Hi Greg,all,
What Märklin coaches?Older ones had what I call 'hook&loop' and are frame mounted.
Coupling on curves is difficult as MR track has a much tighten radius than real railroads.

Dr D

Kolls full book if you have access will show you all the various couplings issued by M*.
I have models from the 50s to the close clouplers and all do fit together. A reason for them not doing is is that they are not aligned or bent.

As for coupling on a curve - this is very difficlt as Dr D mentioned because of the radii.

Marklin has basically three types of wagon coupling in use over the last 50 years.

The oldest is the metal type Relex coupler, which is on the older 46xx and 45xx series of freight wagons. It is also used on the 40xx passenger coaches with metal bodies.

The next development from Marklin was the plastic type relex coupler. This is found on 44xx freight wagons, and on most earler plastic bodied passenger coaches. It is currently only found on hobby wagons.

The most recent type is the close coupler. This is found on all modern wagons except hobby wagons.

Although they are all meant to work together, my experience is that the metal relex work well with the plastic relex, and the plastic relex work well with the close couplers, but the metal relex and close couplers are harder to couple and uncouple together.

Couplers from other makes tend to work better with the relex couplers than with the close couplers.

Some cheap Marklin locos have just a simple hook. These work well with both types of relex, but are really difficult to couple with close couplers.

Hi,

The reliability of the so called Relex coupler is legendary. It couples easily.

All my Marklin rolling stock is post 1995, so all have the new style 7203 coupler, so called close coupler "with guide" which is the little plastic tongue that guides two couplers together.

In my experience, these do not couple easily. And never on curves. It actually annoys me mildly.

I am thinking one day I could switch all my couplers to Kadee. You can purchase Kadee for the modern NEM coupler pockets. Kadee are the only prototypical action/look couplers in the world, and are widely used, especially in the US. I will have to test first if they couple Marklin stock on curves.

The club I belong to uses all Kadees on American models, and they work beautifully. I think it will be quite an expensive to change all my couplers. I will weigh up the cost v the intended benefits before I commit.

As I said earlier, I am only mildly annoyed with the coupler issue, as I am a hands on sort of modeller anyway.

regards
Kimball

Hi Tom,

just curious about the Roco and Märklin couplers compatibility. Does this work well with 27 cm cars? Do the cars touch each other in straight line, or not?

Thanks,
Ricky.

Hi,

I for one am quite interested in the coupler question. On my Marklin layout, I use two lots of couplers. One is the latest Marklin 7203, and I also use the older Fleischmann hook coupler. I do this because I am enamoured of the older Fleischmann rolling stock that comes with this coupler riveted on.

It is easy for me to change the NEM coupler on the tender of an engine, just for a running session to use these older wagons. They couple well on curves, and I really like the Fleischmann construction method on these old wagons, because I easily change the wheels for AC running.

regards
Kimball

I am experimenting a bit with Kadees at the moment, after deciding to go with them for my scratchbuilt stuff. I still have to figure out quite a bit of their ins and outs, but I don't have the time at the moment.

They couple very well, it should not move the wagon from it's spot if you do it carefully. They are a bit harder to uncouple manually, but they uncouple really well with magnets, provided that the couplers are adjusted correctly(the tolerances are a bit smaller than the usual couplers) Just like Marklin's Relex couplers, they have a way to uncouple and then push the wagon off the uncoupling magnet allowing you to leave the wagon there.

I hope this sheds a little more light onto the Yankee side of this subject

Rick