K-Line vs MTH car coupler compatibility with Lionel lobster claws?

@Mannyrock posted:

Hey Folks,

I am thinking of buying an older UP single dome tank car.   K-Line made one, and MTH made one (much nicer).

All of my other cars are Lionels with lobster claw couplers.

Is there any accepted group wisdom as to which of these two would be most generally compatible with the Lionel couplers?

(I understand that MTH couplers are often a tad lower than the Lionel ones.)

Thanks for all advice.

Mannyrock

You should have no issues at all, they all mate with very little trouble.

Yes they'll "mate" to a reasonable extent, but I wouldn't expect reliable "automatic" coupling.  For example, if you back slowly into a cut of cars, the open knuckle may not close.  In fact with some of the manufacturers' varied geometries (and they've changed over the years), no matter how hard you whack the cars together, they won't couple.  So they are inter-operable, but not fully compatible.

@Bob and some other operation-oriented modelers on this forum have groomed their rolling stock collections, swapped trucks, or even changed their entire fleet to Kadee semi-scale couplers to achieve reliable automatic operation.

My brother and I used to do switching operations on our O27 layout.  Our rule was, try once at a modest speed.  But if it didn't couple, we just closed the knuckle by hand and lifted one car over the other to engage the closed couplers.  More often than not the latter was necessary, especially because we had several couplers wired permanently closed to prevent them from releasing randomly at inopportune times!

_{"Make postwar, not trains??"}

@Ted S posted:

Yes they'll "mate" to a reasonable extent, but I wouldn't expect reliable "automatic" coupling.  For example, if you back slowly into a cut of cars, the open knuckle may not close.  In fact with some of the manufacturers' varied geometries (and they've changed over the years), no matter how hard you whack the cars together, they won't couple.  So they are inter-operable, but not fully compatible.

@Bob and some other operation-oriented modelers on this forum have groomed their rolling stock collections, swapped trucks, or even changed their entire fleet to Kadee semi-scale couplers to achieve reliable automatic operation.

My brother and I used to do switching operations on our O27 layout.  Our rule was, try once at a modest speed.  But if it didn't couple, we just closed the knuckle by hand and lifted one car over the other to engage the closed couplers.  More often than not the latter was necessary, especially because we had several couplers wired permanently closed to prevent them from releasing randomly at inopportune times!

_{"Make postwar, not trains??"}

I believe we call them toys……..lmao.

Yes, they are toys.  All the more reason why they should consistently provide joy and not frustration, especially in light of today's high prices.  If you have a tool that's sub-par, you might perservere with it and get the job done.  But a bad toy is just landfill bait.

Personally it bothers me when a product doesn't live up to its promise, or to the buyer's reasonable expectation.  My tongue-in-cheek remark about Postwar was to remind readers that everything made until 1957 (and probably much later) worked as expected.  Even our early MPC-era cars usually coupled on the first or second try.  Later MPC, 1980s production, didn't always close and latch.  Perhaps this was due to worn molds or cost-cutting.  Perhaps Lionel didn't care because of the shift in focus to adult collectibles that weren't being "played with."  Trains had become too expensive, and kids were playing with video games instead.

There have never been comprehensive NMRA standards for 3-rail O Gauge trains.  But for over 40 years, Lionel Corp. production was the de facto standard.  After about 1983, when the number of manufacturers began to proliferate, it seems that they just didn't bother to make an accurate copy.  K-Line particularly has a visibly different geometry; Weaver wasn't much better.  Early MTH couplers seemed to open on their own pretty often, we were quick to wire the worst offenders shut.

My dad was a design engineer.  There was nothing he couldn't fix, but he was quite critical of anything he worked on.  He always said, "Build a better mousetrap and the world will beat a path to your door."  Years of technological progress, and instead of a BETTER mousetrap, now the mouse eats the cheese and gets away!

