[Robert Stokes]

Near the end of my thread about installing sound in my newly acquired Hornby class 101 DMU I said that the only thing left to do was to do something about the horrible couplings. Well I have tackled that in the last few days.

I first cut off the large bar and pulled off the hook. I then thought about how to fit close coupling that would be a lot less obtrusive. (Of course if it had had NEM couplings it would have been easy.) I decided to make a coupling from copper wire. I would never want to uncouple the cars so it could be a permanent fitting. My first idea was to hook it over the slots to which the original hooks had been attached. This caused derailments and I worked out that it was possibly because the 'pull' was not fore-and-aft but skewed because the hooks had been offset. Here is a picture. (Unfortunately the bogies moved as I was taking it and so the copper wire looks to be in line but I hope you can see that this is because the bogies are offset.

I then tried a longer wire going into the larger slots that were further back as shown here.

This worked in that it didn't cause derailments but it was difficult to fit. I finally decided to drill 2mm holes as close to the centre line as possible and near the end of the bogie frame.

These were easier to fit. The length has to be adjusted according to your minimum radius. Mine are made for 24" radius. This is the result.

It still leaves a small gap which I may fill with some foam rubber painted black or some folded black paper. But compare it to the original.

After perhaps adjusting the length a little I will paint the copper wire black.

 

[Robert Stokes]

Thanks for the comments.

Julian, it sounds as though we were in the same game before retirement.

 

[Robert Stokes]

Julian, I've only just seen your reply.

Yes, I was a mathematics teacher with a bit of Physics in the my earlier years. I put this information on my profile page when I first joined this forum but it seems to have disappeared now.

 

[Robert Stokes]

It may do so but I never intend to do that. On my layout trains only ever go one way. (I have express passenger, local stopping passenger, and three or four goods trains for each of the up and down lines.) This means that the driving car will always be pulling the others. However you have made an interesting point, but I think that the copper wire is thick enough and short enough not to be too flexible. I will certainly put it into reverse next time I have a running session (if I can remember to do so) and see what happens.

 

[Robert Stokes]

There is no problem reversing. I stopped the DMU at the end of the scenic part of the layout and put it into reverse at a reasonable speed. It travelled the whole of the scenic part, i.e. three long straights and two 180 degree curves of 24" radius, with no problem.

 

[Robert Stokes]

I used the Keen system many years ago. It did the job well but on some coaches (at that time) you had to cut away part of the bogie frame which made the wheels fall out at the drop of a hat. If you don't need to cut the frames then yes it is a good system.