Need help with cattle car and stockyard set

[jefelectric]

David, Send me an email with your email address and I will send you some information on the stock car/stock yard.

[jefelectric]

David, As Roger pointed out the stock yard and cattle car can be frustrating. After about 5 years of fiddling with mine, I just took it off the layout. Thinking about selling it on ebay. The milk car, although not perfect works much better.

[Sturgeon-Phish]

Is your stockyard the lionel or the AF 771?
Jim

[Anonymous]

As Roger points out, do not use the UCS. For one thing, it does not supply power to the corral! The corral includes a frame to place a section of tubular track next to the corral. Between the 3 rails are two frogs to supply power to the car. On 027 track the frogs reach the contact shoes on the car. Make sure the top is not rusty to get a good contact. For O track there are two clips to extend the height of the frogs to reach the shoes. Doesn't work with Super O or OEM track, they block the frogs. Has to be tubular.
Power is to the corral contacts. The plate in the corral that the cattle tread on should be loose enough to vibrate. Voltage is tricky, supply enough to get the cattle to move but not so much they jump around. Cattle move left to right in the corral, right to left in the car. (Just the opposite of the horse car). Really tough to correct the ones that fall inside the car.
Make sure the rubber fingers on the base of the cattle are vertical or close to it. Store them with no pressure on the fingers.
I often suspect that Lionel made the operating cars balky so the kids would have to "play" with them just to get them to work.

[phillyreading]

Roger, I am familiar with only a few of the operating accessories made by Lionel and from what you say about it maybe that is why I stay away from operating accessories except for the semafore or crossing gates.
Lee F.

[Roger Bielen]

David, if it is the set I'm familiar with (3656) a standard section of 3 rail track snaps into the base, there are two upright pieces of the sheet metal that make the contact with the car shoes. The height of the coral is adjustable for either O-27 or O track height. Power, and common, is connected to the coral terminals with an on/off switch in the circuit. Not to be discouraging but this is considered one of Lionel's blunders, the car/coral is very difficult to get to operate reliably. I have fooled with mine making modifications and it seems every time I solve one problem another occurs. Mine is currently a non-operating item on my layout, someday maybe I'll get back to fooling with it.

[davidwebb]

Thanks Lee,
How is the stockyard powered? Just aux power to the two terminals? Or does it need an on/off?
David

[phillyreading]

Welcome David,

Most cattle cars need to use a remote controlled uncoupling track, the one I am familier with is the Lionel five rail UCS track. You need to know how your cattle car gets power, there are normally two ways, one is thru pickup shoes on the bottom of the car-both positve & negative pickup over the UCS track, the second is to get the positive from the pickup shoe and the negative from the car frame if it is metal.
The UCS track needs to have both a negative feed and a positive feed to activate the cattle car. The wired remote with it is simply a momentary on/off switch that you press down on.
Lee Fritz

[davidwebb]

I just bought a used set - without instructions.
I don't know how it is worked, how to connect it, and I don't know if I have the correct control rail.
Any info or advice would be appreciated.
David