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If you want the best, most trouble-free couplers, you want Kadee. Kadee may cost a little more than the other wannabe, but they're worth it. With Kadee couplers, you only have to pay a little more one time. But if you opt to purchase other brands to save a little money, you'll be paying with minor irritations of less-reliable operation from now on. Now, it's not that other couplers won't work just as well as Kadee most of the time. It's just that they won't be as reliable as Kadee couplers are all the time - for several reasons.

Kadee couplers have tested stronger than others, which have plastic knuckles. While you don't need the exceptional strength of Kadee's metal knuckles all the time, they're sure nice to have when the gang is over and decides to see if they can pull a 100-car train up your 1.5% grade.

Because some locos require couplers to be mounted directly into the metal draft box of the chassis, some Kadee couplers have a plastic shank. Otherwise, a short circuit can happen when you MU some locos together. Kadee makes identical plastic- and metal-shank couplers so you can use whichever you need. But even if you need to use their plastic shank coupler, the coupler knuckle is still metal - still stronger than the others.

All of Kadee's couplers use metal centering springs. Some use a special bronze spring, others use coil or torsion springs. And Kadee has recently released couplers with a built-in metal hair-spring - they call them "whisker"® springs. The advantage of using metal springs is that they won't take a set when left coupled on a curve. The plastic springs other brands have can take a set when left coupled on a curve. This hinders proper coupling and uncoupling.

Trust me, the few cents per coupler you'll save with a cheaper brand is not worth the aggravation you can have during an operating session when the last thing you need is for couplers to not work properly. Further, Kadee produces a wider variety of couplers for more coupler installation situations than all the other companies put together, not to mention the wide variety of coupler accessories and installation tools. For example...

Most people know about the venerable #5 coupler. It's the one that fits most freight cars. However, many people don't know that Kadee makes about 20 variations of that coupler. There are shorter- and longer-shank versions of it as well overset and underset shanks - all with metal shanks. This is the 40-series couplers. Then they make all these same versions with plastic couplers. Then they provide these same couplers with different draft gear for tighter installation situations. They also produce a coupler that's the same as the #5, but with a knuckle that's closer to scale (the #35). And they now make another coupler that's the same as the #5, but with metal hair-springs instead of the traditional #5 bronze centering spring. I presume that one day they'll make a complete series of these with over- and under- shank couplers. And this doesn't even address some of the specialty things like NEM (European) couplers, and others for special installation situations.

So, no matter what your coupler need is, why fuss with the other brands when Kadee provides so much more variety with better quality for only pennies more? Check the other page links on the Kadee index: you'll be amazed.