couplers question

[titoit]

Hi everyone!!!

Here am I again after several years……

As my interest for Japanese N -gauge models is coming back again, I have a couple of questions for you.

Maybe such topics have been discussed before, but I wasn’t able to fine anything throghout the forum.

First of all, is it possible to couple rolling stocks of different manufacturers? I mean e.g. a Tomix locomotive and KATO freight wagons /passenger cars? And EMU/DMU basic set of a producer with EMU/DMU extensions of another one?

Thank you!!☺️

[JR East]

It's not possible to paint it black or white. 

 

As long as it's an 'ugly' Arnold coupler, of course yes.

 

What becomes more tricky are the short couplers.

 

Tomix TN couplers doesn't really fit with Kato knuckle couplers. Anyway, you can have a Tomix locomotive coupled with an intermediate car used as 'converter'. You put a Tomix TN coupler on one side and a Kato knuckle coupler on the other side. It'll allow you to "bridge" with plenty of other Kato rolling stock. It's an easy way to proceed as - as long as I know - the Kato knuckle coupler delivered with the freight locomotive is not easily replacable by a Tomix one (and the way round)

 

Even, in the same brand, couplers may not be either compliant or suitable for all rolling stock. 

 

Look at these couplers on my Kato rolling stock: 

 

 

 

 

Those short couplers fit with my Kato locomotive coupler but only with boggies cars AND with a limitation of tracks radius. If the curve is too small, it simply makes the freight car derail. 

 

If you want to "easily" couple and uncouple, there is another set of knuckle couplers at Kato with two moving parts. I'll change my coupling with those ones to test it on my Kokis and Takis to check how it works. Once more, they are not suitable for non-boggie cars if I don't mind.

 

 

As you can see below, there are also short couplers at GreenMax. 

 

 

They have different lengths allowing shorter curve radius. I didn't test them up to now, incl. compliance with the 'black' Kato knuckle couplers of the Takis and Kokis. 

 

 

I didn't tested EMU/DMU of different manufacturers

 

Hope it'll help you, 

 

 

Edited September 6, 2021 by JR East
mistyping

[disturbman]

The general  rule is: proprietary design are not compatible between brands. Tomix couplers only couple with Tomix couplers, Kato couplers only with Kato couplers, etc. Though, from my research, Greenmax knuckle couplers are compatible with Kato's, but I'm not sure they can withstand a heavy load.

 

You can equip rolling-stock of any manufacturer with bogie-mounted couplers from any other manufacturer, with more or less ease, with or without a few tweaks. It's harder to cross-equipped locomotives but possible, there are guides online to do so, someone also produces an adapter to fit Kato couplers on Tomix locomotives. For body-mounted couplers, Micro Ace and Greenmax EMU/DMU all accept Tomix TN couplers.

Do not mix and match EMU/DMU set from different manufacturers, this will make the small differences in details and colors pop.

[titoit]

Thank you for your quick and exhaustive answers... 

So, if I good understand, it's better to avoid to mix locomotives and cars/wagons of different brands, least of all EMU/DMU😉. However, is there any possibility to change couplers in order to have a better and easier circulations, particularly in the small curves?  Or are the coupler fixed and unmovable?

  

[disturbman]

You can always change couplers. I have had Kato couplers mounted on Tomix, Micro Ace and Greenmax cars/sets. Now I exclusively use Greenmax couplers for my freight cars. I like them better due to the different shank-length available and the fact that you usually do not need to change anything. They are also the most aesthetic to my eye.

When running freight consists, the easiest is to leave a single Rapido coupler on one car. Then you can use any locomotives, even non-Japanese locomotives, to pull the consist.

[Dinosbacsi]

On 9/7/2021 at 10:27 AM, titoit said:

So, if I good understand, it's better to avoid to mix locomotives and cars/wagons of different brands, least of all EMU/DMU😉.

You are good to mix different brands as long as they have the "universal" Rapido couplers. I believe most standard models should come with them, so you should be good. They look like this:

 

Of course they're pretty ugly, but very easy to couple/uncouple and they work fairly well. And as mentioned above, you can always swap them to more realistic looking ones later, if you'd like to.

[disturbman]

It’s more than the couplers, there are slight variations between models of each manufacturer. As I said upthread, it’s better not to mix cars from different manufacturers in a single MU.