I’ve only operated with picks or 0-5-0 Hand of God switchers. I’m curioius about no-touch switching.
So, yea or Nay?
Do you prefer under track or between the rails magnets. If between the rails, how do you disguise them?
I know electromagnets are the choice of people bought stock in IBM in 1955, but I didn’t.
I use manual uncoupling myself.
What has IBM stock purchases got to do with HO trains?
Jim
It’s all about the Benjamins.
It’s a yea for me!
I’ve been using Kadee magnetic uncouplers since they first came out and never a problem. I bought my first Kadee under the track uncoupler in the late 90s and it works like a charm.
I have a pair for laying between the rails for uncoupling where I don’t have permanent uncouplers, work great.
Mel
My Model Railroad
http://melvineperry.blogspot.com/
Bakersfield, California
Just turned 84, aging is definitely not for wimps.
The between the rails works for us. Once I realized the coupler trip pin on a switcher was just a hair too low and was catching on the very top edge of the magnet when the coupler was moving forward. It cleared the magnet going backwards. I think it is very important to follow the Kadee instructions carefully when gluing down the magnet. The thickness of the glue can be make or break. I used the handy jig Kadee sells which I can recommend.
Chip,
Not a fan - opinions vary.
Guy
I combined underneath KDs (yard) with Rapido uncouplers (for the mainline). Works perfectly.
Simon
Either the RIX uncoupling tool or “the big hand” here. I can reach all the places I need to pull a pin – except one. But I’ve got a little brakeman that does a trick and handles that…
Oh yeah, magnetics for me! Nothing is more prototypical than stopping at a designated spot on the track, backing about two feet away from a car, then pushing it to its final destination.
(If you didn’t recognize it, that’s called “sarcasm”).
I prefer bamboo skewers for uncoupling. But that’s just my choice. I’m not really slamming anyone who uses the magnetic approach - just having some fun with the idea. [:S]
Did them on last layout, wish I did on this one.
I like to use bothe under the track uncouplers and the Rix tool. I like the magnetic for when I know I’ll be dropping cars in the same places over and over, like a spur or something. Then I use the Rix tool in places like a yard, where uncoupling position varies greatly.
Yea from me.
I have used mostly Kadee #308 under the track magnets, and a few #307 electromagnetic uncouplers that were pretty easy to pass of as guard rails. I have a couple of the new #309 electromagnetic uncouplers, but I have not used them yet. I think the Rapido Railcrew uncoupler is the best solution, but availability is an issue. I hope to do some experiments with them soon.
I have used a couple of #321 or #322 between the rails uncouplers in areas where they could be passed off as grade crossings. They do not always seperate the couplers far enough to reliably get the delayed action. The #308 works best for me for a permanent magnet uncoupler.
The #308 permament magnet works plenty well, but unintended uncouplings are a possibility if you use it on the mainline.
We bought stock in Wal-Mart! [(-D]
-Kevin
SpaceMouse,
I’m firmly in the “Yea” camp; yes to Kadee magnetic uncouplers.
At my club (where we had two operation sessions per month), we had a sign from Carsten’s Publishing that said, “Only Great Big Giants Pick Up Little Trains”. We were completely hands off during ops sessions unless we were fixing a derailment. We used a lot of magnets, but we also used bamboo skewers where there was no magnet.
We would mark the Kadee uncoupler with either a brad through a piece of white wire insulation, or we had “light poles” in the yard set up to “shine” over the magnet. In reality, the light pole was a bamboo skewer that had a plastic ball-end sewing pin with a 90-degree bend in it. Atop the ball was a silver sequin with the top painted green to look like a lamp shade.
At our new club, we paint the ends of the ties with white paint under the center of the magnet, which is a bit less obtrusive.
When one is classifying a lot of freight cars in a limited time (like during operation sessions), magnets are a must-have for me.
Also, when switching passenger cars with diaphragms, magnets are also a must-have. And good luck getting engines uncoupled that also have diaphragms without magnetic uncouplers.
Above-tie magnets also make it easy to put cars on the track; sort of like a mini-re-railer.
OldEngineman,
The only problem I have with the Rix uncoupler is that anything you uncouple better not have metal grabirons on the ends. The Rix will get stuck to 'em if you’re not careful. I’ve actually caused derailments because of that.
Pruitt,
There’s also nothing very realistic about giant flying hands jamming sharpened telephone poles into couplers, either. [:)]
When we built the first HO scale layout for Scale Rails Of Southwest Florida, one of the members made simple black and white posts to mark the uncoupler locations. They looked OK, and kind of “railroady”, so I used them on my home layouts. You can make about 50 of them in one evening.
-Kevin
I use Kadee’s in-track magnets for my staging yards…
…and mark them with yellow posts (styrene rod). The posts with more than one stripe denotes another magnet at the same location on the adjacent track.
For on-layout uncoupling, I have a couple of Kadee under-track magnets, like this one at the LCL warehouse in Mount Forest, again with a yellow post to show the location of the magnet…
I also use the Rix uncoupler, and am not above using the “Big Hand” aka 0-5-0, either.
Recently, I tested some small rare-earth magnets, about 8mm in diameter and 3mm thick, and found that they perform well in an under-track location.
My plan is to remove the ballast where I want to install them, then cut out the under-the-rails plastic which holds the ties together. This will allow me to slide the ties out of the way, and then drill two shallow 8mm holes into which the magnets can be cemented.
Once the glue has dried, the ties can be slid back into place, and new ballast applied. I’m hoping that the glue, plus the fact that the ties will be partially over the magnets, will prevent them from being pulled out every time a pair of coupled cars are placed over them.
I have enough magnets to install 24 uncoupling sites, and especially those on the upper level, which should pretty-well take care of all the too-far-to-reach locations.
Wayne
Total magnetics for me. I devised a system that mechanically drops the under-the-rail magnet so it only actuates when lifted. No accidental uncouplings. Dan
You can absolutely do it without a magnet, but you do need the trip pins on both couplers.
There’s a bit of an art to it, but as long as you can come in from the side, you can use the skewer to push the pins apart and uncouple, without being limited to where your under track magnets are.
Four to eight of these guys will do the trick: https://www.kjmagnetics.com/proddetail.asp?prod=D14-N52
Four seems to be the minimum to create a strong enough field. More than eight and you reach diminishing returns on the size of your uncoupling area.
You could make 160 4-magnet uncoupling spots for the price of one IBM share.
Those magnets seem overly pricey to me.
The ones which I mentioned in my earlier reply were $2.99 for ten, and only two are required for reliable uncoupling.
Wayne