N Scale coupler compatibility between Manufacturers

[Jack]

Looking for a web site or article that explains coupler compatibility between N Scale manufacturers. Thanks

[cteno4]

Jack,

 

dont think I’ve ever seen a review article or database that documents couplers on Japanese model trains. Most all freight and locomotives from all the major Japanese model train companies come default with rapido couplers and then they can be converted to several different kinds of couplers if you wish later for closer coupling and more realistic looking couplers.

 

in general you can usually look up a train on the hobbysearch website and determine what kind of coupler comes on it from the photos and description.

 

for passenger DMU and EMU sets from kato and Tomix will have their own specific couplers that are more manufacturer specific, but that’s fine as all these are unit sets and you would only add cars to them from specific add on sets by the same manufacturer. Microace trains generally come default with rapidos, but can be swapped later with some other options. Plain (non unit) passenger cars are generally rapido but some sets of these come with upgraded couplers. For the most part, outside of freight you would have premade sets that all use the same coupler and you would not be coupling then to another manufacturer, so it’s not much of an issue

 

Tomix, Kato, greenmax, and microace all have various upgrade truck/bogie and/or chassis mounted coupler systems. Some will interoperate with others, but in the most part they don’t well and different upgrade couplers work better/worse for different cars and manufacturers coupler pockets. so you need to figure out which will work best for your trains and needs. It’s a very big set of permutations on upgrade couplers so that’s a different discussion that crops up on the forum all the time and usually someone has the answers of what the best options are.

 

if you can let us know what kinds of trains you have and what you are interested in adding I’m sure folks can give you more detailed information about the default couplers and options for upgrading if you are interested in that.

 

cheers

 

jeff

[disturbman]

Jeff is right, your question is a bit large and we would need to know specifics to be able to help out 🙂

[bill937ca]

There is some information on this massive website. First translate with Google Translate and then scroll down about 2/3s of the way down.

 

http://www5a.biglobe.ne.jp/~toyoyasu/handycrafts.htm