Modern remote and powered uncouplers

Model Railroader General Discussion (Model Railroader)
1

Since there is controversy about reviving old threads (and rehashing old arguments) let me bring up the topic with a slightly different pair of emphases:

  1. What’s the current ‘state of the art’ (and the best historical designs and approaches that have undeservedly gone out of production) for performing remote uncoupling?

I don’t want to limit this just to Kadees, and in particular I want to discuss options like the ones mentioned for MTH that permit ‘digital’ uncoupling on demand, rather than just over a fixed location with the ‘right’ slack action and no curves.

To get the juices flowing: I worked up a design many years ago that used a magnetic chuck arrangement combined with a switch motor for power, which at least in theory combined the attributes of a power uncoupler and a fixed one, for relatively small power demand (and of course simple unpowered actuation with nothing more complex than a piece of Bowden cable). This would probably work well with ‘modern’ high strength NIB magnets…

I’m also wondering if there has been any work on ‘remote’ uncoupling of Serjent couplers (or designs like them) that can have full-scale heads and don’t use those ridiculous non-touching imitations of air hoses.

  1. It occurs to me that some of the unassigned codes in digital control might be assigned to ‘onboard’ coupler adjustments of a more interesting nature. Imagine a cable-actuated Sergent-style head, with a second lateral adjustment on the ‘draft gear’ or shank that would nudge or move the coupler head laterally “on request” as well as open the knuckle. (While we are adding the cost for the decoder, we could also add ‘sound’ for the individual cars, perhaps using the relatively inexpensive speakers salvaged from old cell phones; the additional ‘cores’ for the functionality being relatively cheap to add in production…) Is there a perceived
2

1). The “State of the Art” in stationary uncouplers is the Rapido Rail Crew uncoupler. It’s a 1.75" dia. cylinder that mounts right under the ties/roadbed. It has a permanent magnet that rotates 90 degrees when activated. When it’s rotated one way, it opens Kadee-like knuckles w/ “hoses” when the couplers are slackened. When rotated the other way, it doesn’t work because the magnet is now pulling in line with the track rather than to either side.

The Rail Crew uncoupler draws power when it’s throwing, but otherwise the LED located in the center of it is the only other draw. The LED comes on automatically when the magnet is rotated for uncoupling, and assists the user in lining up his couplers over the otherwise hidden magnet.

The old Kadee electromagnet required a large rectangular slot to be cut out of the benchwork, and drew current the entire time it was on. IIRC, they were also prone to being burned out by accidently leaving them on.

Other than that, you’ve got the Kadee under-the-track magnet, and the Kadee delay and non-delay between-the-rails uncoupler. That’s pretty much it, other than a bamboo skewer or a screwdriver.

2). Onboard uncouplers are completely impractical. Oh, they’re possible on boxcars and the like, but what about flat cars, hoppers, tank cars, etc.? And how much are we talking about? It’s still $20 for a decoder, and even just 1-function lighting decoder costs $17. Add the actuator (like these: http://www.precimodels.com/en/shop) and that’s an additional $20. So today, to add remote onboard DCC uncouplers would cost at least $37…per car. I currently own approx. 300 freight cars and 50 passenger cars. It would only cost me $12,950 to equip my fleet. Um, no thanks.

That’s not even getting into the actual usability of such a thing.&n

3

There was nothing wrong with reviving an old thread but I will repeat my comment here.

Am I wrong I thought prototype railroads uncouple manually meaning someone gets out and pushes an uncoupling lever. Thus using a bamboo skewer or such is as close as we get to the real thing.

4

Not even close… Its to easy unless one takes time to set the car hand brake,close the air line valves. Did I mention some times you need slack on the pin so you can lift the uncoupling bar?

KD magnets is close if one is good at stopping on the magnet and being careful with installing the KDs.

Back to topic. Even on my former small 1x12’ switching layout I would not want to have a DCC decoder in every car because in a simple pickup and drop there is three uncoupling moves :

(1) Uncouple from the train/pick up the car.

(2) return to train uncouple the pickup

and

(3) Uncouple the setout.

Also Paul3 makes a good point on terminal switching.

5

[quote user=“RME”]

Since there is controversy about reviving old threads (and rehashing old arguments) let me bring up the topic with a slightly different pair of emphases:

  1. What’s the current ‘state of the art’ (and the best historical designs and approaches that have undeservedly gone out of production) for performing remote uncoupling?

I don’t want to limit this just to Kadees, and in particular I want to discuss options like the ones mentioned for MTH that permit ‘digital’ uncoupling on demand, rather than just over a fixed location with the ‘right’ slack action and no curves.

