Let There be Light

So at a recent NMRA meeting one of the fellas told of a gadget to decouple wagons.  With the help of a thin torch and a dental brush it was nicely accomplished.  So I thought to myself today - let's try it myself.

I already had some number 3 yellow tapered Interdental Brushes kicking around from a mixture I bought a while back to actually clean my airbrushes with.  They go for about 6 bucks for a 10 pack around town, so are well cheap enough.

So the other week I got onto the Internet and ordered one of these small rechargeable torches .  They are 12½ mm x 130 mm and come with a short USB charging cable and a pocket clip and cost about 6 or 7 bucks each.  With its arrival today I thought it time to play.

It does throw a very nice tight beam of light too - neat.

So for a trial, I just got a long BBQ skewer and sticky taped the dental brush and torch to it.  The final product would need to be a bit neater I reckon, but you'll get the idea.

So I found the tapered brush worked a real treat.  Some people just use the brushes by themselves or the brush stuck to a skewer without a torch, but it was so much easier to see with the torch in the mix.  The Kadee uncoupler pick is now assigned to the never use again draw.