Kadee coupler.

Some years ago, whilst attending the Newark Toy and Train Fair, I found a stall selling pre-used USA outline rolling stock at really good prices. In addition to the price being attractive, the wagons were also fitted with Kadee couplers which on their own are about £5 a pair  to buy. The wagons worked out at just under £5 each so I came away with several! The only thing about them was that the previous owner had obviously fitted them as an after market modification and rather than using the proper Kadee mounting box a paper envelope had been created. The problem with this is that the coupling itself pulls out with any load on it. You cannot glue it or it will not uncouple. Having bought some of the proper mountings at the Bingham Model railway Show I decided to investigate how they fitted. I decided to trial with this caboose.

A close up reveals the coupler in the paper envalope.

With the coupler out you can see that it has a metal 'whisker' either side of the main shaft and this allows the coupler knuckle to move when it passes over a magnet in the track. This then allows the coupling to automatically uncouple from the other wagon fitted with the same style of coupling. You can also see the paper envalope mounting.

The Kadee mounting boxes come in two parts and have an inbuilt piviot for the coupling shaft.

Under the paper envelope was a piece of card that it was glued to. That needed to come off!

With some scrapping it was off revealing a solid plastic base which would form a much better mounting surrface for the coupling.

However I did need to add some plastic strip so that the coupling mounting box was at the right height from the rail.

With that done, the coupling itself was put in one half of the proper mounting box and the other half was carefully glued to it.

Then it was glued onto the caboose.

I have tried it on the layout and it does work so I just need to do the other end and then the 15 or so other wagons! If only I had more time!