All -- At great risk of boring you all to death, and/or being moderated, I'm adding the following postscript to the "great debate."
1. In the 30 years that I have actually had operating S layouts, I have used Kadees exclusively. There was a time when all were HO Nos. 4, 5, 6, and 8. On the present layout, nearly all are 802s and 808s. In all this time, I have lost maybe three knuckle springs. 2. If you don't like the visibility of the knuckle spring, you can actually paint it black or brown to match the coupler. If you don't like the brass color of the trip pin, paint it black or brown, or use the identical On3 No. 803 -- same, but with black pins and different packaging. If you don't like the trip pin at all, cut it off and use an uncoupling pick instead of magnets. Wooden hors d'ouvres skewers from your local supermarket work great for manual uncoupling. 3. If you want to couple reliably on straight-to-curve transitions, use spiral easements between your tangents and your circular arcs. 4. If you actually OPERATE your layout, rather than just running trains, you will actually fall in love with Kadees (or their clones). They are very reliable and very forgiving. Unless you are a hermit monk living atop a Himalayan peak, all of life is a never-ending series of compromises. So it is when faced with having to combine realism with practicality. I remember when, as a teenager, I built a Kinsman 7-panel boxcar with working brakes activated by turning the brakewheel. Nice idea for a contest model. But operating this sucker was another story. After a few sessions, the brakes came off -- permanently. Dick Karnes
