I'm at a crossroad with my AF collection. I have a good size collection of both link coupler and knuckle coupler engines and rolling stock. I would like to construct a small layout and I can't decide whether to go with the older link coupler items or the newer knuckle coupler items. The link coupler items have the undeniable charm of age but have a more limited range of engines and rolling stock plus the sometimes cantankerous link coupler. The newer knuckle coupler items boast a wider range of engines and rolling stock but lack the charm of the older items.
Any opinions or suggestions would be very much appreciated.
I'd say run both. When I built my present layout (fairly small) I decided to stick with the O-27 of my childhood but added some 42" curved track & switches. I run postwar and prewar Lionel and prewar American Flyer O gauge (mostly Chicago, not Gilbert).These trains use 5 different coupler systems! So there's almost no interchange of cars from one age/manufacturer to another. But never mind! AF's glorious Twentieth Century and Illini from the early 1920's run great and though from the same era, their cars use different couplers!! I've sun simultaneously UP City of Denver sets from Lionel and AF. Again incompatible, but each has its own beauty when running. I also run some modern stuff, mostly Lionel, a little MTH. MTH claims its North Short Electroliner is prototypical, but it will not negotiate any curves less than 421" diameter where as the real thing ran on Chicago "el" tracks with curves so tight (O-16 or O-20?) real railroads wouldn't venture on them, .. just the North Shore did. Te joy of running S and O gauge is that neither is really scale (unlike N or Ho or...).So what if Gilbert's 2 coupling systems are mutually incompatible? If you found joy in them in the past, keep and run them both.
My suggestion is to take a couple of link cars and convert one end to knuckle. By reversing the polarity of the dual coupler car, you can put it behind a knuckle coupler and attach links to it, or vice-versa. This has worked well for me and the conversion is quite simple if you start with a link coupler car. Good luck!
