Festiniog Railway Coaches 15 and 16

[ge_rik]

No Rick there is nothing to make the coupling swing with the Bogie. They are totally independent of each other.

In fact I am pretty sure that they have to be independent - in that I think the couplings won't always align with the bogie angles. Think of a slate wagon hanging off the end of the coach coupling for example. When two couplings are connected the hooks hold the couplings in alignment.

Trevor

That is interesting. I suppose I follow railway modelling manufacturers' practice of mounting my couplings on extensions of the bogies rather than prototypical practices of mounting them independently. Having the couplings on the bogies means that auto coupling is easier on curves as they align with each other. Presumably, with independently mounted couplings, the guard will have to manually align each coupling when coupling-up?

Rik

[Trevor Thompson]

I suppose I have been influenced by looking at photos of the real thing. I noted that on the double fairlies, now that they have buck eye couplings, there is still a swivel in the coupling even though they are mounted on the bogie. I wonder if there is a centralising spring in side the real thing which isn't obvious?

I hadn't considered auto coupling - although I can understand why you would want it (I read your description of running trains to a timetable etc).

So yes in this case I will have to align the couplings and manually connect them.

Trevor