I am just beginning full scale operations on my layout and part of my operating scheme requires passenger car switching at the main terminal. My prefered method for uncoupling is to use a bamboo skewer as an uncoupling tool because I’ve found that putting magnetic uncoupling ramps on the mainline leads to unwanted uncoupling. What I’ve discovered is that passenger cars with diaphrams and close coupling prevent me from reaching the couplers with the bamboo skewer or any other uncoupling tool I’ve tried. I’m wondering if anyone has a solution to this problem.
It’s even harder when you use prototypical double shelf couplers. I have worked with a long flat piece of plastic, about 1/16 thick x 1/4 wide that inserts between the air houses, then move one of the cars back and forth. Not real easy. Easiest way is with magnets.
Richard
Try pulling the ‘Near’ trip pin toward you as you have slack in the couplers. Hold it, then move the cars apart. You can make a small tool using a dowel with a wire in the end. Bend the wire to make a hook for doing this.
I’ve read this a couple times lately about passenger cars having shelf couplers. Having worked for a railroad for over 30 years and never seen a prototype passenger car with those type of couplers, I searched for images of “Pullman cars” and didn’t see one with a shelf coupler, let alone a double shelf coupler. Many of them have Tightlock couplers (mating surfaces on the sides) but none had double shelf couplers (horns top and bottom).
It would be interesting to see a picture of a prototype passenger car with a double shelf coupler.
I’ll give this one a try. I might have the perfect tool for this, The bacon wrapped filets I buy from Kansas City Steaks have a metal skewer to hold the bacon in place and they have a hoop at one end. If that hoop isn’t too big, it might work.
This has made me think of a second problem. I will have side by side trains that will be swapping cars. Getting at the one furthest from the aisle will be difficult. I’m thinking if I position that uncoupling point ahead of the uncoupling point of the train closer to me and then pull those cars ahead, that should open the other train for uncoupling. I just have to see how this will work with the turnouts and structures positioned where they are.
Have you considered “electro-magnets”? They only become magnetic when current flows through them. Since buying a batch can be expensive, you could consider installing just two at your most active or critical sections.
Just a thought - [8D]
I
I did consider them when I built the layout but rejected the idea after I figured all the different locations I would need to place uncoupling magnets for even a fairly simply switching location. For this particular application, the two trains are swapping two cars for one, which means two uncoupling points on each track and since the process will reverse itself on the return trip, that’s four more for a total of 8. Even if I was willing to go to that expense, as I remember, those electromagnetic uncouplers are fairly bulky and I’m not sure I could retrofit them into my benchwork at this time without some fairly major surgery.
If the hook uncoupling tool previously suggested does not work out, I’m thinking of rigging together a larger version of the Rix magnetic uncoupling tool which resembles a tuning fork and has a magnet on each side. The Rix tool can’t reach down to the couplers with diaphrams in the way but if make a slightly bigger one that will reach, possibly using a Kadee uncoupling magnet on each side, it might work. Only one way to find out.
Magnetic couplers worked fine for the LION on his older layout, where such manipulations of passenger cars was required.
Me thinks the problem is not in the couplers: they will work just fine. The problem is in the Locomotive, and more specifically in the engineer. When pulling a consist across the magnet him has to keep an nice even hand on the throttle so that no slack would occur in his train. LION mounted lights on poles over the magnets so that the LPP could see the couplers and so that the 1:1 oaf at the control knew exactly where the magnet was.
Operations is also an issue. Prototypically a train would pull into the station, and then a switcher would come and pick it apart. THAT would need magnets all over the place and would in deed be a source of unwanted partings. And so you have to plan YOUR operations to work with what you have.
On my Eregion Railroad, Train No1. the King’s Express would arrive at Fornost behind a pair of Alco PA-1s. They would uncouple from the consist and escape via track 2. Having arrived at the south end of the consist they would begin to break it up and push the coaches into one track, the sleepers and diners into another. Properly the Alcos would have gone to the engine yard, and a switcher would come out to do this work, but Fornost has neither engine yard nor switcher. Operations MUST bend to reality.
So LION thinks that you 1) need to use magnets, but not too many of them.
and 2) you must arrange your tracks and your operations to use them to their maximum ability.
I do not know if you are using DCC and if that makes a difference to how smoothly your trains can run.
LION found that his locomotives (Using DC) were so smooth that they sometimes had difficulty uncoupling at the magnet. For this the LION built a “Cutting Key”. Your railroad might not know what a cutting key is, but LIRR, MTA and other users of MU passenger equipment will know of the cutting key, which operated the electric couplers on the consist.
Jecorbett,
That Idea of Yours with the extended Rix uncoupling sounds like it is feasible, let us know if you succeed.
