"I've done something, and you're not going to like it!"
Ominous words from Himself a few days ago confessing that he'd taken an 'executive decision' to make life easier shunting wagons around Minffordd Yard.
There are all sorts of tricks layout builders use to mark the magic spots where automated uncoupling things are hidden.
On Minffordd we use magnets buried in the ballast for the Kadee couplings on the standard gauge and to animate the loops on the Greenwich couplers on the narrow gauge.
Some of the places are marked with a model person, and others with a sleeper placed beside the track, and many of the locations have some small bushes springing up as well.
The problem for Himself, and at least one other of our operators at the SEC show in Glasgow, is that they struggle to pick out the brown sleepers and the green bushes because they are red-green colour blind.
Himself has decided to try another trick which is to paint white dots on the shoulders of the sleepers either side of each magnet.
These, he hopes, will stand out like a sore thumb to him, and make shunting the narrow gauge a little less frustrating, with not so much shuffling backwards and forwards trying to stop the train in the correct spot over the magnet.
The trade-off is that while the marks may be more intrusive for the layout viewer, more reliable uncoupling might bring back a little more of the magic of hands-free, effortless uncoupling.
How do you get the balance right on your layout?
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