One of the things I’ve learned while volunteering at the Twin City Model Railroad Museum (TCMRM) is how quickly and easily uncouple cars without lifting them off the track with your hand.
A simple plastic stir stick, available at most fast food restaurants that serve coffee, can be used as shown in the pictures at right to uncouple two cars.
Simply insert the pointed end of the stir stick into the coupler and rotate clockwise until the coupler arms release each other.
The cars shown in the pictures are O Scale cars with Kadee couplers. I haven’t tested this on smaller scale cars, but I’m sure something similar would work for those scales as well.
I’ve used this technique while reorganizing cars in the freight yard on the TCMRM layout; it’s fast and effective.
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