“Long” coupler

Hi everyone. Just picked up my first Atlas PS1 plug door boxcar and noticed it had the extended couplers.

Curious why this would be the case for a master line model. It honestly doesn’t look realistic at all with the big gap between cars.

Wanted to switch out to the 70 ton trucks, and wanted to know if there was an issue with clearance around curves if I did?

doesn’t seem like any of the other cars have that issue (60’ boxcars, 25,500 gal tankers, etc) with the normal length shank...but wasn’t sure if I was missing something for why the extended ones were chosen.

thanks!

1/30/2111:44 AM

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Jason DickieOGR Forum Member

Are these 'long' couplers Atlas's version of a cushion underframe coupler? The real thing ends up with a noticeable gap between cars, especially when the next car has them too and the cushion underframe lets the car stop 'gently' by compressing its big springs mounted lengthways in the underframe.

Not easy to mimic in O

Jason

2/12/215:59 AM

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vacuefactorOGR Forum Member

Yes. Thank you for the explanation. I did not realize it That makes total sense given this car says “hydra cushion” on the side...but yes the gap is really big by comparison and I had never seen that before. However if that is the reality represented Thats pretty awesome to model that detail