THE HEYWOOD SOCIETY JOURNAL: SAMPLE ARTICLES

IN SEARCH OF THE PERFECT COUPLING

By Simon Townsend, reproduced from Journal Issue 40.

One of my favourite words, when writing about miniature railways, is diversity. All miniature railway builders since Heywood’s day have been faced with the same problem of how to couple their vehicles together. Common sense might suggest that most of them would come up with the same solution; not a bit of it. The truth, in my experience, is that miniature railway builders are themselves quite a colourful group of people. They come from all sorts of different backgrounds, and their skills and resources vary widely, as do the circumstances of their railways. Perhaps therefore it is no surprise that they have used all sorts of solutions in search of the perfect coupling. Here then is something a bit different, a selection of ‘couplings I have known’.
I came to miniature railways having had model trains as a child, as doubtless did many Journal readers. Latterly I progressed to 16mm narrow gauge, where incompatibility of couplings was a problem usually solved with the aid of long nose pliers and a paper clip. This solution is not without parallel in the larger gauges, as we shall see.

When I encountered this coupling, at the Gorse Blossom Miniature Railway in 1991, it straight away made we think of Triang model railways. This first view was I think between rakes of articulated coaches; hold the levers up and you are uncoupled. Note how the coupling also keeps the drawbars in line, and that the drawbars are pivoted inside the coach bodies. I would guess that this coupling requires reasonable discipline with respect to track laying, especially where gradients change. The second photo shows how the system works. It only took a ridged plate on the back of Yeo, or on this day Don Fifer’s Swiss battery electric locomotive, complete with its steering wheel speed controller, to couple onto here.

A call at the Eastleigh Lakeside Railway in 1995 revealed much of interest; inter alia a predilection for ‘Y’ points, and sleepers cut for 10¼in gauge. Passenger vehicles here are sit-astrides derived from the Echills Wood design, with vacuum braking. This was the coupling between our vehicle and that tall heavy diesel Eastleigh. Malcolm Beevers advises me that these couplings are made by Geoff Oughton. They consist of an iron casting screwed onto a bar which runs through the buffer beam into a spring housing box from which a flat bar runs back to pivot on the bogie centre pin. The couplings are drilled for 8mm Allen bolts to secure the single link which actually connects the two couplings. On one coach the 8mm Allen bolt is through the link and secured below the casting by a lock nut whilst on the other the bolt is fitted through the link and drilled, again below the coupling, to accept an ‘R’ clip to ensure the bolt cannot work out.

I believe the bar and pin to be among the most common forms of coupling in all the miniature gauges. This example is Roger Greatrex’s version of it, with eyes on the ends of the pins to make them easier to get hold of. The vehicle on the right is Webster’ s driving truck, that to the left a ballast wagon, at the front of the Hilcote Valley Railway’s works train, seen during last year’s Heywood Society Spring meeting. Their heavy construction is characteristic of the way Roger builds things.
On the Sunday of the 1996 Autumn meeting we again encountered contrasts in drawgear. David Jarrett’s railway used a quite small version of the link and pin, presumably (as it was uniform with Andy Probyn’s visiting locomotive) a Maxitrak standard.

The Wayside Light Railway uses chopper couplings in conjunction with vacuum braking, as does the Moors Valley Railway. Lawrence Martin explains, in his short history of the WLR, that he had been introduced to Jim Haylock before building the WLR; so perhaps the influence is not surprising. The loco here is Sir Robert; note that the coach drawbar is sprung. These couplings (similar I think to some on the prototype narrow gauge) must have much to commend them if they can cope with the gradient changes, tight curves, and frequent running round at the Wayside, not to mention the annual vehicle mileage which life at the Moors Vallley must entail.

This photograph shows a further ‘fixed’ approach, demonstrated by Rich Morris’s Narrower Gauge Railway, at Colwyn Bay. Rich’s passenger vehicles are all distinctive four wheelers, designed to give a ‘train’ perspective whilst being operable on quickly laid portable tracks, underpinned, where necessary, by the odd block of wood. They are also vacuum braked and can spend up to half of their time being propelled - a likely recipe for trouble, one might think. The answer here is the Pfeifferbahn ‘buckeye’ coupling. These couple automatically and can be released by simply pulling up the operating pin. On Rich’s vehicles they are mounted in steel tubes which can swivel widely, within slots in the end of each chassis, from pivots right back next to the vehicle axles - essential to allow for sharp curves. All in all I think these couplings are a grand solution for such demanding operating circumstances.

