Why can't most mfgs use decent couplers?

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There's no real excuse except that they sell more trains by pricing them, and appointing them, as they do. I think they'd have to charge perhaps $4 per locomotive to pay for them, maybe twice that, but Kadee does better selling them in bulk or in packs to customers who are willing to swap them out. Seems strange, but that's all I can imagine.
 


I remember reading 15-18 years ago, that Kadee wouldn't sell discounted couplers to other manufacturers. Just the normal dealer discount and only in their pre-packaged quantities. This caused many manufacturers to look elsewhere. While I don't think that this is still the case, they're probably still priced too high. And most manufacturers have moved to China as Terry pointed out. I wouldn't mind paying $2 or $4 more for a locomotive since I'm going to spend that much changing them out anyway!
 
davidone said:
In the scheme of things some couplers on new locomotives and cars are the worst. If you did a cost analysis the cost to the mfg for using kadees would be almost nothing. But the good will to the buyer would be immensely good. So why not??
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For some reason I thought Broadway Limited did use Kadee. They look like Kadee, but in use obviously not. I got several sets (4 packs) of the open hopper cars and have had a coupler failure rate of 18%. The knuckle just falls off, so of course the spring goes missing as well.
 
Kadee mentioned the can't make enough to supply all manufactures trains.

However, the following bands do come factory equipped with KDs:

Exactrail
Intermountain
Tangent
Moloco
Wheels of Time.

Athearn/Genesis come with plastic McHenry.
Atlas come with plastic Accumate.
Walthers comes with metal KD #5 clones
 
I remember chewing out the Athearn rep at our club's open house several years back during Trainfest. I had bought a pair of Athearn SP Mt-5 4-8-2's. Very well done models. They were heavy, pulled well, but during the first run with a heavy train the McHenry couplers (with long shanks for tight radius operation) flexed enough under load for the locomotives to separate when double heading. I was nice about it but told the guy it was totally ridiculous to spend nearly $800.00 on locos to have to immediately change out couplers to have them work properly. He was sympathetic and actually agreed with me but told me as Athearn has bought the McHenry line we are stuck with them on their products. Many years back when Intermountain was doing kits they wanted to supply Kadees in the kits. Kadee refused to discount and insisted that the couplers be in their branded packaging in the kit, and even on assembled RTR cars. Evidently the terms were so onerous that Intermountain decided to just make their own. This I believe is the McHenry ancestry. Early efforts at plastic couplers didn't last. Springs didn't spring, and in some cases the coupler head snapped off the shank. I still run into the occasional car in my inventory that has them and I have to replace them. I've been going through one of my passenger trains getting ready for Trainfest open house this weekend. I had to replace McHenry couplers on three Athearn Genesis coaches, plus tweak several couplers on other cars, as well as replacing 148's with 5's. 148's under passenger cars is asking for trouble! IMHO, the McHenry is probably OK for small flat layouts and short trains, but if you've got changes in elevation and long heavy trains, you'll get grief. My Two dollars worth! 😁
 
The Fleischmann and Roco/Märklin couplers work very well for me. I do wish they all came with the Fleischmann coupler because they couple up buffer to buffer, unlike the Roco/Märklin that leave a wide gap between buffers.

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Don't forget, Kadees aren't supposed to work right out of the box. You are supposed to look for flash and remove any, buff smooth the shank surfaces, and lubricate with graphite. All of which, I do. That might not play well in a factory.
 


diesel said:
Don't forget, Kadees aren't supposed to work right out of the box. You are supposed to look for flash and remove any, buff smooth the shank surfaces, and lubricate with graphite. All of which, I do. That might not play well in a factory.
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I can count on one hand, and have a few fingers left, the number of times I've needed to perform this action.
 
diesel said:
Don't forget, Kadees aren't supposed to work right out of the box. You are supposed to look for flash and remove any, buff smooth the shank surfaces, and lubricate with graphite. All of which, I do. That might not play well in a factory.
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bnsf971 said:
I can count on one hand, and have a few fingers left, the number of times I've needed to perform this action.
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I don't believe that I have had to do this but once in nearly 40 years of using Kadees, and I have them on over 700 freight cars and engines.
 
You don't have to do it. However it does make a difference. Your experience with them may be affected by a lot of other things that you are doing right. One thing - if you're not using magnetic uncoupling (and I'm not saying you're not), the action isn't nearly as critical.
 
diesel said:
Don't forget, Kadees aren't supposed to work right out of the box. You are supposed to look for flash and remove any, buff smooth the shank surfaces, and lubricate with graphite. All of which, I do. That might not play well in a factory.
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I've never had to do this in over 30 years of modeling. I have had to add styrene shims to the coupler boxes to get the couplers to the correct height.
 
Then it wouldn't be an issue for factory equipped... if you felt inclined to follow the guide sheet, you could just take them off and work on them.
 
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