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The best I can do here is direct you to the Jane Sullivan site who explains the vagaries of couplings far more eloquently than I. However, I would like to make a few comments of my own. As Jane says on her site, using tension locks on anything longer than four coaches caused derailment problems. I found this out almost immediately - the journey up the gradient was not too bad but returning downhill is where all the problems start. The heavy train tries to overtake the loco (just like in the prototype)and literally locks itself - result derailments and mysterious uncouplings.

Jane and Graham Muz both helped here with a quick way to address the problem - fit Kaydee couplings, however, I did find that mixing stock from different manufacturers did cause height problems with couplings matching up - probably down to my incompetence than anything else... Mike Radford and Phil Woods very kindly converted my Devon Belle stock thus.

The problem with most coaching stock is that the coupling is attached to the bogie - okay normally but garden railways pose different problems - like slightly uneven track, gradients, warping etc which add to running problems. However, Mike and Phil's remedy, which Jane also suggests as an alternative, and which I can say works faultlessly, is to abandon the bogie coupling and attach the Kaydee to the buffer beam of the coach - just like the prototype. Jane explains how to achieve this so I suggest you click on the link. Now the above is probably telling you all how to suck eggs but it was important to mention this as you will need to put some time in on converting your stock - I can honestly say it is worth every minute as it allows for problem free running.