Hello all,

I recently bought an MS2, and now I'm looking for a digital telex locomotive. There are some good choices (V60, V90, V100, later era variants and other livery), but I am concerned about the style of telex couplers. I have seen some here say that the "new" style telex couplers do not work at all with relex couplers. Is this pretty much universally true? Does anyone have experience with this? It seems the "new" style work fine with close couplers, I am mainly concerned with the functionality with relex.

I know the old style work fine with reflex (I have a few analog telex locos), and to a lesser degree they work well enough with close couplers (at least in my experience).

Thank you,

-Brandon

Edited by user 24 September 2013 19:41:31(UTC)  | Reason: Not specified

Yes, the new telex dont work at all with old relex couplers.
My solution was to have some shunters with old telex, and some with new ones....

I replaced all the close couplers on my freight cars with 72060 relex couplers. A couple cars need something different, but all my freight cars are now relex. For passenger cars, I like the tight close look of the close couplers, so for those I use power conducting drawbars or the 7204 drawbars. I finally had enough with the close couplers uncoupling when I don't want them to and not coupling when I do want them to.

Edit: I now have a brown paper lunch bag full of close couplers. I also have five lokos with the old, reliable as a piece of granite, telex couplers.

I like close couplers and bought 7205 for some of those cars that do not have a NEM pocket.

Coupling is not really close, but a bit closer than with Relex couplers.

Yes, close coupling is absolutely desirable and i agree that if you can put them on some rolling stock you have to do it, but there are the tons of older cars in wich to put a close coupler would involve a major surgery ( i have seen it somewhere ) that.
It is true that the Relex sometimes do not work fine, but spending many, many, too many hours with the little calibration tool can improve that...

Ray,

Do you ever find the cars with close couplers just sort of bump each other without latching together? I find this happens to me sometimes. The relex couplers are a bit more tolerant to coupling without being 100% straight to each other, whereas the close couplers tend to not like this. The other nice thing for playing with relex is V60 based shunters like 3064, 3065, 3141, etc have the little "centering" relex couplers on the loco that sort of force the couplers to center. Of course these don't work at all with close.

I agree relex and close don't mix that well, it depends on the wagon. as Franciscohq states, you can send some time adjusting and sometimes get better results, but mostly on the older wagons with metal couplers (or the loco).

As a pattern you may have noticed emerging from my recent posts, I have sort of have two Marklin "collections"...one of more classic Marklin, a lot of analog locos, a lot of freight cars with relex couplers (and not too many with NEM pockets), as well as tin-plate coaches. I also have a smaller collection of digital locos, and cars with close couplers...which tend to be newer and thus more "realistic" looking. My desire is to continue this trend, and try to prevent too much overlap between these two "collections" (mostly in terms of locos). However, you can see my desire for a shunter with a traditional style telex coupler is contrary to this old/new methodology. Obviously most of my newer cars have close couplers. However, my experience is that my kids just have an easier time dealing with relex couplers...so for shunting I will make an exception to the "rule" of the collections.
I will probably end up looking to get both kinds, new and old over the long run...I like that new blue/cream 290 (37907).

-Brandon

Guys, do whatever works best for you.

I have a similar situation to Brandon with both older stock and newer stock, but in general if the wagon can be fitted with close couplers I will do so. I also run all my trains digitally, most of the older locos having been converted over the years. I only have 4 locos which will remain analogue for nostalgic reasons.

I have two V60s, both of the newer tooling, but my older one of the two, a red 37650, has classic Telex couplers, so I use that with the older Relex wagons. The newer one is a blue and cream 37616 which has the newer Telex.

Ah, but that's the rub. Now you need to run what is essentially two shunting yards. One for relex and one for close couplers. Maybe not physically seperated, but seperated by types of couplers.

I suspect it could be a problem of the metal loop not moving freely. Bending it a little may help.

Roco Universal Couplers are a good replacement for those Märklin couplers that still cause problems after widening the metal loop. They are a must for third party locos where the M* close coupler would collide with the buffers.
I wouldn't say I hate them, but there are occasional quality problems and the design is not NEM compatible.

In real life trains it is also virtually impossible to couple up to anything sitting on any sort of curve , one soon learns not to uncouple a wagon or carriage on any curve while shunting because you will have a hell of a time recoupling at a later stage. The only way round this predicament is to put air into the brakes so that they will come off & then give a nudge with the engine so that the wagon will move to a less sharper curve of the trackage . Sometimes it may have to be done a few times because when the air hoses reach their stretched length they are designed to part at the hose coupling. Screw couplings would be more acceptable to curves but Auto couplings as used on modern rolling stock would not.

Tom in Oz.
Real life train driver.

That's the only way guide mechanisms can work.

But Roco universal couplers couple more easily on straight track when they are slightly out of centre while Märklin couplers require manual intervention to centre couplers more often. But they do not couple in curves either.

If you want to couple cars in curves, then Relex is the way to go as Relex couplers allow coupler heads to turn while being coupled and also allow them to couple while not in a straight line.
This behaviour can be a problem at times: if a heavy train goes downhill, the couplers can move to the side and the buffers might get hooked.

Hi Greg,

Those Triang couplers were and are still being used by Hornby, if you are refering to the standard UK "tension lock" type. Recently Bachmann introduced a more compact version, which is slightly better visually, but the tension lock coupler has to be the most visually obtrusive coupler in use today. Many in UK compare them to "...a level crosing gate run over by a loco".

I think that we can't get away from the fact that most couplers need to have the vehicles more or less in line to be able to couple and uncouple successfully. With this in mind my latest layout has at least one half-straight track on either side of every uncoupling track, and even this is not enough when trying to uncouple coaches.