On30 Freight Car Trucks and Coupler Selection
Wednesday, February 18th, 2009I received an interesting question via the site today from Tom Rose:
I am learning about the differences in coupler height on the different Bachmann issue freight trucks. It seems like I can easily buy the center height shank coupler, but how about the shank even with the top of the coupler? Does Bachmann sell these too? What is the number of this coupler? Are the EZ-Mate HO Couplers really the same size as the On30 couplers? Thanks much!
The short answer to your first question is that Kadee, Bachmann and McHenry all make “drop-in” couplers with center-shank, over-shank (shank even with the top) and under-shank (shank even with the bottom).
For your second question, Bachmann uses the same couplers for On30 as they do for HO. So, the Kadee, Bachmann and McHenry HO couplers will work fine.
Now, it gets knotty. Bachmann has made On30 trucks and underframes in two heights — the original “high” riding cars, and the newer “low” riding cars. Bachmann supplies the appropriate couplers with the cars so that the height will be consistent across their product line. This coupler height coincides with the NMRA-standard HO standard gauge coupler height. This, traditionally, has been the height that most On30 modelers have used, even before the Bachmann products came on the market.
Some modelers feel that this coupler height is too low, especially if they’re trying to represent 3-foot prototypes using On30. Other modelers feel that they would prefer to use On3 couplers, as they are supposedly more appropriately sized, and mount them at the correct On3 coupler height.
So, Tom, I hope that I’ve answered your questions!


