LastspikemikeBuy a Rapido car with lights, they have a useful magnetic wand comes with every car.
Well, that would be one way to do it, albeit somewhat expensive.
I use a neodymium cylindrical magnet about 1/4" in dia. by 3/4" long. Works great! Costs a bit over a buck each.
https://www.kjmagnetics.com/proddetail.asp?prod=D4C
Dave
I'm just a dude with a bad back having a lot of fun with model trains, and finally building a layout!
I made a pair of wands using six ⅛” round neodymium magnets attached to a ⅛” dowel. Heat shrink over the magnets and dowel work great.I use magnetic latching read switches in my cabooses and baggage cars to control the lighting.I use a decoder function in my baggage cars to trip a relay and parallel the relay contacts with a latching reed switch for operating in DC mode.Mel My Model Railroad http://melvineperry.blogspot.com/ Bakersfield, California Turned 84 in July, aging is definitely not for wimps.
There were various designs of the so-called wand from a simple 3/4" long cylindrical metal "dowel" to a plastic-housed "Broadway Limited" style keychain fob.
I found that in many cases when the reed switch was buried deep within a tender or E/F-unit shell, the magnet supplied wasn't strong enough to trip the switch.
I had success with stronger, neodymium magnets and the best result I got was from a magnet removed from an old computer hard drive.
Good Luck, Ed
Hello. Does anyone still have the Magnetic Wand used to perform some operations on Proto 2000 QSI dual mode sound equipped locomotives? I cannot locate mine (I bought the Proto UP E-8's back in 2005 and the wand came with it.). I'm sure I still have it, but problem is after all this time I don't remember what it looks like. Fortunatley I have the wand instructions that came with my QSI loco. I'm asking anyone that if you have it, can you please e-mail me a "photo" of the wand which may help me find it once I see it. Thanks in advance.
JRP