To get the juices flowing: I worked up a design many years ago that used a magnetic chuck arrangement combined with a switch motor for power, which at least in theory combined the attributes of a power uncoupler and a fixed one, for relatively small power demand (and of course simple unpowered actuation with nothing more complex than a piece of Bowden cable). This would probably work well with ‘modern’ high strength NIB magnets…

I’m also wondering if there has been any work on ‘remote’ uncoupling of Serjent couplers (or designs like them) that can have full-scale heads and don’t use those ridiculous non-touching imitations of air hoses.

  1. It occurs to me that some of the unassigned codes in digital control might be assigned to ‘onboard’ coupler adjustments of a more interesting nature. Imagine a cable-actuated Sergent-style head, with a second lateral adjustment on the ‘draft gear’ or shank that would nudge or move the coupler head laterally “on request” as well as open the knuckle. (While we are adding the cost for the decoder, we could also add ‘sound’ for the individual cars, perhaps using the relatively inexpensive speakers salvaged from old cell phones; the additional ‘cores’ for the functionality being relatively cheap to add in produ
6

Andre,I have KD magnet that’s well over 30-35 years old and they still work as intended.

7

I just purchased and installed the Rail Crew Uncoupler on an out of the way siding partially concealed by other structures. The electrical wires have not been routed so I can’t speak for the operation; however, the installation was very straight forward without any problems. The kit came with excellent instructions, a toggle switch with face plate and a diode that fits into the face plate. All of my other sidings have, or will have, Kadee Delayed Action uncoupler magnets which have always worked well for me.

Wayne

8

A lot of us prefer manual uncoupling. Nothing against Kadee magnets (which pretty much have an indefinite lifespan), but the skewer has the twin advantages of low price and portability.

The only magnet on the 24x36 layout where I’m a regular crew member as well as being part of the construction crew is on a spur where there’s a building in the way of reaching in with a skewer.

Amdre

9

Andre:

Heck, you could just hire somebody to stand around and do all that for you! You know - 20 something 5’ 6", blonde, single. Then the most expensive part of the uncoupler would be the divorce![:o)][swg][(-D][(-D][(-D]

Dave

10

To the original proposition: KISS!!!

I’m sure I am not alone in having several hundred cars and locomotives with operating couplers. The idea of having each coupler be an electromechanical gizmo requiring beaucoup maintenance attention, not to mention having too keep track of the codes for each coupler (on a layout where almost every freight turns end-for-end with every run…)

So I use Kadees, leave the ‘hoses’ on and take advantage of the 50 year old remote uncoupling technology of under-the-tie magnets to keep the clumsy, arthritic hamhooks out of the over-layout airspace. Where false uncoupling might be a problem I mount the magnet on a hinge, then move it to operating position by pulling a string with a coat button. Other places just get fixed magnets. And then there’s always the skewer (actually a small screwdriver with a pocket clip) as a last resort.

What I would really like to see is a working link and pin coupler. The prototypes for my two narrow gauge operations were still using them in 1964. The one that’s still operating (Kurobe Gorge Railway) is still using them in 2016!

Chuck (Modeling Central Japan in September, 1964 - as simply as possible)

11

And the chance one may break off a detail part on today’s finely detailed cars and at $30-50.00 a pop I don’t think those round sticks will be use here.Hands away is better then a OOPS followed by a line of unprintable words.

12

All of my cars almost are of the finely detailed type, no problem with the bamboo.

13

I hope your luck holds forever and a day but,when you have shaky shake hands and do a lot of switching on a ISL the odds goes up with each uncoupling and one thinks twice about using a round stick on those high dollar cars on the other hand the older near bullet proof Athearn BB and Roundhouse cars no worries.

14

Being a MTH fan and I have quite a few of their locomotives, I detest their automatic couplers. I replace them with kadee.

On the other hand I use the five finger method to uncouple my cars, easy and cheap.

15

What is the prefered tool to use when manually uncoupling?

I use a tool that comes with a Radio Shack soldering kit. On one end is a beveled edge and the other end has a point with a 45 degree bend near the end. The bend allows me to “pull” the trip pin to uncouple.

16

If I may…A little history…For years we used KD magnets for hands free uncoupling then comes a article in MR showing the Bamboo Skewers and saying how evil the magnets was. I never fell for that line about that being the better way simply because it wasn’t the best idea and that article should have been filed away in draw 13…

IMHO for the money we pay for KD couplers should we not reap the benefits of hands away uncoupling especially with today’s freight cars?

Being fair minded I will yield and say the round Bamboo stick is very popular today for uncoupling cars.

