How many museums have cars equipped with link and pin couplers? How many operate these cars? We do at Ardenwood, but mostly we run a single car pulled by a horse. We do make up trains for special events, pulled by one of our two Plymouths or by a visiting steam loco. Short trains, and care, (bordering on paranoia) have prevented accidents.

I know the Nevada State Railroad Museum uses some cars with link and pin draw heads as well. Who else is out there…

The B&O Museum has several link and pin cars in its collections. When I was a trainman there over a decade ago, we would move them on occasion with a diesel switcher when we needed to rearrange display tracks in the roundhouse or shift a car into or out of the carshop.

Standard method was to pull up the knuckle pin on the locomotive, pull out the locomotive coupler knuckle (KLUNK onto the ties) and lift (GRUNT) and store it somewhere out of the way. Then we had an iron bar about three feet long with a hole in each end we used as the link. Knuckle pin on the diesel went in the hole on one end of the bar, pin on the L&P car in the other. The long shank greatly reduced the risk of anything tender being caught and crushed, as it kept the draft gear 2-3 feet apart, and it also helped make up for variations in coupler height between the historic equipment and the modern standard height coupler on the diesel.

Done one car at a time, with great, great care.

Does anyone know of a place where they use the wooden type?

Still the way we do it at the B&O today Eric. When we are moving things in the roundhouse though we usually use people power or a tractor with a changable coupler on the front end.

One time a few years back we did assemble a train behind the Mason for the filming of Gods and Generals that had the #10 Baggage car and #20 coach (now destroyed) coupled with knuckles I believe, and then an iron box car and maybe two pot hoppers all with real link and pin.

Not necessarily a museum, but we have always ran with link and pins on the CP&LE R.R.

http://www.cplerr.com

Most trolley cars get switched that way, but with a long draw or tow bar. About 1980, South Eastern Pennsylvania Transportation Authority started adding a safety cotter pin to the Pin, and others may have copied that idea.

Palmetto Brick Co. in Wallace, SC still uses l&p couplers on their clay-hauling narrow gauge line. I documented the line in 1996 and made a video for sale. I probably need to revisit the line and update my video now. It's still available by special order for $17.50 VHS or DVD, including shipping -- email me privately for details (scrmcurator&yahoo.com).

PBC has two trains of eight four-wheel side-dump cars and two 10-ton Plymouths. One of the Plymouths pulls one train into the yard, the pin on the engine is pulled, and the loco pulls up through a spring switch to back onto the other 8-car train. The loads are pulled into the unloading shed by a cable. The guy who works the cable also makes the couplings, holding the link up with the pin as the Plymouth backs onto the cut of empties. Then the empties are shoved about a mile and a half to the clay pile.

From what I've seen and heard, PBC is far more worried about the one highway crossing on their line than the safety of the l&p couplers. I looked pretty closely when I documented the line in '96, and the guy making the couplings appeared to still have all his fingers.

The Middletown & Hummelstown Railroad has a wooden box car equipped for link and pin couplers sitting on display next to its passenger station. The car is for display only and sits on an isolated panel of track but on special occassions a link and pin are brought out of our collection and we explain to tour groups how a link and pin coupling was made and why the modern knuckle coupler became a great safety improvement.