The Customer's Right To Be Wrong

The new FR Super Barn isn't the only project I've got on the go at the moment.

I'm building a trio of my SAR wagon kits for a client who wants them ready to run.

The build is in abeyance at the moment because I am waiting on some couplings arriving and I cannot go further in case there is any butchery required to fit them.

You see the client has decided he wishes to standardise and have all the rolling stock on his layout fitted with the NEM pocket 009 couplings which PECO have developed for their new RTR range.

Not only is he supplying me with the couplings but also with a wagon so I can ensure that the coupling heights match - which is most important in 009.

Now the old saying goes that the customer is always right, even when he's wrong.

In this case experience with operating my wagon kits on Bron Hebog teaches us that it really is best to have the coupling attached to the bogies - there is an extended shaft on the brass bogie frame for just this purpose - and we solder the excellent Greenwich brass couplings to them.

However we have a few brass Worsley Works B wagons and a V-16 brake van where we fixed the coupling onto the body.

Big mistake!

It makes it so much harder to get the wagon on the rails properly when the bogies are able to spin unrestricted, and even more so if you have one in the middle of a rake which derails while out on the layout.

When there is a coupling on a shaft attached to on end of the bogie you are able to grab hold of it and keep the bogie straight and this makes it much easier to get all the wheels back on the rails.

Unless my client wishes to have a large NEM pocket hanging down from this brass shaft he'll have to have the pocket, and the coupling, attached to the body with the bogie swinging free.

However you pays your money and takes your choice, as they say....