Cheers,
Frank
How about a Kadee undertrack magnet that slides out of the way when not in use?
Try a Kadee electromagnet under the roadbed. Use a figure or other mark to show its location.
Lion would not the whole thread be moot to you even if you used couplers as subway cars have no diaphragms to speak of. Incidentally you came up at Bible Study as I was asking about Monks having hobbies. The priest said its quite common in Benedictine orders.
Everybody should have a hobby. More elaborate hobbies are available to Benedictines because of thier vow of stability. We join one house, and there we stay for the rest of our lives.
Yes, couplers/ uncouplers are moot on my layout, but my on my previous layout I did have the same issues with passenger cars, and breaking up a train at the terminal station. The fewer magnets you can use the better. Me thinks a smooth hand on the throttle will work wonders passing over the magnets. It is also important to mortise out the ties where the magnets will be placed, otherwise they will be too high and actually touch the couplers.
Magnets from hard disk drives are very strong, very good, but their polarity is weird, you must orient them just so for them to work, but once you do that they have possibilities.
ROAR
I use 1/8" dia x 3/8" long rare earth magnets and they are hard to see once installed flush with the ties. I put 2 magnets between the ties as close to the rails as possible. You have a small ‘window’ of operation but I mark them with paint or other markers (signs). Just drill an 1/8" dia hole thru the roadbed and push the magnet in until flush with the top of the rail.
-Bob
Will do. Haven’t had time to rig it together yet because a finnicky turnout has been occupying my time. Hope to get to it this weekend.
I finally got around to giving this one a try. Disappointing results. I used two Kadee between-the-tracks uncoupling magnets but they didn’t open the couplers as I had hoped. Rather than pull the coupling pins in opposite directions which is the way the Rix took works, the couplers would both swing to the same side depending on which magnet was closer. I couldn’t find a point where they would move in opposite directions.
I’m going to give this one more try. Somewhere I have some under-the-track Kadee magentic uncouplers with intensifer plates. They should have a stronger pull and maybe will do what I want. The hard part will be finding them. When I removed them from my mainline tracks because of unwanted uncoupling, I know I saved them and have used them to help find small screws and other metal parts that I drop on the floor and can’t locate. I just can’t remember when and where I last used them or where I put them.
I was hoping that your experiment w/ the modified Rix would have worked. My Walther’s heavyweights are such a pain to uncouple. The #5s and the diaphrams even cause trouble to 050 them for removal.
I guess I’m still having to use the skewer and reach from the side to “flip” one of the “trip pins”
Even thought of going to #58s and possible filing a small part of the diaphram bottom to gain the knuckle clearance to “hand remove” them. A bit leary of the smaller knuckle causing some possible uncouplings @ vertical transitions though.
I think that you could make an uncoupling tool which would work really well with diaphragmed-passenger cars if you could find an old-fashioned set of baby bottle tongs. The older ones were made of heavy wire, and it should be possible to re-shape the gripping ends of them to fit around the diaphragms while still bringing the ends closer to the couplers. Mount a couple of small magnets (button-type rare earth ones would be small enough to fit under the diaphragm), then adjust the bends in the tongs to give the proper distance between the closed ends.
I’m currently re-building a couple of locomotives for friends, but I think that it wouldn’t be too hard to fabricate a suitable tool from scratch. I’ll post here if I can come up with something workable once the locos are out of the way.
Wayne
I’ve had good luck using a bamboo skewer taped to a small flashlight and then coming in from the side on close coupled passenger cars and putting the skewer between the glad hands. Move the skewer a bit and take the slack out of the cars by pushing them gently together and then gently pull apart. Takes a little getting used to, but you’ll be a pro quickly. By glad hands I mean the uncoupling pins of Kadee couplers.
This is my first chance to revisit this issue since last March. I have tried the above method with some success although I’m still derailing the cars more often than I like. Maybe I just need a little more practice with it. The other method is one I came up with on my own. When the center of the car I want to uncouple is over the uncoupling point I put a KD between-the-rails uncoupling magnet under the center of the car and gently push it down with a small screwdriver. This will center it between the rails. I then pull the car forward so the couplers are over the magnet and then uncouple in the traditional magnetic coupler method. I tried putting the uncoupling magnet in front of the train and having the train pass over it, but the magnet would attach itself to the loco. I’ve had some success with this method too although if I don’t get the magnet centered between the rails, it will derail the car. Since I have code 83 Atlas track, the uncoupling magent sits slightlly higher than the rail head so I have bent the uncoupling pins on the cars slightly higher than standard so that don’t catch on the magnet.
I’m going to keep practicing with both methods before settling on one or the other. Of course, if someone can suggest another method, I’m more than willing to try.