Coupling is easy, just lift the magnet with a hook and it'll locate itself, to uncouple just use the bottom of the hook and push the magnet down and it'll slide down and off.

Kindest Regards,

Jack

Very neat. You might be able to avoid the polarity issue by gluing the magnets sideways to the end of the elastic, with half the length of elastic at each end of the vehicle. Then when they get close enough together (I assume they're Neodymium?) they'll sort out the polarity themselves. The Lego magnetic couplings also do something interesting, where the magnets are mounted in swivelling frames so they can turn themselves around to present the right polarity, but that might be overkill (and difficult to do in such a small scale).

Do you have any problems with the vehicles lifting off the track when uncoupling, or is their weight enough to keep them in place?

Im curious as to what the maximum length train is that this method can employ. Well done however on a very clever alternative method .

Will, I think having the magnets side on would mean they are more likely to slide apart, there is little friction to be overcome when sliding the magnets over each other, which is good for uncoupling when mounted end on, but would reduce the "draw bar" strength and make uncoupling more difficult if mounted side on. The weight of the vehicles is enough to keep them in place, because you're using the nearest axle as the pivot point when pushing down the weight of the wagon has the mechanical advantage over you and because metal on metal presents little friction the magnets slide down and out of each other's fields easily.

rcmacchipilot, the length possible will depend on several factors; The length/weight of the train, the ammount of fiction in the wheelsets and the tightness of the curves. I reckon 30 wagons if the curves are not too tight and the wheel sets are fairly free rolling, interestingly when you start a train you have to do it like it would be done in the real world, you have to take the slack out of the couplings before you put the real power down, otherwise you risk the front magnet disconnecting! If you want to run longer trains you can just add more magnets, have two, or even three end on in each buffer beam and you'll increase the coupling strength.

Kindest Regards,

Jack

I thought that Jim's idea coupling the brake hoses was good... but this just adds practicality to what was previously a finescale suggestion... possibly not fine enough for 2mm.... but seems to work superbly for this! If you displaced them from centre, I presume they'd be too big to pretent to be brake pipes ?

Jon

P.S. ... just bought some! Thanks for the link. Brake pipes ahoy! I'm working in 4mm... so it should work (hopefully)

Hi guys, thanks for the positive comments.

Pete, on the locos I have the same configuration as the wagons, buffer beam magnet one end, elastic and magnet t'other, but I have a piece of steel wire vertically down from the buffer beam for the magnet to stick to, this keeps it bent round when not in use and looking like a brake pipe so it doesn't stick out like a sore rapido!

Jon and Mike, the elastic is a little chunky for a scale brakepipe, but I think you can get smaller magnets though they cost more and I haven't found a seller on eBay. Certainly worth experimenting with, I'd be well impressed at seeing working brake and vac pipes in N that's for sure!

Kindest Regards,

Jack

I'll have a go tonight Pete and see what I can come up with!

Cheers,

Jack

Here we go, a video showing the uncoupling/coupling operation. Apologies for the quailty, I had to compress the video to make it small enough to upload.

Kindest Regards,

Jack

Strange, I assumed it would be the same as an attached image.

Try this: http://imageshack.us/clip/my-videos/839/yjw.mp4/

Cheers,

Jack