As an aside to the reworking of 5 Pullman coaches I'm involved in presently for my "Winston Churchill Funeral Train" project, I discovered a few perhaps little known Hornby parts which could be useful for converting the earlier Chinese made Pullmans with non-NEM couplings to the later NEM pocket versions, meaning you can either fit (for example) Kadee's or other NEM pocket couplings, or Hornby's own 'Close Couplings' as in my case. The conversion kit parts, to convert one coach are Hornby part No X9098M NEM pocket coach coupling conversion kit, Hornby's 'Close-Coupling' parts (in packs of 10, so 5 coaches worth) are R8220. Here's what you get in the conversion kit.
With this type of coupling, the advantage is that on curves, the coupling swings with the bogie, thus avoiding buffer lock and possible derailing. My usual coupling of choice is Kadee's as per the rest of my stock, but as this set of Pullmans will stay coupled together, I'll only fit a Kadee to each end of the complete 'train', using the 'Close-Couplers' to link the train together. The pic below shows the 'Early' type of coupling compared to the NEM pocketed type.
The conversion itself is fairly simple, raising the seating unit off the chassis reveals the Red and Black pickup wires, one wire from each bogie, and these need to be cut at the point where the heat shrink sleeving covers the wires joint enabling each bogie to be unclipped from below the chassis. Beneath each bogie is a small black plate with 2 screws holding it to the chassis, so remove these screws and the plate, allowing the unwanted coupling assembly to be unhooked from the centring spring and removed. Replace the unwanted coupling with the new NEM pocket version, and reassemble, hooking the spring on first and locating the assembly against the end stops.
With that done, replace the retaining plate, then thread the bogie pickup wire back through the chassis hole and clip the bogie back into place.
All that remains now is to resolder and heat shrink sleeve each pickup wire joint, repeat for the second bogie, reassemble the coach and fit your NEM coupler of choice to each end.
The coupling conversion parts (X9098M) I bought from 'Peters Spares' though doubtless other suppliers will stock them, the Hornby 'Close-Couplers' if needed can be found on Ebay and possibly other Hornby suppliers. I am planning further experimentation with my already repainted "Churchill hearse van" to see if it may be possible to retro-fit this type of NEM coupling, enabling me to 'Close-Couple' this van into the train also, but that's for another day! Keith.
