Magnets for Model Couplers?

[Green_Elite_Cab]

Rare earth magnets are both small enough and strong enough to be used to hold together a train. But...Consider the force required to separate cars that have a strong enough magnetic attraction to stay together under all running conditions on the layout. Any fixed magnet that is strong enough to hold when you want it to without failure is going to have too high a force to separate when you want to uncouple. An electromagnet can have its field intensity varied, but now you have the complication of both powering and controlling the electromagnet.

I am familiar with the use of magnets to hold the wooden Brio trains together. The magnets used are fairly weak so that the cars can be separated by little kids' hands when desired. But these weak magnets also mean the inadvertent uncouplings on occasion. Getting the correct magnetic force so that uncoupling is reasonable, yet the train won't come apart unless desired, would not be easy.

Fred W

Well, the only thing i'm thinking, is that these passenger cars are relatively light, and with every other car powered, i don't expect there to be to much of a strong force on them. I'll have to see what is out there. Maybe i can leave hole in between the surfaces so that i can push a pick in between the mating surfaces, like the uncoupling picks they make already.

doing more digging on the internet, Kato seems to make a similar coupler, but its sold by their Kato Japan side of things, and i haven't found anyone offering to sell those parts seperately to the US.