Just unboxed my first mint, shrink wrapped, Williams freight car, a Quad Hopper, ala Lionel. This train was packaged like it was going to war. Anyway, most striking is the coupler height mismatch. The Williams couplers are a 1/2 coupler width above the Lionel and MTH rolling stock. I don’t have many Williams pieces, but I don’t remember seeing this before. Is it common?
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Both front and rear coupler on my Williams By Bachmann GP-38 are higher than my rolling stock. There is also barely enough clearance for it to open so it cannot be adjusted. I tried replacing a factory bent release arm with a Lionel and the coupler wouldn't open. I had to bend the bent WBB release arm straight and put it back in. Remote uncoupler doesn't work because the arm won't go down far enough to release it. Pilot is in the way.
John
I used to have a CNJ Williams Lionel style hopper and ran into the same issue. I have since sold that car.
It's pretty common for Williams couplers to be higher than others. At one point the factory bent the coupler arm down, so then the coupler face was not parallel to the next coupler. No substitute for poor manufacturing.
Just got another mint Williams by Williams and again a significant coupler height mismatch. Back in the day, I had several Williams locos, and don’t remember this being a problem with them. Do their locos exhibit this proclivity? Thanks for reading.
Has anyone come up with a fix for this problem? Like exchanging original trucks for MTH or K-Line or Lionel freight trucks?
It appears to be a common issue with Williams. My Williams boxcars have coupler heights above the NMRA standard. Here is a link to my observations and measurements vs post-war Lionel and Menards.
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