Van Dorn Coupler Company - MCB Couplers

When traction historians think of "Van Dorn couplers" they think of the automatic link-and-pin coupler that was invented by William Van Dorn in the 1880s and used by dozens of different traction lines, including street railways, interurbans, and rapid transit systems. However the Van Dorn Coupler Company didn't only make link-and-pin couplers. It also branched out into other types of couplers, including the type that by the mid-1890s had become the statutory standard for interchange railroads, the MCB style or "knuckle" coupler.

Van Dorn seems to have specialized in niche markets for knuckle couplers, particularly traction applications, which makes sense given the company's close ties with the electric railway industry. Early on, it was taken for granted that traction lines would remain entirely separate from steam railroads. Many traction lines, especially in Pennsylvania, were even built to a non-standard gauge. But over time it became clear that some freight interchange could be beneficial and interurban lines began to use MCB style couplers on their cars, especially on freight and non-revenue equipment. Some lines, like the Lake Shore Electric, used Van Dorn link-and-pin couplers in the early years and switched their entire fleets over to MCB style; some lines, like the Chicago North Shore & Milwaukee, used Van Dorn link-and-pin couplers on their early cars while their later steel cars used MCB style; and some lines, like the Chicago Aurora & Elgin, switched to MCB couplers only on their freight and non-revenue equipment. This Van Dorn patent for an MCB coupler dates to 1914.

The photographs and documents below are part of a collection of Van Dorn company records donated to IRM by Larry Larson. There are a number of photos and illustrations depicting Van Dorn MCB couplers but unfortunately not all are labeled, so it's tough to gauge the extent of the company's product line in this category and many of the images are basically unidentified. Van Dorn also seemed to equate knuckle couplers to MCB couplers in its literature. I've generally done the same in this article, using the terms interchangeably, even though many knuckle couplers (especially the odd types offered by Van Dorn) were not actually MCB-compliant, i.e. suitable for railroad interchange. All images are the property of the Illinois Railway Museum and may not be reprinted or reproduced without written permission.

#862 MCB Coupler

The #862 coupler seems to be one of Van Dorn's MCB offerings that was full-sized and geared towards the electric railway industry. Here we see a #862 coupler with #707 draft gear, a #712 carrier, and a #706 anchor.

Here's another image, a normal photograph, showing a #862 coupler with #1240 draft gear. You'll note that this example has a solid knuckle rather than a slotted one, as the first image shows. My best guess is that slotted knuckles may have been more common on traction lines because it was more common to use tow-bars to haul equipment that lacked couplers.

This is just the above photo turned into an illustration; the description again mentions the #862 coupler and states that it's matched with "#1240 twin spring draft gear."

#1315 MCB Coupler

The same problem that we saw with the link-and-pin coupler illustrations crops up again here: there's no sense of scale and it's virtually impossible to identify size differences between couplers. In this case, we are fortunate to have a copy of a sales brochure (at the bottom of this article) that identifies this particular coupler. It's a #1315, a half-size MCB coupler designed for use with mining equipment and other "large scale" type miniature railroad equipment, shown with #1500 draft gear.

This is another #1315 coupler; I'm not certain whether it's got different draft gear or whether this example just has fewer components removed.

#1815 MCB Coupler

The #1815 coupler shown here was another half-size MCB designed (apparently) primarily for use with mining equipment.

And here's a #1815 coupler in its natural environment, fitted to a mine cart of some sort. You can't see it but this example is fitted with #1795 draft gear according to the photograph description.

#2155 MCB Coupler

In 1926 Canadian National ordered a very unusual two-car, three-truck articulated doodlebug that was numbered 15817. According to this photo, it was fitted with Van Dorn's #2155 MCB coupler, which I can only assume was a larger railroad-grade type. There are more photos of this unusual doodlebug here.

Unidentified Couplers

As previously mentioned, a number of the coupler photos in the Van Dorn collection don't have anything written on them to identify the coupler type. This is one example. It may be a part of the half-size product line aimed at mining and industry.

Now this looks like the kind of thing I'd expect to see on a mining cart. Of course there's no really good way to tell the scale of what we're looking at. This closely resembles, and may in fact be, the #2184 "pocket type" half-size MCB coupler shown in the pamphlet at the bottom of this article.

This is more like what you'd expect to see on a piece of traction equipment. It resembles pretty closely the couplers on the ISC dump trailers pictured further down in this article

This looks to be the same coupler as in the previous photo, just from a different angle.

This is obviously a different type, but again the kind of radial coupler you'd expect to see on a piece of traction equipment. This one looks pretty modern to my eye.

And another one. This might be the same coupler as in the previous photo but it's hard to say.

This Dayton & Western freight trailer was built by AC&F in 1923 and, presumably, was fitted with Van Dorn MCB couplers. This was precisely the kind of niche a company like Van Dorn could fill: couplers that would work with steam-road locomotives or steam-road cars, but were designed with radial draw bars to traverse street railway curves.

There are four photos in the Van Dorn records showing Indiana Service Corp dump trailers built by the Differential Steel Car Company. According to the CERA bulletin on the Fort Wayne & Wabash Valley, cars 1034 and 1035 (plus four others numbered 1036-1039) were built in 1923 for ISC.

Here's a close-up of two of the ISC dump trailers coupled together.

Here's a close-up of one of the couplers. This style may be the same as the unidentified radial-style coupler pictured higher up in this article.

Another close-up of the coupler. This time there's a streetcar (and one other car, possibly an interurban) in the background. It closely resembles a car from the obscure Findlay-Mortimer Railway, which likely ran past the Differential plant on the north side of Findlay, where the dump trailers were manufactured.

The below pamphlet advertising half-size Van Dorn MCB couplers was included among the other company photographs and materials. It's too bad more pamphlets like this didn't survive, as it stands to reason that they would have written up material like this for other market segments like electric railway freight cars.

Click to return to the W.T. Van Dorn Collection index page