Kadees on El Cap?

Why, you can't see em so it shouldn't matter

My tip for 3 rail cars..... DON'T DO IT.

Unless your curves are huge, the cars are close together already and Kadess just cause problems because of the diaphragms.

Doug, I know u are right. I am now OCD about the **** couplers.  See what u did to me?  I will a have to accept what i cannot change...or something to that effect.

For the record u can see them, i just won't look at em.

Or paint them silver so they just blend in

I'm kinda like T4. The claws really destroy any ascetic enjoyment of otherwise scale models for me. They just hav'ta go!

Now, I don't have the specific cars in question. Is there something special, about these cars that makes it especially difficult to fix scale couplers to them?

 I had no trouble affixing Kadees to my 21 inch GGD heavyweights.

In fact, these cars are my absolute favourites, making it especially important they have scale couplers! I would have thought owners of the El Capitan cars would feel the same?

Despite my layout being small, an around the room in a 12.5 x 14.5 foot space, I quite deliberately made the outer loop with a min. O-80 to accommodate 21 inch cars. That O-80 is hidden. The rest of the loop has wider curves. That said, my 21 inch cars, with Kadees, run without problems on the inner loop as well which is all O-72. 

I'll admit the Kadees were a problem with these very long cars on grade transitions. I had to do some finagling to ease into the grades to prevent uncoupling. 

I certainly have no regrets putting Kadees on these 21 inch cars. In fact, my second sleeper just arrived this week. I put Kadees on it before it ever hit the track! I got satisfactory results with standard shanks but there is always the option to use extended shanks if necessary. 

You think Dougel made you OCD about couplers, Erik at MMW made me OCD about details, its much more expensive to be put in my position so find solace in the fact that kadees are $5 a set

Its not putting the Kadees on....thats the easy part. 

Maintaining the close coupling on the curves without derailing is the issue, because of the diaphrams. They are pretty rigid, and when they go through the curves, the edges of the diaphrams catch on one another. The Kadees do not allow for as much side to side swing also adding to the derailing issue in the curves.

The cars out of the box are pretry close coupled already. I'm definitely not one to vote against Kadee conversions, but I've done it. Unless you run in a giant loop with no S curves or using cross overs....its not worth my frustration. I do NOT want to be limited to where I can run the cars.

Remove one of the diaphragm from either car or a engine. Close coupling and you don't have worry about curves

Then you have a giant gap between the cars. If looks is the concern....that looks like crap! Might as well run MTH or Lionel cars with 12 feet between them. I thought the whole point of close coupling was to eliminate the gap between cars.

As usual LOS is spot on. Out of box these cars are close coupled. In that regard they look great. I tried using the GGD bracket with long and short shank couplers but could not find a way to prevent derailment on O88 (smallest curve on my main lines). The smart thong to do isube with it. I am not sure about painting silver. I did paint the kadee on the end car silver but that may accentuate the lobsters between the cars...idk.

The scale coupler in the CZ car does not accentuate the lobster claws on the rest of the train, see for yourself.

That's why I only put Kadees/Protocraft on the front and rear of my passenger trains

I just don't notice the claws.......

Tell ya what I do notice though.... is the 3 inch dark sections at each end of the cars. Now THAT bugs me.

That drives me nuts, the lighting in these cars blows and I don't have time to fix it until I get all this crap I ordered paid for but everytime I run that train all I can think about is how crappy the lighting is. It's not like they're $300 cars or anything 

I put scale couplers on my CZ cars.  I simply bolted the Atlas scale coupler shank to the OEM truck hardware.  The diaphrams touch and the cars negotiate O88 with no problems.  IF a scale coupler looks best on the end of the observation car then why would it not look best between the cars?  To me the answer is that  scale couplers ALWAYS look better than lobster claws regardless of where the coupler happens to be in the train.  But that is just me and maybe I am too OCD.

My point was painting the lobster claws silver on the El Cap cars would make them stand out.  Yes the OEM lighting on the El Cap cars was insulting.  It was neon blue and only illuminated about 1/3 of the car.  I used John's board and ripped out the crappy OEM lighting and intalled  soft white LED strips.  I also glued more passengers in the seats and I "rolled my own"  SS diner like John showed us how to do.  I just wish the cars would more easily accept scale couplers.  Despite a few shortcomings these cars are wonderful.

I'm guessing the 2nd run of the El Cap cars work better with Kadees than the 1st run. The diaphrams arw different... they are one rib thinner. So they are not touching when coupled together. When I couple the new cars to the old cars, its not too bad of a gap...but 2 new cars coupled together is quite a bit bigger gap than the 1st run. Kadees should work much better with the 2nd run.

Matt Makens posted:

The scale coupler in the CZ car does not accentuate the lobster claws on the rest of the train, see for yourself.

 

That's because the coupler on the CZ observation car sticks way, way out!

Yeah, that ones a shelf queen til I get my other 2 done. That draft gear box is aweful and need to go. I've got lots to do and no time to do it but if I wasn't busy I'd be complaining I was bored. I'm long on projects, short on time and even tho I dropped repairs from the hobby store I still have lots of others people stuff to work on except now I can spend more time making their stuff special

I just took my add on coach from the second run out of its box, and just like Doug said one less rib in the diaphram.  It also sits a bit higher than the first run.  I am disappointed by this change as this gap is much larger than the first run.  I had reservations about  mixing cars from two different runs, I knew better....lesson learned.

Matt Makens posted:

That drives me nuts, the lighting in these cars blows and I don't have time to fix it until I get all this crap I ordered paid for but everytime I run that train all I can think about is how crappy the lighting is. It's not like they're $300 cars or anything 

Matt,  you are being too kind.  The lighting is NOT that good.  And it is really a shame because the insides of the cars, with the exception of the head-end cars, are magnificent!

And the worst part is the lighting issue was disscussed BEFORE the 2nd run was actually produced. It would of been a simple fix. Where did those GIANT LEDs come from anyway? LEDs today are so small you can barely see them. 

I belive NASA had those LEDs on the Apollo moon landing

So dont believe it when they say "Space age technology"

Watch the El Capitan cars through the curve... no Kadee's here.  

Best viewed in FULL-SCREEN mode.    

And those are very broad curves

I bought a set of the El Capitan cars and have been contemplating the Lighting as well.  

Does anyone have any pictures of the interior to know what the original fixtures were on the real thing?  My current plan was to use the self adhesive strips but now I'm second guessing that approach. Something prototypical would be pretty cool in these amazing cars.