height.

I do not have a vintage 400E.

I would be cautious drawing conclusions.  I would very much like to see a closeup photo of Terry Hudon's 9E coupled to the cars he shows in the earlier photo.  

I have always argued that it is the nature of tinplate not to be very precise; there is a lot of "slop" in the connections, and there is also a lot of variation between units.

In your replies, please be careful NOT to re-post all the photos, delete them from your reply before posting or this thread will become impossible.

In no particular order:

As soon as you start comparing reproductions with originals all bets are off.  Even if you stick with strictly original Lionel SG there are more than just 2 coupler designs.  The 2 distinct differences in coupler height (200 vs 500) make mating them difficult if not down right impossible in some circumstances.  Same can be said with the earlier 10 series cars vs the 100 series.

Note pics above...all shanks show some sign of bending for adaption.

Bruce

"As soon as you start comparing reproductions with originals all bets are off."

This is not known.  But since there are no problems coupling same-series vintage and MTH(Lionel) equipment to each other, it is very likely that the reproductions match the originals in coupler height.

"Even if you stick with strictly original Lionel SG there are more than just 2 coupler designs."

We are talking about the Lionel Standard Gauge latch coupler.  Please substantiate any claim that there are more than the CP-8 and CP-21, or that there is any difference in the shape (other than shank length) of the coupler itself.

"The 2 distinct differences in coupler height (200 vs 500) make mating them difficult if not down right impossible in some circumstances. "

Yes, I don't believe there is any disagreement there.

In the last series of photos, it looks like the 400 tender and the 200 freight will not couple.  In fact, they do, and nothing binds.  However, with just a little difference in how tight the mounting rivet is fastened, or in the bend of the couplers, they would not couple.  I believe that much of the variation in experience is due to the wide variation tolerances inherent in tinplate.

david

thanks for all the hard work on those pix !!!

you're welcome Terry, it wasn't very hard.

It certainly looks to me that the couplers on the 200 series freight are much higher than the couplers on the 429 (418/428 series) car, which also have the 200 series wheels.  So using 200 series wheels does not result in consistent coupler height; variations in trucks, body design, and coupler mount seem to contribute also.

Back to the original post in this thread by Sunrise Special: The 9E (and also the 400E tender) can reach the 429 car, but it has a much harder time reaching the 200 freights which are higher.  

d

The 428 cars that mate to the Green set and Orange sets headed by a 9E use 4 wheel trucks. The 418 cars use 6 wheel trucks. Do not know if one truck sits higher than another.

""Even if you stick with strictly original Lionel SG there are more than just 2 coupler designs."

We are talking about the Lionel Standard Gauge latch coupler.  Please substantiate any claim that there are more than the CP-8 and CP-21, or that there is any difference in the shape (other than shank length) of the coupler itself."

The commonly known transitional combination coupler.  There was a slot in the lower plate that allowed new engines the ability to couple to earlier hook type equipment.  And if CP-8 and CP-21 were different only in shank length then what's that chances that a combo coupler had 2 lengths too?  Old parts books represent what was on hand at the time of printing...not what came from the factory.

Bruce