[quote=glenderg]There was no issue with coupling height, it was all done to NEM standards, and if not, this rake would have ruined itself when the video was taken on the 16th November 2017, some 8 years ago..[/quote]
Hi Richie. Respectfully there was an error with the coupling height on the ballast wagons and the cement bubbles (inc ploughs that shared a common chassis). IRM even had a fix page on their web site back then with a solution. It wasn’t about running problems, it was about NEM compliance and incompatibility with Kadee couplings. It wasn’t a problem if one used the supplied gull wing mini tension lock couplings but was incorrect for Kadee’s as the NEM pocket height was incorrect. All other IRM stock since then had had perfect NEM pockets in terms of height from the rail top. I got around the problem by gluing kadee no 18s to the underside of the NEM pockets to get the correct height for kadee coupling height guage and kadee uncoupling magnets. It was a right royal PITA having to do it to two rakes of ballasts and two rakes of cement bubbles. This might have been a hangover of the unfortunate DJ input to IRMs first product which were the ballasts. Murphy Models had a similar fault with their craven coaching stock when the NEM pockets were also at the wrong height and needed fettling to use with popular kadee couplings. First world problem, but given the re-runs it might have been an opportunity to correct the tooling as that chassis is shared by carious IRM wagons (ballasts, cement, plough vans, magnesite’s, gypsum, etc). Photo below illustrated the problem.
The manual fix. A pity the couplings could not be use correctly when plugged into the NEM pockets