Compatible gangway connections.

[jamesbrodie67281]

Gents and Gentesses.
I'm asking this in the 0 gauge section hoping to keep it alive (like I am !) mainly because I model in 0 gauge but do read the other scales articles as well.
Back to the gangways:-
Looking through the photos in the Fallen Flags I have noticed that some coaches have Pullman vestibule gangways where the corridor connection also acts with the Buckeye coupling as a sprung buffer-I won't digress on the British Standard gangway--and there is a gangway which is like very large sausages ...side top and side, which squeeze together when the coaches are coupled. Are these compatible with Pullman vestibule type ? and there is the body sized cover like streamlined fairing going from coach body to coach body making a sort of draught proofing for when passengers go from coach to coach. Some of the lightweights had them fitted for when coupling to either other lightweights or to heavyweights. I've not seen the large tube type gangways in model form as yet. I've seen similar gangways on German Continental coaches but as far as I'm aware not seen any on British Railways. I must admit I've not taken a great lot of notice since I retired in 1984 rather enjoying doing American scene 0 gauge railway modelling.
James 67281.

[stevewagner]

James, I think that you're referring to what are called "diaphragms" in the U.S.A. (I'm not sure whether Canadians use the same term.) The standard, narrow ones have something like a bellows arrangement between the end of the car and the buffer plate -- if that's what it's called -- that rubs against, but is not actually connected to, the one on the diaphragm of the adjacent car.

Some fairly early North American streamlined passenger trains had full-width diaphragms. I think cars equipped with them could be coupled to ones with standard diaphragms.

I've seen the newer European kind that looks something like an underinflated rubber tire with no visible folds on a small passenger train built in Denmark by a multinational firm when the Boston-area MBTA leased or borrowed it from Israel's railway for testing a few years ago. That train had a direct mechanical link between its diesel engine(s) and the powered axles, more or less like that of a truck (lorry) -- and a very timid-sounding horn that I told the Danish railwayman in the cab needed to be replaced by a much louder one for use on America's largely unfenced railroads. That change was quickly made.

The old HO standard diaphragms made by Walthers had a "bellows" made of folded paper and a "buffer plate" of shiny, slippery plastic. Newer HO models from other makers are all-plastic. The late David P. Morgan, editor of Trains magazine for decades, wrote that the lack of diaphragms was the most unrealistic aspect of model passenger trains. However, putting diaphragms on model passenger cars makes it very difficult to uncouple the cars using a small screwdriver or other tool inserted into the couplers from above. Passenger stations are one part of a model railroad where magnets under the tracks are almost indispensable for uncoupling magnetic couplers without actually lifting one or both cars.