Bill has included extensive credits in his coupler pack files for those of us currently working with him to develop these packages.  But, I would like to bestow some credit on the MSTS pioneers upon whose work much of this was based.  The "advancements" on which these couplers depend ( whether you use them with Bin or with pre-Bin MSTS ) came about because of these people who contributed so much in the early days of MSTS.

Jim Ward ( aka Sniper 297 ):  He was one of the first to attempt to "fix" the front coupler.  He was the first to suggest changes to the default.wag file to improve the front coupler.  As I was trying to extend his work, his foundation led to the default.wag file changes that I gave to Otto Wipfel.  Otto took those changes, and with some other suggestions from other folks, added some things that resulted in the default.wag file that Bill uses with his coupler settings.  These packages do not work with the original default.wag file, so without Jim Ward, these would not have happened.

Yuri ( aka Steam4Me ), Lukas ( aka Swissie ), and James Titus:  Lukas wrote a paper and placed it on Yuri's website about front couplers.  Lukas described the work of Mr. Titus in reversing the values in a second section of the coupler.  That is what started me on the path to double coupler sections, and resulted in the use of double sections ( values not reversed though ) with the addition a negative velocity in the second coupler section.  Originally, this was just for locomotives, but I later expanded to using double sections in wagons too.  This becomes important later, but for now I will say that without what they did, the present couplers would never have happened.

Rich Garber, Dick Cowen, and Marv Keur:  What does a route developer have to do with couplers?  Rich Garber, who always has tried to put the best into his routes, and was the first to use many things in routes that we now expect, gave me a chance to have my front coupler solution tried out in his brand new ( at that time ) Canton route.  The solution worked with the Canton equipment, and that gave me the confidence to continue working on couplers, and eventually led to my attempt to get more realistic slack action in the couplers, as well as more stability in using them, especially with the front coupler. Rich and Dick and Marv were trying to make the Canton physics as real as possible at that time, and so they had their equipment set up to use the latest physics and braking, which leads us to:

Bob Boudoin and Jean-Louis Chauvin:  Without their standardizing of car values for physics and braking, I don't think it would have been possible to properly experiment with MSTS couplers.  The best testing is when you can eliminate as many uncontrollable variables as possible.  Their values did that for me when I was coupler testing.

Marv Keur, Dick Cowen, Leland Fletcher, and Cyndi Richards:  As I began to experiment with coupler values for slack action, these folks were my testing and support team.  Dick cowen made a special boxcar with "extensions" that would more accurately show how much compression and extension the couplers allowed.  Marv and Cyndi did extensive testing and gave great feedback.  Cyndi devised a "coupler cam" camera configuration that greatly aided visualization of the couplers while moving.  A special mention of Leland is necessary.  He did not directly test my values, but rather commented on my theories, and supplied his own theories as well.  His tremendous work involving the r0 values was an important part of my final package.  Their input, along with some information gleaned from UKTrain-sim discussions, led to the use of double coupler sections with only one "rigid" parameter turned on.  This was the "breakthrough" that turned one big spring into many smaller ones that could be better controlled with the proper values.

Finally, Bill Prieger, Robert Reedy, and Bob Artim:  Before Bill was working on realistic slack action for couplers, he was involved with Bob Artim and Robert Reedy in creating a new VR that had a goal of being as realistic as possible.  Robert udpated his wonderful ADFRR route into the C&NW route that the VR was using.  They applied innovations that allowed you to have "talking" detectors, and other great ideas.  Bob, the world's greatest VR mogul, added his support for another VR ( his plate was already pretty full VR wise ), and the C&NW VR was born.  Bill added his real world experience as they developed the route and VR.  I believe that had it not been for the formation of this VR, that Bill might not have entered the coupler development area.  But he did enter it, and he and his team took my values to the "next level".  The result is what you see.  

Combining certain theories I developed with real world experience, an attitude of gathering information from all good sources, and exhaustive testing, they have given us some very good coupler values for a great MSTS experience.  Bill can tell you about their work, but because much is based on my theories of couplers, I wanted to recognize all the people that were involved in getting to this point, but had not been previously mentioned.  So here is my list of those needing to also be thanked for the development of these couplers.

Jim Ward ( aka Sniper297 )
Yuri ( aka Steam4me )
Lukas ( aka Swissie )
James Titus
Rich Garber
Marv Keur
Dick Cowen ( aka kcjones )
Cyndi Richards ( aka BNSFLady )
Leland Fletcher
Robert Reedy
Bob Artim

Finally, I thank Mike Spinelli, owner, and all the members of the OVS VR.  I probably wouldn't have stayed in MSTS if I hadn't found OVS.  