General Discussion (Model Railroader)

What is the diffrence between magnetic and standard? And how does the magnetic ones work and can I couple and uncouple the cars without touching them.

Thank You

ffmurphy81:

What is the diffrence between magnetic and standard? And how does the magnetic ones work and can I couple and uncouple the cars without touching them.

 

Thank You

The couplers you're talking about don't hold the cars together by magnetism, but have a knuckle much like the real thing, that can be opened magnetically (permanent or electromagent). The oldest and best known of the magnetic knuckle couplers are made by Kadee Quality Products. Their website shows the operation:

http://www.kadee.com/animation/c1.htm

I've used these since the sixties, and have never looked back. I've tried some of the other brand couplers like these but always come back to the Kadee's simply because they work reliably.

Yeah, Kadee is the way to go.  If you look at the couplers, they have a "hose" hanging down below the knuckle coupler.  This is simply a metal piece. It's slightly off-center, so their uncoupler magnets will pull it to the side when they pass over.  This opens the coupler, assuming there's no tension on the joint.  In an ideal world, a moving train would have tension on the couplers, and they would stay together.  In the real world,  or even the real model train world, this works most of the time, but still fails often enough to be a nuisance.  So, many of us use magnets only in yards and sidings, where we won't have trains uncoupling in motion unexpectedly.  For my mainline uncoupling, I've got a button-activated electromagnet.

I'd say that I can do my uncoupling, switching and car-spotting without touching the cars 90% of the time.  I'd like to make it 100%, but for the moment I'm satisfied.  The key is getting the couplers themselves installed correctly and set to exactly the right height, so that they will interact with the magnets when you want them to.

Secret:  Get the Kadee coupler installation gauge.  Use it religiously.  Get the trip-pin pliers, too.  Yeah, you can do this with ordinary pliers, most of the time.  But, if you buy the trip-pin pliers, you'll use them, just because you bought them.  And then you'll get it right.

Button activated electromagent on the mainline? Now there's an idea...

analog kid:

Button activated electromagent on the mainline? Now there's an idea...

An idea that's at least 30 years old.

Note the power requirements. 

analog kid:

Button activated electromagent on the mainline? Now there's an idea...

Here's a link to the Kadee page for this:

http://www.kadee.com/htmbord/page309.htm

As for 30 years old?  Well, my old Lionels had electromagnetic uncouplers back in the 50s.

 Tom,

I guess that I have been around a lot longer than you 'cause I had an Electromagnetic un-coupler on my Lionel "O" Guage set back in the early '50's. (like 1952). I do not think that it was something very new because all my cars had the magnetic un-coupling capability. There was a metal bar that was part of the bottom side of the coupler and when you stopped the train over the electromagnet and pushed the button, the bar was pulled down and opened the coupler. As a 13 year old, I thought that it was pretty neat.

Blue Flamer.