It's been a busy time for Cameron Foodikoff, owner of Fairway Park
Models--and inventor of the awesome new HO scale self coupling air hoses.
"Sorry it took so long," he said about the time it took for him to reply to
an e-mail I sent him.
Demand for the air hoses has been "totally overwhelming," he wrote, adding
it's " hard to keep up with the demand."
Actually, it's more than hard--his website, which is now up and running,
shows that the hoses are sold out. No fear, though--he says that more are on
the way.
I asked Cameron how he came up with the idea for the air hoses. "Just
thought of it," he said.
He confirmed that they work using magnets, and added that the cars can,
indeed, be reversed and the hoses will still work.
What if someone uses a magnet in the tracks to aid with uncoupling? "When
coupled together they are not affected, but when uncoupled they are attracted to
them [the magnets]," he said.
It's "not a big deal," he added, noting that he tested them on the club
layout he belongs to: The Dewdney-Alouette Railway Society in Maple Ridge
B.C.
You can learn more about the self coupling air hoses on Cameron's
website: www.fairwayparkmodels.com or on my my previous post.
I don't know when he was supposed to have "invented" this idea, but Dave Davis was making his own version of these back in the late 90's. Check out Great Model Railroads 2001 and the various Railmodel Journal freight car articles penned by Davis in the late 90's and early 2000's.
ReplyDeleteThanks for the note; I didn't know that. I have noted David's work in a new post at http://cprailmmsub.blogspot.ca/2013/01/even-more-about-self-coupling-air-hoses.html
ReplyDeleteThese are a cool little product but just over a year later the links to the video and the website don't seem to work any more. I've found lots of reviews but no one still selling them. Any idea as to what happened? I'd love to get some.
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