Ellis Clark made quite a stir when he introduced the Darstaed range of BR Mk 1 coaches in 2018 and in doing so ended the monopoly of Heljan in this marque. The new range improved the breed significantly in several areas and, for the first time ever, offered as standard the American Kadee coupling system.

However, behind the scenes there appears to have been a reluctance among some customers to go the whole hog and accept the manufacturer’s coupling height as defined by their cast metal gauge, which fits on the track and incorporates a Kadee coupling, set at the correct height for uncoupling.

As a result, all the gangwayed Mk1 rolling stock is fitted with the Kadee ‘New Generation’ #746 long, centreset shank coupler, at what Ellis Clark calls ‘prototype height’ which is too high to couple with properly set Kadees and probably too high for the magnetic uncoupling feature to work reliably.

On pointing this out to Ellis Clark he organised manufacture of a sheet of 30 plastic spacers very similar to one of the Kadee components – the one that closes the so-called gearbox’, and despatched these by First Class Royal Mail, along with a substantial quantity of brass slotted cheese head 10BA screws ½in long. At ⅜ in the blackened crosshead self-tappers normally used are too short to accommodate more than one spacer. I discovered the optimum number of Ellis Clark’s spacers is three. More than that and the top of the bogie will contact the base of the coupler adversely affecting riding. Fewer will reduce the registration or effectiveness of coupling with correctly-set items.

The following two images were taken from Kadee’s website, with grateful thanks and Kadee’s permission.