07-03-2009, 01:13 PM
For any who are not aware of it, the July issue of Model Railroad Hobbyist magazine is now available for download. The issue includes an article by JBakko from the Gauge on using Sergents couplers. One point mentioned in the article concerns the fact that while the Sergents will couple to Kaddees, the limited coupler swing available can cause cars to derail going through curves. Have any of the modelers here who use Sergents couplers done any experiments to see what sort of minimum curve radius is needed for the Sergents to work with Kaddees. I'm thinking in terms of relatively short freight cars (60 feet or less) not passenger cars or long freight cars. On the home layout I'm planning, I expect to use 100% Sergents couplers, but on the modular club layout our standard couplers are Kaddee #5's. If I were to run the Sergents on the club layout at a show during an operating session (as opposed to "Christmas tree" running) I would probably have the need to couple 2 cars together where one car had the Kaddees and the other had the Sergents. Our module standards call for a 36" minimum radius.