A simple form of coupling not yet mentioned is the chain and hook. This seems to have found favour in 10¼in gauge throughout its history. The Holder family used this sort of coupling right from their first 10¼in gauge railway at the turn of century; they even fitted their later locomotives with prototypical screwed links. This is the front end of Grimshaw’s ‘Yankee’ 4-4-0 of 1902, photographed at the Pitmaston Moor Green Railway soon after it was built.
Keith Stratton took this form of coupling to its farthest extent in my experience, by constructing, over some years, a rake of 10¼in gauge ‘private owner’ wagons, all with sprung drawbars and sprung buffers. On one occasion we filled all these wagons with ballast and hard-core and I climbed aboard the brake van for a smart run behind Jeff Price’s Atlantic’ - an elastic sort of experience which I shall never forget. Keith once told me that, where a train is part loose and part fixed coupled, he considered it better to have the fixed part closest to the engine. In practice in my experience the locomotive is usually chain coupled, this being a particular merit on out and back railways because chains are so easy to couple up. In many instances the rakes of stock being pulled may be articulated or coupled via fixed links, notwithstanding the chain link at the front.
Among the virtues of chain couplings is the fact that the derailment of a vehicle, particularly if a roll-over, is usually less likely to take the neighbouring vehicle with it. Among their disadvantages, of course, is that a loose coupled train, particularly one without the benefit of continuous brakes, has a mind of its own, and can therefore require a gentle touch at the regulator, a fact that I know well. Note that once a train is loose coupled via a chain, its buffing gear also needs to be considered, unlike all the forms of fixed coupling described above. Buffer locking on curves will lead to derailment as surely as night follows day.

I wrote, by way of introduction, that the miniature railway builders are often influenced by their previous experience elsewhere. A number of active members of the Ruislip Lido Railway Society arrived at 12in gauge having previously been volunteers on the Festiniog Railway. Hence, so I was told when visiting in 1989, their adoption of half size Festiniog couplers, which of course had to be especially cast. Perhaps somebody will explain what the dangling weight does here; presumably when down it locks the choppers into place. I regard these as one of the more elaborate coupling solutions that I have seen, but indeed the railway at Ruislip is heavily engineered throughout. I don’t know of another miniature railway which voluntarily submits itself to visits by the Railway Inspectorate, notwithstanding having a gauge of less than 350mm.

An example of a simpler coupling on a much longer line is seen here at the 12¼in gauge Fairbourne & Barmouth Railway. One imagines that the big hoop welded to the top of the pin may have been one of John Ellerton’s bright ideas. Since he left Fairbourne I don’t think our conservative world has seen another character like him and some will, I suspect, hope that we never do. No continuous brakes here. If the driver is bored with spotting the engine in the right place, it is quite possible, at least at Fairbourne, to let the guard’s van brake off and pull the whole rake to the engine, notwithstanding that there may be five or six coaches in the train.

Now we reach 15in gauge and the oldest design of coupling we are likely to find, that of Sir Arthur Heywood. I photographed this one on the Ravenglass and Eskdale Railway’s permanent way train, discovered in the siding at Murthwaite during the visit of Sequoia in 1993. Back again to experience with model railways. No doubt on a railway with a balloon loop I would be the poor man trying to couple two dumb ends or two flaps. These couplings have recently won new friends, having been installed on a private 15in gauge railway near Oxford, built last year.

One might expect River Esk and Green Goddess, built within two years of each other to Greenly designs, to have similar couplings; not so. Ravenglass stock has bars and pins, and air braking, whilst hooks and chains, and vacuum braking, prevail at New Romney. The drawgear isn’t even at exactly the same height, as demonstrated by this welded device used to couple the Esk prior to a test run at New Romney on 6th October 1995. The following afternoon the Esk was piloting the Goddess hauling the ‘Romney and Eskdale Paxmans’ approaching Dungeness when the Esk broke free!
Our third major 15in gauge railway, the Bure Valley, is of course different again, using ball hitches. The builders of the BVR, John Edwards and “Happy” Hudson, had run a garage business. This is said to have influenced their decision to couple their vehicles using ordinary car trailer equipment, balls being mounted on the ends of each vehicle, coupled using bars with tow hitches on each end. These couplings are certainly demanding of the driver, who has to place his locomotive very precisely in order to couple up.

The enterprising Chris Shaw, of the Cleethorpes Coast Light Railway, spotted that the Bure Valley’s plush saloon coaches lay idle throughout the closed season; so in September 1995 he hired two of them for his own winter service. This device, a ‘single ended hitch bar’, was used to couple the pair to one of Chris’s ex Longleat saloons, during the gala weekend on 30th September. This event was a coupling watcher’s paradise. The resident stock mostly had bars of various descriptions; one of the smaller locomotives had hooks; Wroxham Broad and one end of this rake had balls; another visiting locomotive came from a line (at Kirklees) with choppers! There was a three train passenger service with locomotives cycled round in all combinations, and a goods train. Several times it looked as if the show would grind to a halt, the relevant coupler having just left on the previous train, with no telephone between here and the other end. The fact that trains did keep moving was a real tribute to the ingenuity of the Cleethorpes lads.

The BVR’s ball hitches aroused some curiosity when the railway opened, but this was not the first time that balls had been used, in search of the perfect coupling. The Lakeside Miniature Railway at Southport had been using them for many years, albeit in a very different form. Their balls are welded onto the end of short fixed bars pivoting from the locomotive buffer beams. Coupling is achieved by the balls locating in V shaped slots on the ends of the rakes of coaches. I guess that this unusual coupling, seen here on the back end of Red Dragon, derives from Harry Barlow’s era at Southport. It is well suited to the operating conditions there, a ¾ mile run between termini, demanding frequent running round. With three six coach rakes and potential to run them all simultaneously (one on the move, two running round and loading), this railway has immense capacity to handle its busiest days.

