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Rudy, I uncouple manually on my layout, which focuses on switching, but not completely by hand as you do, since I'm somewhat of a klutz and can't seem to consistently put cars back on the rails smoothly and consistently. I use Kadees or similar couplers only and use the home-made uncoupling tool described by Lionel Strang a couple of years ago in MR. It's made out of plastic coated soft wire (Plastruct I think) and it's shaped something like this: ----------------------| | |------ Basically two right-angle bends in the wire about 1/4" each at the end. When the car is positioned ready to uncouple, you take in the slack slightly on the car to be spotted (doing this by hand) and catch the coupler hook facing you with the tip of this tool, and pull it toward you slightly, then release the slack and the car will drift ever so slightly away from the rest of the train and voila! - it's uncoupled. I also use Caboose Industries ground throws on all turnouts because I think it gets you more involved with the operation of the train. More power to you Rudy in your prototypical uncoupling practices.
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