If I had any camera skills, I think that would clarify what I am trying to say:
the GONDOLA underframes have a mounting surface with two
projections (and a shouldered screw hole at the rear--perhaps for a draftgear
plate?), but just too widely-spaced for the Kadee #5 draftgear.
No idea what would have been intended for that. On the other hand, the
housecar conversion floors--with exactly the same configuration and detail as
the gondola underframes--have the coupler mounting surface just like the Ace
conversion bolster castings, where there are two projections that precisely
engage the side holes in Kadee #5 draftgear and a hole to be tapped 2-56 which
aligns with the center hole in the draftgear. In short, the gondola
castings--at least the ones I have--were not designed to accept Kadee #5's,
while the cast floors certainly are.
Incidentally, the earliest Kadee HO draftgear (with the older trip pins on the
knuckle) was essentially the #4's, which used a somewhat different mount. As
Bob points out, the Rex dies antedate Kadees as we now know them.
As to a common mount for the variety of couplers available before modern Kadees
became the de facto standard, the first attempt was the
nylon draft gear developed by PFM in the late 1950's--which worked, sort of.
Anyone browsing through old MRR's and RMC's in the 1950's
will turn up frequent "kinks" for adapting a particular car or locomotive for
one of the several major contenders; this was a serious issue
back then. And I think the Rex scale car came with dummies? I just bought a
body casting without anything else, including plans, but I
think I remember reading that, perhaps in one of their ads.
As noted in my first message, cast into the corner of the underframe is
"Birmingham Mich, Rex Eng Co." I bought a pair of Rex scale trucks from an
estate Don Heimburger was selling off at Duluth, mostly for their historical
interest, as they are only equalized and stiff rollers to boot, and the package
for them says "Sudimak, 90 Lucy Lane, Northfield Ohio." Probably someone on
the list knows whether the current owner of the locomotive dies also acquired
the gondola (and flat) dies. Perhaps after all this time they are pretty worn
out.
Lastly, I thought to compare the Rex with a Smoky Mountain Southern lowside
gondola and found that apparently Rex was taken from the
same prototype; if there are any differences between the two they are
insignificant.
Jace Kahn
General Manager
Ceres & Canisteo RR Co./Champlain County Traction Co.
> I'm not sure the Kadee magnetic couplers were even thought of when the Rex
> gondola appeared, back in the 1950's. I don't know what S scalers even used
> for couplers in those days.
>
> I wonder if there wasn't simply a "common location" for coupler mounting
> holes that Kadee and others, i.e., Athearn, Mantua, etc. took into account of
> when designing their couplers.
>
> Bob Nicholson _______________________________________
>
> > Although I have only been involved in S since the 70's, I am
> > unaware of any connection between these two companies regarding to the
> > tooling for these projects. I am surprised that you would assume a
> > connection due to the coupler spacing for the KD#5. These were the
> > standard couplers in S scale before the KD-802. It would seem logical
> > that all companies would use the spacing of the standard coupler of
> > the day for their tooling.
> > Don
[Non-text portions of this message have been removed]
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