Model railway system providing uncoupling and delayed recoupling

A model railway system having track rails for rolling stock, which system provides for uncoupling, and for delayed recoupling, of the supported cars, said cars being equipped with couplers of the kind in which a coupler can normally be rocked upward for automatic coupling and for uncoupling, and when so rocked for uncoupling both couplers can then be rocked laterally and then allowed to assume an abnormal relationship in which one car can push another through the laterally rocked couplers without recoupling, said system comprising

• a. coupler carried magnets affixed to the respective couplers of a pair of coupled cars, said magnets having lower poles of the same polarity, which poles are disposed to travel in distinct, substantially separated paths, parallel to the track rails and to one another,
• b. an uncoupling station in the trackway which includes a normally ineffective coupler lifting magnet, which magnet is so located that, when rendered effective, it lifts a single coupler to an uncoupled position by magnetic repulsion, said coupler lifting magnet having an elongated pole of the same polarity as the lower poles of the coupler carried magnets, and
• c. additional, side magnetic means at the uncoupling station at opposite sides of the coupler carried magnets, and each having active poles of opposite sign to the lower poles of the coupler carried magnets for deflecting the respective couplers laterally by magnetic attraction to a relationship in which the coupler of a locomotive-connected car can push the other coupler and the car on which said other coupler is carried, without recoupling, to any desired parking position, and can then leave it there while being individually withdrawn.