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 Posted - December 20 2016 : 05:43:15 AM
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Dear All,
Does anyone know a stockist that still has some of either of these and is willing to post to the UK?
I am talking about the Horn/Hook couplings, (which I understand were at one time sold in two lengths) and the freight bogies with horn hooks. I was buying the standard couplings and freight bogies direct from Walthers until a year or so ago, when they went out of stock.
A lot of the secondhand Life-Like items I find over here were supplied with the Tri-ang Mk3 Tension Lock type couplings, which have been the British Standard since the 1960s. I find these couplings are a bit of a pain on Life-Like stock. I have made a few barrier wagons, but ideally would like to replace them, especially on the Thrall type box cars. I think that these should probably have the longer Horn/Hooks?
James
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Posted - December 20 2016 : 06:23:48 AM
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Hi James. I am over across the pond in the colonies. Even here those horn hook type couplers are getting scarce. I get mine at train shows buying old beat up cars with good couplers. New modelers usually just go to knuckle couplers of the KD style. That is where the hobby is here in the states. I use on some cars a X2F ( horn hook type ) on one side and a KD on the other. I call them conversion cars. They help a lot.
* What is a barrier car ? Are they conversion cars ?
frank
toptrain
" It's a Heck of a Day " !!!
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Posted - December 20 2016 : 1:27:00 PM
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Thanks Frank,
Secondhand Life-Like stock is a little thin on the ground here, beat up or not! As I said earlier, a surprising amount of it was sold in the UK with UK type couplings. I have several British Rail Blue cabooses and a BR Blue F7, as well as many us freight wagons with this feature!
Some other stock was specifically decorated for the UK market such as the Sandy Bottom gondola and the Cleckheaton Coke side tipper, which is much in demand here and always fetches good money on e-bay.
I will keep looking though!
Yes Barrier Wagons - A horn hook at one end and Tri-ang type at the other!
I am not a fan of Knuckles, as I also have some G Scale and have seen the issues that others have with them! I also have far too many trucks to start converting it all now.
That said my Life-Like proto series Budds and Subway cars have them and they work great!
Stiuck in my ways I guess?
James
Edited by - jamesday@btinternet.com on December 20 2016 1:47:54 PM
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Posted - March 22 2017 : 11:12:19 AM
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Sorry for the late reply to this thread but I may have tons of those horn hooks if in fact I haven't send them away to another forum member. I have gone exclusively to Kadees so I don't need them. Let me check and get back to you.
If you are not having fun, you are not doing it right.
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Posted - March 22 2017 : 4:48:21 PM
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I have some spare horn-hooks I'll send along if you want them. They're currently doing nothing but kicking around an old Roundhouse box labelled "X2F" that sits on my shelf.
sim-al2
Also since they cut track maintaince the trains had huge trouble making over the railroad by the end
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Posted - March 31 2017 : 12:40:48 PM
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I'm in the same boat when it comes to finding the old Life-Like snap-in trucks/bogies. Since the factories in China (Life-Like, Bachmann etc.) have stopped making the older style "cheap" models altogether (including the pancake motors and associated spare parts e.g. gears) it has pretty much left it impossible to source these except for new old stock or cannibalizing an unused car for its trucks. Before they stopped making them, it was easy to walk into a store, buy a heap of Life-Like freight trucks and retrofit whatever LL or Tyco model you had lying around and get them running in no time.
These days it would be easier just to get a bulk lot of modern Athearn-style trucks and body-mount Kadees instead, although doing so is a lot more expensive, probably costing more than the car itself. At least you get nice-running metal axles (if not metal wheels too) and decent couplers I suppose. Note that if you follow this route you will have to plug the original hole where the trucks snapped in as it is miles too big for the screw to fit, and then drill it to fit the narrower screw.
On a side note, Athearn style horn hooks (e.g. with the larger hole and spiral type spring) actually fit into Kadee draft gear boxes, although from my experience they can sometimes bind and not spring back, and will happily derail the adjoining car on the first curve if it doesn't have body-mounted couplers, as the horn hooks are always trying to push sideways into the other coupler by design.
I sold my Life-Like and Tyco horn hooks on eBay in 2015 unfortunately, the trucks are still in use however, with the coupler tongues cut off (all of my cars have body-mounted Kadees).
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Posted - April 01 2017 : 09:14:01 AM
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I PM'd James back in December about sending him some surplus horn-hooks but never heard back 
http://tycodepot.com/
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