Know of where I can get a strong magnet that will fit between the rails on Peco code 80. Also what is the best way to uncouple cars without a magnet? Thanks, Bill
Check out youtube for videos for magnetic uncoupling. There is a guy that uses cylindrical magnets to uncouple cars. He used two rows between the rails. One was north pole up and the adjacent one was south pole up. It appears to work very well. Look at Amazon, they have all manner of magnets available. Hope it helps. Trey
You may wish to just buy the Kato magnetic uncoupling tracks, rip the magnets out and glue them into your Peco track. They have street prices of around $4 each, and they are the right size, shape and, most importantly, polarity orientation. I seem to recall that you can run into trouble with some magnets not working. I can't remember the details but I'm sure somebody will chime in to clarify.
Many years ago I was a bit obsessed with the idea of having "hands free" uncoupling. I bought a dozen strong magnets from an electronics surplus store that fit under the tracks. I cut spaces through the bench work and cork so the edge of the magnet was just under the ties. This was on the spur tracks for the industries. On any through tracks I found that a permanent magnetic field could cause an unintended uncoupling so those were done with a mechanical mechanism that would allow the magnet to be raised or lowered from the edge of the layout. While all of this did work, it added weight and these were on Ntrak modules that also made up part of a home layout. On my last two layout since then I have adopted the pick method of uncoupling, simulating the job done by trainmen on an actual railroad.
