Sorry Devon, I sort of assumed a few things.
I personally believe different scales should have different scale coupler heights.
And the standards most people believe possible are wheel and track geometry.
Greg
I don’t have any standards so I wouldn’t know what they are nor would I know the purpose they serve?
Rooster, we all have standards. Some of us have low standards. 
(I am speaking for myself here)
Hans-Joerg Mueller said:
Which LS mfg delivers out of the box items (engines and cars) with wheel sets that conform to a published standard. No approximations need apply!
Accucraft, Bachmann, Berlyn (out of production), Rich Yoder Models conform to NMRA standards. In Bachmann’s case, it’s their “Spectrum” line that meets the standards. Their “Big Hauler” line does not, with thicker and deeper flanges.
Manufacturers have a habit of re-inventing the wheel with new models, so who knows what’s going to be on the next model, but the trend is certainly in place, and performance of these models has been demonstrated to be quite reliable.
With regard to coupler standards, I think that’s a much taller order. Possibly you could do something for the standard gauge side of things, since that was a universal standard for all railroads. On the narrow gauge side, coupler standards tended to vary from railroad to railroad–different heights, even different size couplers. How can you standardize something in the model world when there was none in the prototype world?
Later,
K
Greg Elmassian said:
Sorry Devon, I sort of assumed a few things.
I personally believe different scales should have different scale coupler heights.
And the standards most people believe possible are wheel and track geometry.
Greg
Greg I do agree with you on that. Or at the very least have a narrow gauge standard (1:20.3 and 1:22) and standard gauge (1/29) [you foreigners can deal with it because your prototypes should have designed it right in the first place, i.e. 3’ or 4’8"]. Some sense of standard can be achieved on at least a few things such as track gauge standards and wheel B to B and flange height. I believe this is doable. The rest can be dealt with.
David Russell said:
I don’t have any standards so I wouldn’t know what they are nor would I know the purpose they serve?
Rooster I know you meant that tongue in cheek but isn’t that where we are and in my opinion with a few exceptions should stay. I will build my railroad with standards…mine, and I will stick to them. I am a 1880’s 90’s narrow gauge guy and my railroad will be based on that. Short rail height and tight curves. I invite anyone to come and play when I get it built but if you have a string of dash 9’s pulling wind turbine blades (these are awesome strings of trains if you haven’t seen them) on flats with deep flanges you might want to bring your new bright Christmas train instead.
The other mfgs simply should have copied the LGB standards back in the day when LGB was G but then those mfgs most likely would have been sued by LGB for copyright infringement.
This probably explains why all mfgs have their own coupler design and wheel gauge tolerance which of course has not been good for the hobby.
Well, I would say that all the manufacturers are all over the map is a mixture of don’t care as long as it works, and lack of understanding and different cost targets.
LGB stuff was built quality, and they decided on flange bearing frogs, a certain quality of plastic, and of course had tighter manufacturing tolerances.
Cheaper stuff (and cheaper stuff allowed me to enter the hobby, don’t get me wrong) needed different tolerances and materials and designs to be cheaper.
So the rails are screwed to the ties in a few places, the gauge is sloppier, wheel gauge varies from production run to production run.
They would not have been sued to use the standards, it would have cost more.
Greg
Greg Elmassian said:
…
They would not have been sued to use the standards, it would have cost more.
Greg
Precisely, it’s called paying for/obtaining a license. It would have been a big win and the ethical thing to do. Alas …
Well, what I was saying was it would cost more to manufacture, ignoring any license fees.
Quality plastic, better metal, better molds, better manufacturing tolerances, more QA… those things have to change to make something cheaper.
Greg