PWRS/NARC Has Magnetic Air Lines Coming....

[GaryHinshaw]

If you orient the poles so that, e.g., north is always left, then it works.

[mmagliaro]

Add a conductive wire through them, or alongside them, so these could be used on steam loco/tender connections,
and I would be chomping at the bit for them.  No more drawbar springy things, no more soldering permanent
wires across from the tender. 

[up1950s]

You DCC guys would need a slew of these to make all the steam loco connections . The result would be like the Tums commercial

[Sokramiketes]

Who developed these for NARC?  I seem to remember a prior video from the originator. 

[JoeD]

The same guy.

Joe

[cv_acr]

Apparently the guy that originally tried to market these got overwhelmed by orders in about an hour, so he sold it to PWRS so they can mass produce and market it.

[robert3985]

If they work well (seamlessly) in N-scale, I'll be ordering them for my entire fleet. 

Yes, I don't use Magnematic uncoupling. Yes, I cut the dongles off of all my Z-scale and N-scale couplers, Yes, I use a giant tree trunk (from Rix) for uncoupling, since I have not figured out yet how to animate a train crew to walk alongside the tracks and manually uncouple my cars. Wait...I am the train crew, and I uncouple my cars...with a pick.

Magic Magnetic uncoupling is more unreal to me than using a pick.

I am quite amazed (not in a positive way) at modelers who think this is going too far.  It does everything (except install itself) without any effort whatsoever.  What?  TOO MUCH DETAIL for ya???

Criminy...

[Denver Road Doug]

Lots of innovation coming out of PWRS, Prairie Shadows and other Canadian companies.

Are PWRS and Prairie Shadows connected somehow?

My beef is not with "Canadian companies", just with one.   And as someone else stated...it has nothing to do with the actual *price*, but with the "cost" of having to deal with said company.

I'm very excited about Prairie Shadows' announcements of late. 

[Scottl]

They are not associated with each other, as I understand it.   I don't understand the rest of your comments, but I would rather not get into a discussion that is political.

[Andrew Hutchinson]

I'll put myself in the camp of people who think this sort of thing is interesting. Not interested in PWRS, I'd nevertheless enjoy the chance to see the airhoses in person. What follows is something I've posted elsewhere and I'll post again here. It strikes me that the idea is more important than the object in this case.

In that light here are some working brake pipe articles I found particularly interesting and inspiring.

Dave Davis' Davis Jct layout featured in Great model railroads 2001

Jim Smith-Wright of New Street fame.

http://www.p4newstreet.com/articles
look  for brake hose article under red herring genesis heading as it is mislabled

Or go direct

http://www.p4newstreet.com/articlePDFs/Update%2042%20pipes.pdf
not sure how scrambled the above will come out.

There are other articles - these are the ones I used.

Cheers,

Andrew Hutchinson

[VonRyan]

I love the idea, but I doubt they'd be that useable in N scale since you'd probably need to weight your cars to NMRA standards to keep the cars from remaining "coupled" by just the hoses alone. I prefer to remove as much weight as possible from my rolling stock, and will soon hopefully begin the process of fine-tuning MT trucks to make cars more free-rolling, so I won't be using these except for perhaps between F units and any passenger-type stock.

-Cody F.

[engineshop]

Maybe it's just me but the magnet got much bigger than they looked on the initial hoses.

[peteski]

.. you'd probably need to weight your cars to NMRA standards to keep the cars from remaining "coupled" by just the hoses alone. I prefer to remove as much weight as possible from my rolling stock...

That sure is unconventional thinking Cody.   Do you know something that modelers who follow NMRA recommendations do not know? 
If you do end up with lots of featherweight cars, you might not like what will most likely happens when you run a long train of them around N-Trak layout (or even try to back them up through a curve). 

[wcfn100]

Do you know something that modelers who follow NMRA recommendations do not know? 

The NMRA weight recommendations need to be revisited for cars with lower ride height, metal wheel and body mounted couplers. 

Jason

[VonRyan]

That sure is unconventional thinking Cody.   Do you know something that modelers who follow NMRA recommendations do not know? 
If you do end up with lots of featherweight cars, you might not like what will most likely happens when you run a long train of them around N-Trak layout (or even try to back them up through a curve). 

I guess you could say I'm picking up some knowledge that is quite contrary to NMRA standards, but works extremely well.

Removing all excess weight is the first step. the next step is to tune the trucks so they are more free-rolling.
 
Yes, even more free rolling than before.

It is labor-intensive, and I myself have yet to start the process, but I've seen long trains with every car tuned accordingly and it is quite the sight. When you can blow on car and it rolls for 6 or so feet with no effort, it speaks for itself.

I've seen cars tuned correctly not only backed up through curves (80+ cars) but through turnouts. Of course it also helps to have pizza-cutters in those trucks, or at least mid-grade flanges.

I know of one person who went to the extreme of removing the cast metal underframes from their micro-trains cars and casting them in resin to make them even lighter. 200 cars behind one stock F-unit is something to behold.

-Cody F.