Think you have now seen it all? Not so. Next some variations along the bar theme, the first two being from the Rhyl Miniature Railway. This heavy bar is on the back of our 0-4-2DM Clara, built by Trevor Guest. The Heath Robinson affair connecting the bar to her buffer beam acts like a universal joint. A pin connects the bar to the coaches. This bar will never be mislaid and meets with my approval because it is nice and long. Clara has a short fixed wheelbase towards her front end; so can wag her tail on curves, and the coach couplings are fixed to the ends of their bodies well outside the bogie centres. A shorter bar could have the effect of pulling the front coach sideways instead of forwards.

I gained several useful tips from my visit to the Lappa Valley Railway in September 1994. This sprung drawbar between 0-6-4T Zebedee and her train was among the features that impressed me. Here, passengers will always be protected from the worst excesses of the driver. I think this spring would also be helpful if, like mine, your steam engine occasionally sticks in dead centre. The air brake system here also seemed to be very simple but effective, a compressor being chain driven from one of the coach axles. Not long afterwards the R&ER discovered the merits of axle driven compressors in place of steam air pumps.

The following May the Society visited the Lappa Valley, where over the winter they had built a first class saloon coach with its body much lower down than the normal stock. This required a bent coupling bar, to which a right angled bar has been welded. Being a regular visitor to the railways of the Isle of Man I know about bent bars. One photograph taken in the No. 2 shed at Derby Castle, Manx Electric Railway, shows 16 bars, no two the same, for coupling different combinations of cars. Twisted bars have been necessary on recent occasions when steam locomotives have hauled Manx Electric cars, the former having chopper fittings. Any permutation not previously envisaged can soon be solved in the railway’s own forge.

Having now described different kinds of bar, there are also several means of securing the pin in place. The most common way is to have a spring ‘R’ clip passed through a hole near the bottom of the pin. Last October, I photographed a useful alternative to this, on John Bull’s new Markeaton Park Light Railway in Derby. Here horizontal plates have been welded onto the pins. Holes in these plates locate onto eyes on the coupling mountings, hence it is a simple matter to slide a clip into place from above, rather than having to reach underneath the coupling to get at the bottom of the pin. The splendid coaches here were supplied by Exmoor Steam Railway, and their drawgear is in other respects similar to that at Fairbourne.

I spotted a further variation on the back of the 0-4-0 ‘switcher’ built by R H Morse which we examined at last year’s Autumn meeting. Here it appears that a bar would slide, as usual, into the slot in the centre of the coupling, but it looks as if a turn of the small handle will lift the pin up and hence uncouple.
My own favourite design of pin is one I encountered during the Isle of Man ‘Year of Railways’ in 1993. We had 2-4-0T Polar Bear visiting the Groudle Glen Railway, and the volunteers from Amberley Museum, who were looking after it, talked their way into the stables of the Douglas Horse Tramway. There they were able to scrounge a really grand pin. This was a D shaped affair with the pin forming the vertical. Pivoted to the top of the pin was a C shaped bar with a claw on the end of it which simply located, by means of gravity, around the bottom of the pin. Thus the pin was both locked into place when left, and easy to get hold of and ‘unlock’ when uncoupling. I take my hat off to the person who thought of this simple idea, not yet copied on any of the miniature gauges, so far as I know.

Of course there is a problem if you’re faced with trying to connect a bar to a hook. This was the solution adopted in 1995 at Bury, the coach to the left being ex Liverpool Garden Festival, and now in Austin Moss’s collection, whilst to the right was 4-6-2 Prince William. As the track at Bury was straight up and down, the question of this device’s behaviour on curves did not arise.

I encountered another unusual coupling last October on the Steamtown Miniature Railway at Carnforth. The locomotive here is the veteran Bassett-Lowke ‘Little Giant’ George the Fifth, whilst its train is of coaches built in Germany for the railways described in Journal 38. Connecting them was this tubular arrangement. A smaller diameter tube pivoted from the coaches and located inside a larger tube attached to the locomotive, a pin then locking the whole affair into place. I have to say that if I were the guard connecting this I would be worried about my fingers if the driver got it wrong. Nevertheless they seemed to couple up without fuss, there being frequent running round on this out and back line.

And finally, another similar rake of German coaches, this time with its German couplings. I found them in operation at Blenheim Palace last June and I believe that they are Scharfenberg Automatic Couplings, which according to ‘Liliputbahnen’, were in 1938 “already partly introduced on the German Reichsbahn” (NB subsequently found to be a different German design). The driver on this day at Blenheim was getting no rest, rides being free, and every train full. These couplings were however making his job easier by engaging automatically, enabling him to hop out and simply connect the air line and safety chain, then blow the brakes off and go.

There’s an old saying that “there’s more than one way to skin a cat”. I feel sure that I may yet see miniature railway vehicles connected differently from any of the above methods, as I continue my search for the perfect coupling.