Air Jets For Classification Yard

Model Railroader published an article by Ed Ravenscroft about doing this back in the 1960's I think. Don't recall the exact issue though. He got it to work in HO.

George Lasley

I thought Jim Policastro posted how he had stiff bristles in the track bed which slowed the cars. If it was not Jim I apologize, but I remember bristles of some sort in the track or on the sides.

You can use any brand of "Magnetic Uncoupler" track to do this. You just need to activate the magnet when one of the "already open" couplers passes over it.

For example; If you have a cut of 3 cars that you want to roll down the hump into "track 3", you slow that cut of cars by activating the magnet under the open coupler on the front of the first car OR the open coupler on the rear of the 3rd car. You'll also need to do some experimenting with the location of the uncoupler on the downhill side of the hump.

Also, don't make the hump grade too steep. Some cars will bottom out or just roll down too fast

This method worked well on my old layout. Give it a try.
- RICH

Hi Guy's,

I've seen this set up in action several years ago on an HO layout. They had small air jets connected to an air tank that was fed by an air compressor. The jets were in between the rails and blew uphill at the rolling stock on the hump of the hump yard. It was at the New York Society of Model Engineer's club in New Jersey. I don't know if they still have it working. It was a completely custom set-up. It worked pretty well. If I remember corectly it was noisey.

I know we have a forum member who is also member of their O scale club. He could probably tell us more about it. Their HO layout is right next to their O scale layout. Two very nice layouts.

Mike R

quote:

It was at the New York Society of Model Engineer's club in New Jersey. I don't know if they still have it working. It was a completely custom set-up. It worked pretty well. If I remember corectly it was noisey.

Yep IT's still running!

quote:

Originally posted by richtrow:
You can use any brand of "Magnetic Uncoupler" track to do this. You just need to activate the magnet when one of the "already open" couplers passes over it.

If you can decelerate, it stands to reason you can accelerate using a linear array of sequenced electromagnets/coils - more economical and compact to implement with modern electronic components than traditional relay technology. Apparently even the Navy is updating aircraft carrier catapults from steam-pressure to electro-magnetic technology.