Large Scale Central

I need some advice/help/ideas with a coupler installation

Modeling
#1

Okay Friends, I finally have some time for railroading and I started a consist of reefers/refrigerated units to be pulled by an Alco FA-1 (no B unit); they are all conversions from those Linville River boxcars as well as a couple of refrigerated units from Bachman, all painted up and worked on. Here’s the project laid out on the dining room table, although it can’t be there much longer!

Here’s the start of the undersides of the freight cars:

Here’s the problem: I am body mounting kadee couplers #1 scale to the freight cars and I want to body mount a coupler to the back end of the FA locomotive. There’s nothing but air there! Not only that, but you can see that with the back door frame and the imitation expandable air passage (I don’t know what it’s called) there’s not much room for clearance around turns.

Here’s the clearance I have on my freight cars, and I like this distance:

Here’s what I have to work with on the end of the FA (Kevin installed an onboard battery system for me and the connections you see are part of the installation), and my question is, how am I to make this work? I 'm tempted to cut off the frame and the expandable walkway, but I’m not sure if this will work or what to do after that. Has anyone done this conversion before?

Thanks!

#2

If I were you I would probably go with a truck mounted coupler on the rear of the loco.

#3

The diaphragm, “the expandable air passage” is supposed to butt against another one on another locomotive (or passenger car). So, in theory, the coupler is supposed to be mounted far enough out that such a coupling would occur. However, since this is a solo freight locomotive, it would not be unprototypical to remove the diaphragm.

As for mounting the coupler, you would have to build up a base to mount the coupler to. One that would not interfere with the movement of the locomotive truck. A block of wood, screwed to the frame from the inside of the locomotive would work, if you could get it the right thickness and size so as to not interfere with the truck.

#4

Is the original coupler mount still in place on the FA-1? I’m not familiar with what it looks like from the factory. Obviously you are not going to be able to couple that close and go around any turns. Personally I’d leave the diaphragm and frame in place ad it’s helping yo hide your RC controls. You will probably need to build some kind of a coupler mount box under the rear of the loco and then use one of the Kaydees that have the long shaft like this one…

(http://www.kadee.com/html/900t.jpg)

#5

John,

I’ve Kadee’d a few FA’s in the past, I have always mounted a block of wood to the rear of the FA through the rear doorway using small screws and nuts about the size of the KD screws just longer, And it has worked well pulling good sized trains 20-25 cars with no issues and the block of wood gives you an adjustable mounting pad for the couplers.

#6

Back in the old days when I ran several of these F units, I layered up sheet styrene until I had a block the correct height. Like others have mentioned: a block of some kind is the solution. I did the same on the PA’s, F3’s and the E8’s.

To get the correct height, use shims.

#7

Thanks for the suggestions…I believe I will remove the diaphragm to help with clearances as David suggested, especially since it’s apparently done by the real railroads, leave the doorframe in place to help conceal the controls as John suggests, then I’ll build out a block/shim mounting arrangement like Shawn and John suggest, with wood or plastic if I can find the right plastic (styrene would seem to be more resistant than wood to warping and humidity and temperature changes than wood, although the humidity factor probably doesn’t matter that much here in Colorado), and that will be that.

I’ll post pictures when I get it accomplished; I hope this weekend.