Z scale operation

The recent discussion about couplers has me very curious to see what people are doing with Z-scale operations - shunting, classification, coupling, uncoupling, whatever. Who wants to shoot some video?

My eventual goal with Z is to be able to play with some very basic coupling and uncoupling operations that I see all the time, so....it's important to see how it can be done!

I really like that yellow 'GRAIN TRAIN' hopper!
Where can I get one of those?

Alex, I build it. Its a Ed's model three bay cover hopper using one of Gerds decals. If you want one, I am sure Gerd can do the job.

shamoo737 wrote:

Alex, I build it. Its a Ed's model three bay cover hopper using one of Gerds decals. If you want one, I am sure Gerd can do the job.

Already on order.

Shamoo thanks so much. Looks great. Any others? Any classification-type stuff? I am just hoping to get a sense for what's possible and what people are trying for fun.

The new AZL and MTL locos are very reliable. They run steadily at very low speeds (a scale walking man, even slower), provided you have the fair power pack (one should avoid Marklin power packs as their starting voltage is too high): you should choose stuff from Z Thek ( www.zthek.com )or from Oli Passmann ( www.passmann.com ).

Regarding couplers, I use only couplers from Micro-Trains (unless on the few AZL cars from which I didn't change the coupler box yet). It's very reliable and is basically a Z scale Kadee coupler (Micro-Trains is a creation from former Kadee employees).

The 2 only thing you should avoid are:

-putting a magnetic decoupler under a curve as coupling / uncoupling operations are quite impossible other than on straight track.

-putting a magnetic decoupler under a main line, as you could experience parasite uncoupling. Instead you should choose to put an electromagnetic uncoupler. Kadee releases them for HO or N scale. January/February 2003 issue of ZTrack,as well as June 2004 issue of Model Railroader explain how to build an electromagnetic uncoupler that will work only on request.

But what I write above is the same for every scale. Thus Z scale can be considered as a switching (shunting for you brits) oriented scale as any other.

Dom