I have had a 3472 Milk Car with coil couplers for years, but really never paid detailed attenttion to its performance; I have successfully run it in a train, stopped at the platform and unloaded it and continued on.
Questions I have: When you position the car on a 6019 uncoupling track, and press the uncouple button, do both couplers open? My guess, as I sit here at work in our latest Nor'easter snow event, is yes. So how do you cut the car out of a train and drop it at a siding? Second, can you build your own unloading platform, and get the same unloading performance if there is no magnetic metal in your platform?
My real plan is to install Atlas control rails in Gargraves track in accord with a recent CTT article, at the extreme end of a siding in good view for the grandkids. . I plan to wire one control rail so that it is always connected to ground, and then the other so that a single push button closes the circuit to constant auxilliary voltage. This means only one of the couplers will open, at the same time the milk car unloads.
If I got my hands on a more modern car with mag. couplers, I could make a (to me) better arrangement by puttinging an uncoupling section immediate to the end of the control rails by cannibalizing a magnet from an old 6019 and installing it ala a method Peter Riddle has described.
Suggestions?
stuartmit When you position the car on a 6019 uncoupling track, and press the uncouple button, do both couplers open?
Yes, as the coil couplers are connected by way of the hot shoes under the car.
stuartmit So how do you cut the car out of a train and drop it at a siding?
You can position the Milk Car over the Operating Track Section, and uncouple both ends of the Milk Car, or uncouple the cars before and after the Milk Car.
stuartmit Can you build your own unloading platform, and get the same unloading performance if there is no magnetic metal in your platform?
Yes, but there is less likelihood of the Milk Cans remaining upright.
Kurt
stuartmit: So how do you cut the car out of a train and drop it at a siding?
From Kurt:
But when you open couplers on both ends, you need to retain the coupler on the leading end of the car in the closed postion in order to pull the car down the line past the turnout for the siding and then back it in there; you do not want to open the lead coupler. If you say, well just back the loco up and recouple, then you will probbaly recouple on the opposite end as well.
As I type this, it strikes me that there may be enough length in the situation that you can postion the car asymetrically so the trailing truck is over one control rail, but the leading truck is not over the other control rail, In that case, only one coupler, the trailing coupler would open, leacing the car hooked to the end of the train with the loco; then just pull away, pass the turnout and back into the siding.
Now a further question occurs to me: Regarding the wiring of the control rail, you would only need one live if you connected one lead of the solenoid mechanism to the fram of the car; it would always provide a path to gorund, and you can wire one control rail through the push button to the auxilliary constant voltage terminal. Who dat? no no I mean How's that?
stuartmit if you connected one lead of the solenoid mechanism to the fram of the car; it would always provide a path to gorund, and you can wire one control rail through the push button to the auxilliary constant voltage terminal...
This method inevitably leads to milk cans strewn about your layout from unintended operation of the unloading mechanism(especially around switches).
Rob
Ok, I follow that!!thnks.
BTW where is there a tutorial on how to copy quotes on this board, and other tricks?
Most of your questions are answered here.
Stuartmit, you stated your 3472 Milk Car was equipped with coil couplers. My 3472 has the magnetic couplers actuated by a metal plate under the trucks rather than a thumb tack, but it is not a coil coupler. If your milk car is the same, you should be able to release only one coupler while the train is moving. It was my understanding that only the 3462 milk car had coil couplers. If I am wrong, hopefully someone will correct me.
Thanks for your comment; wrote that post this am at work durring east coast blizzard---got some snow in brain and didn't accurately recall car number. Checked this pm in a Greenberg book I have from 15-20 years ago and find the 3472 had the couplers you describe; my 3462 is correct with (annoying) coil couplers but I think I can solve the problem of both opening simultaneously with careful spotting of car so that only the lead truck in on control rail, and other is over the end of the 6019, and so not activated.
If I were you I would just buy a 3472. I found one on Trainz, with the platform and milk cans, for $39.99. In contrast, a 3462 like you have was $44.99.
If you press the UNLOAD button instead of the UNCOUPLE button,the one control rail sends a "positive" charge to the coupler and the solenoid. The other control rail sends a "negative" charge to the coupler and the solenoid. So only the one coil coupler should fire. At least that was the way my operating track sections worked.
Mel Hazen; Jax, FL Ride Amtrak. It's the only way to fly!!!
Yeah--I believe you are correct; will have to check that out. Thanks
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