Couplings

[Phil Thorogood]

As a complete newbie to 009 and having received the free wagon kit to experiment with I'm thinking of trying the Bachmann 009 couplings.  My question is, what NEM pockets should I try?  I have found packs from 'therailworks' on Ebay.  Does anyone know whether these would be suitable?

Phil

[JulienW]

Being a bit 'old school' I've always attached my couplings direct to the wagon (or loco), but then having been in the game for 40 years I predate 'NEM pockets" somewhat!

If you do go down the NEM pocket route then as the internal bits should all be the same then the Bachmann coupling will fit into any of them.

The key thing is to get the couplings at the correct height.  Without knowing which kit you have got it's difficult to know where that will be on the wagon - for example its about 1/2 way up the buffer beam on the 'freelance' wagons (steel bodied open, planked open and single plank/bolster) so you'll probably need to cut a 'notch' in the buffer beam to accommodate the body of the coupling with some packing under the wagon floor to support the rest of the 'tail of the coupling and / or the NEM pocket.

As to setting the coupling height I would strongly suggest getting or making a gauge.  You could use the design I posted earlier in this thread (back in 2021) or get one of the cast resin gauges from RT Models (I have one myself too).

Personally though I would not bother with NEM pockets / couplers on kit built stock, and instead suggest using the basic Greenwich ones (they can be a bit of a fiddle to make up but if you accept the first one or two are for practice you'll not be alone!) using the RT gauge to set the height.  You can also get a version of the Greenwich that will fit into an NEM pocket for your ready to run stock, and in any event as the Greenwich and Bachmann (and Peco, Windle, Bemo, Liliput...) are all a centre buffer with an upright pin that a pivoted loop on the next coupling drops over then if the heights are set the same they will all couple up one with another.

Hope that helps

[Phil Thorogood]

Thanks Julien,

I'll think about the Greenwich couplings some more, I'm not at all sure about making such having tried Dinghams in O gauge and something whose name I don't remember from N gauge many years ago.

The wagon I have is the open one from the Society range.

Phil

[Phil Thorogood]

I have bought some Greenwich couplings and assembled five pairs.  I still need to get the adjustments spot on but they do seem OK and I have managed to magnetically uncouple so progress has been made.  Thanks for the advice.

I'm sure I saw somewhere that someone had spare Peo couplings to dispose of.  I got some s/h bug boxes yrsterday and find on getting home two of them have no couplings.

Phil