Radio Shack's Rare Earth Magnets - Part One

There was a lively discussion, in the not too far past, on TrainBoard.com, in the Nscale group, about using Radio Shack's Rare Earth Magnets for uncoupling. After reading all of the posts I was still somewhat skeptical of magnetic uncoupling itself. Before the thread on TB I had heard a lot of folks with a helluva lot more experience than me were using Magnematic couplers, but using Skewers or a Rix Pick, or the like to uncouple their cars. Because of the unreliability: No Magnets on the layouts. I had heard a lot of negatives about Kadee (HO) and Microtrains (N) not to mention Accumates which are multiscale. Unexpected uncoupling, Exploding couplers, etc. The unreliability when I first started in MRR (long ago) was enough to make me stick to the Rapido type couplers. That and the fact that most equipment came with rapido couplers was pretty much a deal killer for me. Come 2005 though, and I see a lot of equipment in N Scale being shipped with knuckle type couplers. A lot of model Railroad tech has changed in the last few years and I'm not hearing as many negatives about magnetic uncoupling as I used to. But all of the equipment I had up to this point, of course, had rapido couplers. Okay, I thought, maybe I should revisit magnetic uncoupling. I see a lot of experience on TB in the Positive, not all, but most, folks are using some type of knuckle or magnetic couplers with magnetic uncoupling. Time for an experiment...This could be pretty interesting. Where to start? Well, (of course) I would need some equipment that has these types of couplers. So first I decided to convert my ATSF Kato F7's to MicroTrains couplers. Got some couplers for the F7's. The A unit was a real task. It was so much of a task it took 2 posts and a lot of discussion on TrainBoard.com to get through it. Part 1 is here: My First Coupler Conversion for a Locomotive - Part 1 Part 2 is here: My First Coupler Conversion for a Locomotive - Part 2 I had found out about midway through the operation that the first generation Kato F7 coupler conversions was a real bugbear...And it was. Shortly thereafter I picked up My First MicroTrains Freight Car. And my curiosity was peaked. But I got distracted by some other projects for a while. Then I worked for WigWag at the World's Greatest Hobby Train Show here in H-Town and I picked up some more equipment. An Atlas Shell Chemical Tank Car and an Atlas MOPAC MP15. Both have Accumate couplers. I've also picked up some other Micro-Trains couplers too. I was now ready to try this. Went by the Local Radioshack and picked up 2 packages: Rare Earth Super Magnets - 1/8" Button Catalog #: 64-1895 They are cheap. $1.89 per package. And quite small. As I said before, these tiny things are really powerful. Difficult to pry apart. Once I got the first pair apart and inadvertently put them together (or as close as they could get) on opposite poles, they literally flew apart. I found one of them on the leg of my chair and the other was stuck to the edge of my work table...three feet away. So I started a new thread on trainboard.com about magnet placement: Where to place uncoupling magnets. The question was actually about where to put them. I never did get a real answer as to placement, but we did have another lively discussion about how to place them. One school of thought is to put one disk under each rail at the point of uncoupling. On code 80 atlas track at the end of the rail there is a space where they just seem to snap in. This space is (of course) smaller on code 55 and the magnets will not fit there. The other is to stack two between the ties with the topmost magnet about even with the top of the ties. I tried it both ways. Next post: The experiment bears fruit!