I was looking at Kevin’s article in Garden Railways Magazine on the various couplers, and it occured to me…

Nobody makes a glad hand that can easily be glued to the end of the existing Kadee trip pin.

Sure Ozark Miniatures makes a glad hand assembly that uses their rubber hose attached to an added fitting…,

But this is so simple and there are so many Kadee trip pins already in “non-operation” (in that they are not used for the intended magnetic uncoupling feature) such that the addition of a glad hand on the end can be bent up slighly to maintain the necessary track clearance without any other changes.

In addition to the actual glad hand fitting, the “kit” could include a cut length of heat shrink tubing to cover the trip pin and secure the glad hand. Those that are really fussy could add a piece of wire as a hose clamp.

This could easily be done on a 3-D printer. The idea is out there for the taking. Just send me the first set.

For mine, I use tiny surgical black rubber hose. (Very flexible) That could be glued to a cut off KD pin. Leave about 3/16 hanging down.

Glue your glad hand in the other end (After chosing a proper length). Then i glue a tiny magnet on the glad hand and one of the opposite polarity

on the other car’s glad-hand. The only drawback to this is your cars always have to face the same way.

Another way is use the same idea, but without the magnets. push a piece of aluminum wire in the tube and bend it to whatever position you want

so the glad-hands look like they are clasped. This eliminates magnetic + or - problems.

I may redo mine that way.

Todd,

I think that would look awful! The air hose and gladhand doesn’t come out of the coupler, it emits from the undercarriage. I use mostly Kadee couplers but most of my rolling stock has truck mounted coupler. The uncoupling lever on Kadees is already too low for my application so I have to cut them off with a Dremel cutoff disc before I mount them. Below is where the air hose s/b on a body mounted coupler car.

Awful??? Probably no more so than the unprototypical tang that hangs down that very few people actually use or cut off. Just trying to make the best of a bad situation.

Todd,

That is one reason I cut them OFF and not just shorten them, the look awful. (https://largescalecentral.com/externals/tinymce/plugins/emoticons/img/smiley-wink.gif)