Chuck,
While I never saw Ed’s layout in person, it was fascinating to read about it in MR, the couple of times it appeared there.
What I found so fascinating was his use of the XF2 couplers. Didn’t he use one specific brand that relied on a coil spring to keep the couplers in position? IIRC, I think the ones he used were Rail Line couplers? I do remember that he did equip all of his cars with an “uncoupling lever”, set up in such a way that all he needed to do to uncouple was to squeeze the levers on the cars to be uncoupled and the “levers” would just push the couplers aside and uncouple the cars.
I thought for the time, (a kid in college), that until I could really afford KD’s, that Ed’s system would work just great on my cars, since the majority at the time were BB kits and as such came with the X2Fs. I never really got to see if it was a good system to use or not, with the BB versions of those couplers, as I started into my clinical rotations at school, and railroading had to take a back seat for a couple of years.
When I emerged from clinicals, graduated and passed the boards, I had a real job and then could afford those KD’s.