Un-couplers

One of the real advantages of an expanded polystyrene base is that it is easy to carve and work with. The old layout was plywood and homosoat board - very stout but not fun to work with or cut into. The da

rk rectangles are uncoupler magnets that I am positioning under certain track locations. The couplers on the cars have a little metal pin that hangs underneath. When you stop the train with the couplers centered on these magnets, the force makes the couplers let go. This allows you to place or "drop" a freight car by a loading dock, etc. All without touching anything. The only challenge is to figure out where they go before you lay the track so you can cut out a depression and put them in. Thus the light lines I have drawn. A couple of nice deals with this is that once uncoupled, you can push the car back onto the siding without re-coupling, and drop it at the end. Also, when the train passes over the magnet and keeps moving, the tension between the couplers will prevent uncoupling.

The depression in the rear with the track is a place the RGS pulled in a locomotive. There will be a track just above the cut where a gondola would have been parked, full of coal. Given the cheapness of labor in 1910, a workman would hand shovel the coal into the locomotive tender. Since the track was a little lower, it was an easier throw. Ugh. Also, the depression is the height of a flatcar so that delivers of automobiles and tractors could be made by driving them right off the car onto the road to the left. The Dolores station will be just to the left of the road.