My Draft Gear aka "Coupler Boxes"

I have always been a little underwhelmed by the draft gear available to HO scale modelers, be they the "boxes" on simple cars or the "scale" draft gear available from various purveyors. I find them to be either too wide, with ridiculously large openings for the couplers and/or too undetailed. Byron Rose created patterns for very nicely detailed draft gear included in many Westerfield offerings, but it was wider than I preferred, no doubt to accommodate Kadee no. 5 couplers (scale-sized or close to scale couplers were still in the future when the patterns were created.)

I decided to create draft gear to suit my own tastes. The main given is that it must accommodate the Kadee whisker scale sized coupler, as I feel that is an easy coupler to source and use. I set about making parts that were as narrow as possible, knowing that the widest part of the coupler is around the post where it pivots. I believe I succeeded in making it as narrow as possible yet still operable.

I recently tested a half dozen cars equipped with the parts on a layout with numerous handlaid turnouts and radii down to about 20-22". The cars were mostly forty-footers, but did include the 50' X32A. I can report that there was not a single issue related to coupler swing and the only issues encountered were the same as with many other cars where the couplers did not couple on the first attempt. The cars were operated and switched for several hours, providing a good amount of feedback about how the draft gear would function, even with 50' cars around tight curves.

I have included this draft gear in several recent kit offerings and will now move to offer them as separate parts as soon as I can produce sufficient quantities to release them.