Hey all,
How many people here think it would be practical/possible to design a retarder using the StockAid and PointForm tools from fasttracks? They way it would work is, both rails of the track that a cut of cars would be rolling on are notched with the StockAid tool, and a set of long points would be filed using the point form. The long points would be soldered to a PC board tie and angled slightly towards the notched rail, one point going to the left rail, and one to the right, so they press up against it enough to create friction and slow the cars, but not so much as to bring them to a sudden stop and/or derail them. The design would be used for an ore dock, instead of the cars being pushed up to the unloader with a locomotive, the loco only shoves them to the foot of the grade, and a small winch car, runs down the grade, grabs the cars pulls them up to unload, and the cars are cut so they can roll down the grade freely, through a sprung switch (which is default set to the straight route, you don't want a set of controlled runaway hoppers going through the curved route!
) and into the empty track, which has the retarders to bring the cars to a slow and controlled stop.What do you guys think? Hit or miss? And I'd be happy to explain a bit more if you need me to.