Lionel legacy kinematic pilots and coupler question under heavy load

I don't think the sd40t-2s have kinematic couplers.  The sd40 & sd40-2s do. See this video

https://youtu.be/WV0Z4wUT9Ts?si=diBT5M8H70g7bO5j

I'm not a fan of the kinematic couplers, too troublesome.

I'm glad I'm not the only one who doesn't like them. I suppose this is confirmation that if I go for locos with kinematic pilots I'll need to modify the loco and fix the pilots

My issue has been that they swing way out on curves and hit my ground throws going into my yard. I can't drive any engine with the kinematic couplers in without manually holding them from hitting the ground throws.

I haven't had an issue with derailments however, they don't seem to fail under at least reasonable loads.

I pulled my prototypical length expanded Rocket Booster Train with a pair of Legacy ES44AC engines, no problem there.  The booster cars are pretty heavy, so the whole train adds a good load, but no issues.

Interesting, thanks for the info. I did some more research and I'm going to avoid the second generation of locos with those couplers. It appears the first generation is ok, but the second has a problem where the whole thing sags down.

My problem with the autoracks was the length from coupler face from coupler face actually changes when the coupler slides side to side. That's due to the V shape the coupler slides in. My derailments happened on a 50 car long train with 7 autoracks in the middle. Each autorack changes by about 1/4" in length as it corners, which added to 1.75" of overall change as those cars go around corners. Which meant the cars after the autoracks were accelerating and decelerating to keep up with the length change. That acceleration is what would pull the train off the track. I fixed the autorack couplers to the body which solved my problem

Since I only have a couple sets of passenger cars with them and no autoracks, I haven't seen that problem.