I have never had any real issues with any manufacturers couplers not coupling with other manufacturers cars. When I have issues with couplers not staying closed or not locking closed when coupling to other cars and it turned out to be issues with the coupler that was not acting right rather than a compatibility issue. Usually the coupler armature needing tweaking or with some cars that have plastic armatures. This is true with couplers that are not at the exact height with others. This is my experience. I wouldn't avoid any particular car based on a supposed compatibility issue.

In my experience with N scale, the NMRA standards help when dealing with body mounting due to different body heights. Sometimes shims need to be used to get things right. There is much less tolerance in the smaller scales and when dealing with more scale size couplers which isn't an issue to much in three rail O-gauge.

@Ted S posted:

Yes, they are toys.  All the more reason why they should consistently provide joy and not frustration, especially in light of today's high prices.  If you have a tool that's sub-par, you might perservere with it and get the job done.  But a bad toy is just landfill bait.

Personally it bothers me when a product doesn't live up to its promise, or to the buyer's reasonable expectation.  My tongue-in-cheek remark about Postwar was to remind readers that everything made until 1957 (and probably much later) worked as expected.  Even our early MPC-era cars usually coupled on the first or second try.  Later MPC, 1980s production, didn't always close and latch.  Perhaps this was due to worn molds or cost-cutting.  Perhaps Lionel didn't care because of the shift in focus to adult collectibles that weren't being "played with."  Trains had become too expensive, and kids were playing with video games instead.

There have never been comprehensive NMRA standards for 3-rail O Gauge trains.  But for over 40 years, Lionel Corp. production was the de facto standard.  After about 1983, when the number of manufacturers began to proliferate, it seems that they just didn't bother to make an accurate copy.  K-Line particularly has a visibly different geometry; Weaver wasn't much better.  Early MTH couplers seemed to open on their own pretty often, we were quick to wire the worst offenders shut.

My dad was a design engineer.  There was nothing he couldn't fix, but he was quite critical of anything he worked on.  He always said, "Build a better mousetrap and the world will beat a path to your door."  Years of technological progress, and instead of a BETTER mousetrap, now the mouse eats the cheese and gets away!

I don’t know what problems you seem to think exist? I have all the manufacturers all together and cannot remember the last time I had a coupling issue. BTW they are not lobster claws but out of scale knuckle couplers.

@ThatGuy posted:

I don’t know what problems you seem to think exist? I have all the manufacturers all together and cannot remember the last time I had a coupling issue. BTW they are not lobster claws but out of scale knuckle couplers.

You haven't been trying Menard's cars.

I still have a couple Lionel freight cars with green newspaper rubber-bands from when I was a paper boy, wrapped  around the couplers to keep them closed.  They have been on them for 60 years, the rubber sort of becoming one with the coupler, and I am still having fun.

@gunrunnerjohn posted:

You haven't been trying Menard's cars.

I stand corrected……LMAO

"Toy" is in the eye of the beholder isn't it? One person's "scale model" is a toy to another because of some [to them] glaringly obvious flaw such as incorrect piping detail, incorrect rivet detail, non-scale wheel flanges (even though they are ALL out-of-scale to a greater or lesser degree-yes, even "PROTO 48" are not TRULY [exact!] scale are they?) OR out-of-scale [but correctly operating with an actual knuckle] couplers. I will point out that Kadee couplers, although closer to scale [but still not EXACT] size, do NOT have a prototypical "knuckle" action like Lionel-style couplers do. Again, one person's "scale model" is a non-prototypical "toy" to another. Or something.

I operate a switching pike using Lionel-style couplers (agreed that they are out-of-scale [genuine] knuckle couplers, NOT "lobster claws"). I enjoy something like 95% successful coupler operation enabled by home-made "car brakes" that hold cars still while the train approaches and forces the knuckles closed and latched. Prototype-like slow speed switching is quite enjoyable with this equipment.

I have found variations in coupler geometry such that I need to discard about 10% of new trucks due to these failings. Meh.

Pics of my car-stoppers.