OSCAR Plate Couplers
A example is the Plate Coupler developed for the Outer Suburban rail fleet, which are being manufactured by the United Group for NSW RailCorp. The customer was building about 160 carriages and wanted an innovative solution so that carriages could be quickly separated and re-connected with a minimum of down time.
The challenge was that many different connectors were required between carriages. Two 3 phase 415 volt AC connectors were specified, together with a 1,500 volt DC connector and separate connections for data and communications. Conventionally this would have required four separate plugs and receptacles, each of which would have had to be joined individually. New Macey designed a modular system that allowed all connections to be made at the same time via a single integrated connector.
An image of the product appears above the drop down menu menu on the left side of this page. Each half coupler consists of four plugs or receptacles mounted on a common plate, which is suspended under the train draw bars. The two halves are secured together with twin threaded clamps. Should a particular contact burn or fail, that module can be removed without detaching the full plate coupler from a carriage. Spare modules are stocked so that a changeover can be achieved in a matter of minutes.