As you know I have Kato track and I am looking at some device to uncouple my wagons, does anyone have any suggestions which will not be to hard to fit to my Railway.

Quote from: Geoff on December 06, 2013, 09:21:35 PM
As you know I have Kato track and I am looking at some device to uncouple my wagons, does anyone have any suggestions which will not be to hard to fit to my Railway.

Geoff,
Suggest you drop a PM to East Anglian as his layout has Kato track and he has made his own uncouplers and, yes, I have seen them work

I have used a method on Lofthole which is magnets sliding in tubes.  The fact that the Unitrack is hollow means the magnet can slide right up inside and get close to the coupler.

It works fairly perfectly -always gets a lot of interest in exhibitions.  Judge for yourself: 


Lofthole Part 2

In other places I have installed a pair of smaller magnets (again, under the track, invisible) to operate Dapol Eazi-Shunt couplers.  That works fine too - but I don't have any video of that!

Cheers  Jon   

Kato do a 64mm piece of track (20-032) with a magnet in.

My video, bit boring and technical but hopefully informative.

N gauge magnetic uncoupling - Kato 20-032 and Dapol NEM Easi-Shunt couplers

Quote from: d-a-n on December 08, 2013, 08:12:06 PM
Kato do a 64mm piece of track (20-032) with a magnet in.

My video, bit boring and technical but hopefully informative.

N gauge magnetic uncoupling - Kato 20-032 and Dapol NEM Easi-Shunt couplers

This is looking like the route I will go down many thanks Dan and everyone who has given advice.

Hi Jon,
I notice your stock is using the standard N gauge coupling and works well. What modifications have you done to them for magnets to lift them, have you used the metal bits from Seep?

Thank you

Quote from: Trev on December 08, 2013, 09:19:24 PM
Hi Jon,
I notice your stock is using the standard N gauge coupling and works well. What modifications have you done to them for magnets to lift them, have you used the metal bits from Seep?

I was wondering the same thing - have you glued metal frets to the couplings? I tried some frets I bought from Gaugemaster with the Kato magnet track but it was unsuccessful - it seemed the spring in the coupling box on a standard coupler was a limiting factor, along with the low 'pull' off the Kato magnet (but don't read this as it being inadequate!)

Good on you for persevering with your magnet under track system!

For Peco couplings I have just used the Peco "lift arms"

For Farish spring couplers I have simply (it really is simple) replaced the spring with a pivot using a track pin, and created my own "lift arm" by using another track pin. Not much perseverance was necessary, it worked pretty much perfectly first time, and is extremely reliable.  I did an article it the much lamented "Red Death" magazine.  Here are the key pictures.  Note that the extra wire wrapped around the lift pin in the photos is not necessary, the magnets are plenty strong enough without it.







Cheers Jon 

Wow Jon that will save a few bob, thanks very much for the details.

Thank you Jon for the excellent "How to"

Much appreciated, particularly as I have a mixture of Peco, old Farish and new Farish/Dapol stock

Quote from: Trev on December 09, 2013, 09:00:08 PM
Thank you Jon for the excellent "How to"

Much appreciated, particularly as I have a mixture of Peco, old Farish and new Farish/Dapol stock

My pleasure guys!  Just a word of caution, although I have got the method to work on NEM-equipped stock, it is much trickier as the NEM mechanism tends to be much stiffer in the lift sense.  So on Lofthole I have a mixture of systems, with a pair of fixed magnets where the NEM equipped stock, fitted with EasiShunts, needs to be uncoupled.

Cheers  Jon   

That's a great system, could it be applied to stock like the 16t Mineral which has a funny little coupling box?
I hope you find a solution for NEM stock, I find for normal shunting together coupling, NEM is awful on Rapido stock due to the stiffness.

Hi Dan,

I don't have any 16T minerals so I can't say for sure, but I would think so.  I have converted other 4 wheel wagons (See the Albright and Wilson Tankers in "Lofthole Part 1" on You Tube).

Conversion is similar; you might have to carve away the rear of the coupler box to make room for the lift arm, and glue a small strip of plasticard or a thin wire at the bottom of the coupling to stop "droop"!

Cheers   Jon