Sometimes the plastic Menards couplers need to be pushed pretty far in order to latch. Problem in this case is that the latch point is often farther than the other car's coupler will push its counterpart. Sometimes a dot of epoxy or similar glue on the outside edge of the coupler knuckle may help "extend" the contact surface enough to make them latch. Other times an excess bit of plastic flash will keep them from coming together far enough to latch...they "bottom out" before the knuckles lock. As for unexpected uncoupling, sometimes faulty tolerances allow the plunger that opens the coupler to hang too low, causing it to open at the slightest provocation. I'd inspect the horizontal plastic piece that the uncoupling plunger is attached to, and if it hangs down too low under the coupler head, you can either attempt to bend it so that it exerts more upward pressure, or wrap a small rubber band around the coupler shank to provide that upward pressure. I re-worked a 24-car pack of Menards flatcars on a personal challenge and got them to stay closed and run in a single train without incident. If you google "Tuning my Menard's 24-Flatcar Set", you'll see my post on the O Gauge Railroading forum years ago where I detailed (with photos) how I made these fixes. The power losses suffered by your steam engine may need you to run additional power feeds to points far away from the transformer. Single lengths of wire lose way less power than the rail joints between the transformer and the farthest points of your layout. If you make these additional connections every 10' or so, your heavier locomotives should be able to make it all the way out and back with little hesitation.
Shame to see all that work in the pulley system go to waste, but it's nice to see it work in the end. But I still stand by my comment in a previous video about Bluetooth switches, then you could in theory have multiple tracks like a actual yard. Don't know why the manufacturers haven't come up with that idea yet. I guess step 2 would be fixing the couplers, and inclines. But I would also suggest a step 3, extending your controller. Because it seemed like you had some close calls rushing to lower the speed, and getting the lose cars off the track.
@@trainandmore The engines in the videos are both old stock. One thing I’ll be looking for at the upcoming train shows is a new engine with its own remote control. They’re not cheap, but they’d give me that flexibility. I actually do have one like that, but I didn’t want to run it outside until I was sure the track was going to work.
I can see you are having the voltage drop issues that I mentioned in a comment on your previous video. The steam engine may be drawing more current making it more susceptible. By the way, where are you located? You can message me if you don't want to post. I am in the New york hudson valley area.
Sometimes the plastic Menards couplers need to be pushed pretty far in order to latch. Problem in this case is that the latch point is often farther than the other car's coupler will push its counterpart. Sometimes a dot of epoxy or similar glue on the outside edge of the coupler knuckle may help "extend" the contact surface enough to make them latch. Other times an excess bit of plastic flash will keep them from coming together far enough to latch...they "bottom out" before the knuckles lock.
As for unexpected uncoupling, sometimes faulty tolerances allow the plunger that opens the coupler to hang too low, causing it to open at the slightest provocation. I'd inspect the horizontal plastic piece that the uncoupling plunger is attached to, and if it hangs down too low under the coupler head, you can either attempt to bend it so that it exerts more upward pressure, or wrap a small rubber band around the coupler shank to provide that upward pressure. I re-worked a 24-car pack of Menards flatcars on a personal challenge and got them to stay closed and run in a single train without incident. If you google "Tuning my Menard's 24-Flatcar Set", you'll see my post on the O Gauge Railroading forum years ago where I detailed (with photos) how I made these fixes.
The power losses suffered by your steam engine may need you to run additional power feeds to points far away from the transformer. Single lengths of wire lose way less power than the rail joints between the transformer and the farthest points of your layout. If you make these additional connections every 10' or so, your heavier locomotives should be able to make it all the way out and back with little hesitation.
Oh, and here's the train of fixed flatcars, 30 of them in this case: ruclips.net/video/YwezqhNbM7w/видео.html
Shame to see all that work in the pulley system go to waste, but it's nice to see it work in the end. But I still stand by my comment in a previous video about Bluetooth switches, then you could in theory have multiple tracks like a actual yard. Don't know why the manufacturers haven't come up with that idea yet.
I guess step 2 would be fixing the couplers, and inclines. But I would also suggest a step 3, extending your controller. Because it seemed like you had some close calls rushing to lower the speed, and getting the lose cars off the track.
@@trainandmore The engines in the videos are both old stock. One thing I’ll be looking for at the upcoming train shows is a new engine with its own remote control. They’re not cheap, but they’d give me that flexibility. I actually do have one like that, but I didn’t want to run it outside until I was sure the track was going to work.
I can see you are having the voltage drop issues that I mentioned in a comment on your previous video. The steam engine may be drawing more current making it more susceptible. By the way, where are you located? You can message me if you don't want to post. I am in the New york hudson valley area.
electric switches would switch automatically just saying
@@HotRodRodney25 But I would have needed a lot of wiring.