I have never liked to trust the cast on tabs on the side of Athearn Blue box coupler boxes to hold the couplers in place. The sheet metal clips held on by the plastic tabs always seem to fail, and Mr Murphy decrees that failure will occur at the most inaccessible location on your railroad. Protopower West/A-line has come out with a set of jigs to solve the problem. I've posted this in the HO forum because I think he has only come out with the tool for HO scale, and I don't know if the problem occurs with Athearn N-scale products.

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Thanks Russ! I think you had mentioned this tool in another thread, but I hadn't been able to locate it. Certainly will order one, as I have several Athearn cars that could use this fix.

That's pretty simple, and pretty smart!

My solution is somewhat simpler....I cut off the plastic coupler box, and use a Kadee box, spring & coupler, and fix the whole kit 'n caboodle to the car floor with a small screw.....