Dear Peter,
I had no idea you had designed the little yellow coupler height gage that I
owned all those years ago. I think I got it from Gale Hall of DMK models, but
the memory is a bit fuzzy. I was on the NASG standards committee as well as
the Clearing house and Brass car committee. The early 80's were exciting times
for us on those committees. The NASG Standards committee won approval for the
code 110 standards (tip of the hat to Wayne Pier, Chairman), The NASG brass
committee has brought in the first model with the code 110 wheels, type 2 & 3
ACF covered hoppers (tip of the hat to Jim Kindraka, Chairman) and the
Clearinghouse made available code 110 check gages (a tip of the hat to Michael
Ferraro Chairmn). We were looking for other items that we needed to promote
our favorite scale and the thought of marketing a coupler height came to mind.
I lent Wayne Pier my little yellow gage and he drew up plans and I guess added
the all important stops so it could be used on track instead of a flat surface
so both the new code 110 flanges as well as the now obsolete NMRA code 126
could be used (as well as AF comp. wheels). Right after the drawings were
completed, but not sent to American Models for tooling, the KD802s came upon
the S scale scene. This caused a bit of soul searching as should we redesign
to mount the 802s, or go with the then standard of the #5. I decided to go
with the #5 as who knew that the 802s would ever become the standard as they
are today. The tooling was eventually modified for the 802s, but the first run
was for the #5s.
For me it was not an easy decision as I knew we had a coupler that was
undersized and coupled the cars to close. Likewise, the 802 was oversized.
Funny, for automatic couplers, 25 years later and things have not changed.
Best regards,
Don
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