17

Back after having my account once again terminated and its cookies made to disappear from my own persistent storage (!) Now I’m back on the previous but not most previous ancient user name… complete with persistent PM action from months ago.

Someone was kind enough to point me at the Wyoming Yards coupler mods. It is not very far from there to a workable onboard system that charges from the rails. I’m expecting to see relatively cheap decoder ‘cores’ in the next few years – why should digital tech remain relatively exotic and over-expensive in this hobby? Even if we support our local dealers and not hit up the ‘maker’ communities directly for tech and support?

It might be added that additional functions and switching in a decoder core or board don’t add that much incremental or marginal cost to it. Most of the cost of these things is in design and setting up the fab or whatever to produce it. Be interesting to see what a Kickstarter or other crowdfunded model-railroad function decoder might produce … or one that supports limited sound (of which more below)

[quote]
That’s not even getting into the actual usability of such a thing. Imagine drilling a yard with 20+ cars. Every time you go to drop a car on a yard track, you have to stop, find out the DCC address of the car,

18

Overmod,
You expect to see cheap decoders in the future? Good luck. The $20 DCC decoder has been the same price for at least 17 years. They’ve even improved it several times (DH120-121-123-126), and it’s still $20. If they haven’t dropped the price one cent in almost 20 years, what makes you think it will drop in the next 20?

Why is it like this? First of all you have the capitalistic idea of charging what the market will bear. No one is going to sell decoders for cheap money when people are willing to spend more. Secondly, this is a very small market. There might be 250,000 model railroaders in the USA, and only half of them use DCC. Compare that to the billions of other tech. devices that are out there, and our hobby is an incredibly tiny niche market. All Digitrax and NCE decoders are made in the USA, not in some mega factory in China.

Kickstarter? For DCC? For a market of maybe 125,000 people? A group of people who constantly complain about how expensive things are? Do you really think they’re going to fork over their own cash to a kickstarter campaign to make DCC decoders (that may or may not ever happen) when they could just buy a decoder for $20?

I have to giggle a bit at your idea to use lasers to uncouple cars. All I can hear is Dr. Evil: “You know, I have one simple request. And that is to have sharks with frickin’ laser beams attached to their heads!” Where would the laser sensors go? You’d have to drill holes in the roofs/sides/ends of all your cars (and won’t that be attractive?). This is just like the Lynx IR control system where they have to add sensors inside the cabs of their locos making them look like they’re being run by all-black versions of R2-D2.

Or magnetic wands. Have you ever used the Rapido lighting in the Osgood Bradley cars? They use magnet switches to tur

19

The following shows that cars can be and have been equipped with remote couplers. Someone several years ago offered cars with DCC uncoupling. The cars were equipped to have with one remote or two if you chose. Function key 3 opened and closed one coupler and key 4 the other. I bought two cars, one of each. You could either buy cars he had modified or send him yours.

The couplers work very well but their overall use was rather limited as you had to spot the car in your consist so you could uncouple from a desired car. Putting the remote equipped car next to the engine or the next to last car was where I used it most. As has been previously mentioned to work well all cars would have to be equipped and have their own identification which is not practical.
Therefore, Kadee delayed action magnets are my choice.
Bob

20

Overmod -

You stated - “It is not very far from there to a workable onboard system that charges from the rails.”.

The W.Y. couplers can work off DCC track power. The couplers can work by wand, DC (battery), or DCC power. For obvious reasons, DC track power is not usable. DCC is. To control the coupler, since we dont have a specific decoder to do such, use a wand and magnetic switch.

Many ‘digital’ forms of control ‘can’ be used, but this is supposed to be easy, cheap, and portable. ‘Digital’ control of any kind is NOT cheap! It works, but it aint cheap.

For those with large fleets, consider this:

Gondolas, Flat cars, and other exposed end of frame cars are the simplist cars to make. They work no matter if you use DC or DCC they require NO power. You only need to reshape the trip pin, use a metal coupler mounting screw, and own a magnetic wand.

Say 30% of your fleet are a mix of the above type cars. Interspersed throughout your trains, or in strings of cars in your yards… makes no difference. 3 in 10 cars together will, by a wave of wand, uncouple. No need to worry about car numbers or decoder addresses… just look for a flat car or gondola.

You have the cars, you have the Kadees, already. Some of you already mount your couplers with screws… i do. So what does a fleet of cars with working couplers cost? The price of a wand, and your time, the knowledge is free [Y]

The whole idea behind the working coupler is not how to power it, or how to control it. Thats the easy part. Its the trip pin. Focus your attention there! Kadee had the right idea, they just bent the trip pin the wrong way. Weve had working couplers since some school kid first figured out how to pick up paper clips with a nail.

PM Railfan