montanan
Whiskey Merchant
When I started my HO scale layout, Kadee couplers were the only knuckle couplers available and they are pretty well the standard. When manufacturers such as McHenry, Accumate and others started having their couplers show up on rolling stock and locomotives, I still changed everything to Kadee. I only have one locomotive, a little GE 45 to switcher. It has a very short shank coupler and I just haven't taken the time to find the Kadee replacement for it. It can't pull more than three cars up the grades I have on the layout anyway.
Last year at the club there was an incident caused by plastic couplers. One guy was pulling a 52 car coal train up to the summit of the club layout when the plastic coupler gave out. 49 cars went screaming down the two and a half percent grade for about 70 feet before it ended up in a heap at the bottom. It became a club rule immediately that all equipment would be equipped with Kadee couplers.
I do what Ray mentioned and splash some rust colored paint on them and they end up in my scrap yard.
Last year at the club there was an incident caused by plastic couplers. One guy was pulling a 52 car coal train up to the summit of the club layout when the plastic coupler gave out. 49 cars went screaming down the two and a half percent grade for about 70 feet before it ended up in a heap at the bottom. It became a club rule immediately that all equipment would be equipped with Kadee couplers.
I do what Ray mentioned and splash some rust colored paint on them and they end up in my scrap yard.