RFT

This thread is fascinating- I’ve lived next to the kineton base for about 15 years and often wondered about the rail traffic. Only once caught an actual mainline train coming in, which was an EWS 66 with a train of VGAs, and that was probably 10 years ago...

On working slip coaches - My Grandfather had a working slip coach mechanism on the large 3mm layout in his loft that he built during the 70s, and that I loved playing with growing up during the 80s. the mechanism, as I remember it, was as follows. with the line clear, and the right isolated sections set, you had to press a push button to activate the system, then set the express off with the controller on the right speed setting. There was a magnet in chassis of the slip coach, which activated a reed switch under the track. this reed switch released a weight to roll down a sloped channel, towards another switch. (this was just a timer - these days you'd use a 555 chip circuit or similar). this switch fired a solenoid that raised (and then lowered) an uncoupling ramp, that uncoupled the slip coach - I think the standard tri-ang couplers were just filed to remove the locking hook. The coach then just rolled into the station. My Brother's still got the wiring diagram for the whole layout. The problem would be, from a model point of view, that the model rolling stock would need to freewheel into the station (instead of being braked), and therefore the uncoupling point would need to be defined by that. though I suppose one could try and increase friction on the slipcoach's axles if it were overshooting.

Wonderful stuff. will you be exhibiting it?