Old Old train tracks.

I bet you could find these still for sale in independent toy stores in countries like Bolivia. I found some sealed 4.5V straight, curved, and switching points track in a Bolivian toy store back in 2007. So this seems like the sort of thing someone might find to this day.

So I'm not into trains, so can someone explain to me what decoupling is?

@DaBigE said:
" @Randomness said:
"So I'm not into trains, so can someone explain to me what decoupling is?"

Disconnecting (unlinking) the train cars."

Ok, so how does that do this?

I don't have any of these kinds of things other than some powered centre rails, but man I'd like to get some and find out how it all works.

The original conscious decoupling.

I was delighted to find one of these still on the shelf of a John Menzies store in Bathgate, no earlier than 1990. Even then, it hadn't been listed in the Lego catalogue for years. Bought it, still have it!

I wonder what the life span on those remotes is; forty years on do the batteries still work?

@AustinPowers said:
" @Lego_Lord_Mayorca said:
"I bet you could find these still for sale in independent toy stores in countries like Bolivia. I found some sealed 4.5V straight, curved, and switching points track in a Bolivian toy store back in 2007. So this seems like the sort of thing someone might find to this day."
Possible. But considering what a return flight to Bolivia would cost, plus accommodation, transportation to said independent toy store (of which I would neither know if or where it even exists), and the fact that you can get new and sealed ones on Bricklink for about 150 Euro a piece, I would choose the latter option. ;-)

Not disputing the possibility of course, but how often does one happen to visit Bolivia of all places anyway?
And even if, you said "in 2007". You realize that's more than 15 years ago. By now even those rare leftovers will have been sold to someone. "

The last time I was in South America the LEGO was twice as expensive as in Europe. So you'd have to be really lucky to find it now.
Just reminds me of a small store in the Netherlands when I was a kid (forty years ago), where some cool retired Technic sets would just be standing behind the window for years. Now they'd be gone in a second.

On topic: this decoupling set was so much fun, running a few trains simultaneously, avoiding collisions by operating some remote switches just in time. And then later a traffic light.

This was a sad era for me. Having simply adored blue-track-white-sleepers Lego trains, and having built layout after layout, the launch of this mains-driven system was initially so exciting. As others have said, the design was brilliant, too, with each element's controller connecting onto the side of the master transformer.

But this was when I first started to be priced out of buying Lego. I'm probably misremembering, but I think anything like this or the electric points cost about £20. So I stuck with the wonderful blue track, and although I sold it in the Eighties, I love it still.

@iookjj said:
" @Brickalili said:
"I wonder what the life span on those remotes is; forty years on do the batteries still work?"

That was the great + from the 12v era. NO batteries needed. Just a transformer with 12 v output made the whole traintrack running with working signalposts, traincrossings etc. I love that system."

Neat. Excellent future-proofing from Lego there

In some cases I can feel strong nostalgia goggles when people talk about the greatness of 80s themes.
The 12v train system is not one of them. I'm not into trains but everything I hear about it makes me feel like it really did have more features and realism at the time. It doesn't help that nowadays the theme has been on life support for decades, forced into the constricting mold of Lego City. It's niche, but I fully understand that model train enthusiasts would prefer this stuff.

From what I gather the 9V system is great too btw. Just with some late 90s clunkers (that still would make awesome toys by the look of it).

Ah yes, this takes me back to having never seen this before and will never remember.

Just a guess (as never seen this) but assume that there was a magnetic field created by the base on pressing the triangular paddle down, which would attract the front buffer magnet on the carriage overhead (preventing it from moving), while repelling the other magnet on the previous carriages end buffer and thus decoupling? Assume the other paddle was to attract the other carriage rear buffer magnet to couple?

Why anyone would want to do this rather then just pull the carriage magnets apart by hand, allowing you to just spent the money on buying more switches and signals instead?

I got 7740 for Christmas 1981, it was about £35 I think which was still a lot back then; I ended up with some manually controlled points but always wanted the full remote set up - especially the signals which looked very realistic. Sadly everything was well out of pocket money range at the time although I must admit I never saw the need for the de-coupler seen here - that must be why it is now so rare - nobody bought it!

Do you remember a time when LEGO sets used 12v from the wall to make their trains go, and we had all these wonderful accessories such as working signals, motorized crossing gates, powered decoupling, and station lighting, all at the flick of some switches?

Pepperidge Farm remembers.

@ambr said:
"Just a guess (as never seen this) but assume that there was a magnetic field created by the base on pressing the triangular paddle down, which would attract the front buffer magnet on the carriage overhead (preventing it from moving), while repelling the other magnet on the previous carriages end buffer and thus decoupling? Assume the other paddle was to attract the other carriage rear buffer magnet to couple?

Why anyone would want to do this rather then just pull the carriage magnets apart by hand, allowing you to just spent the money on buying more switches and signals instead?

"

No, from what I recall, it was mechanical. Catching the pins that hung below the magnets on the coupling used at that time and 'forcing' them apart.

Was great for backing into sidings and separating the cars from the locomotive. Then picking up others on another part of the track all without having to reach across the layout!

@ambr said:
"Just a guess (as never seen this) but assume that there was a magnetic field created by the base on pressing the triangular paddle down, which would attract the front buffer magnet on the carriage overhead (preventing it from moving), while repelling the other magnet on the previous carriages end buffer and thus decoupling? Assume the other paddle was to attract the other carriage rear buffer magnet to couple?

Why anyone would want to do this rather then just pull the carriage magnets apart by hand, allowing you to just spent the money on buying more switches and signals instead?

"

No it was a rotating cam that physically pulled one carriage from another. Used the same solenoid part as remote points and level crossings.

I will gladly admit I wanted this for rarity, another pair of buttons to push on the control panel, and the unique triangular icons! I don't recall the decoupler function itself working all that well, but perhaps it needed to be set up in conjunction with a suitably located 7860 signal, to get the loco in the correct position.

@ambr said:
"Just a guess (as never seen this) but assume that there was a magnetic field created by the base on pressing the triangular paddle down, which would attract the front buffer magnet on the carriage overhead (preventing it from moving), while repelling the other magnet on the previous carriages end buffer and thus decoupling? Assume the other paddle was to attract the other carriage rear buffer magnet to couple?

Why anyone would want to do this rather then just pull the carriage magnets apart by hand, allowing you to just spent the money on buying more switches and signals instead?

"

I think there are no magnets involved. The center rail has notches that allow for two bars to go up alongside the rail. When needed, they rise up between the train cars to decouple them, then lower again.

@Ridgeheart:
@AustinPowers:
The 3G network was taken offline across the entire US a while back, so a lot of those are now useless bricks on this side of the pond.

@Ridgeheart said:
"But for real, we've still got all the Gs we need, possibly more than we know what to do with."

*Laughs in “knows what he’s talking about”*

https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/3G

Turns out 3G was phased out in your country starting in 2020, and probably ending sometime last year. That phone model is made in 4G, and an announcement was made about rolling out a 5G model, but 3G is being phased out worldwide so the infrastructure for 5G can replace it. By the time that’s done, 6G will be announced, and it’s 4G that’ll be on the chopping block.

As I've written above, I love 12V and it's still running great on my layout but I'm not blind to the cool thing PU can do. The major thing I can't deal with is that fact that you must have the train next to you when you want to play. With 12V (and 9V, but less so) I can park the train on the far side of my layout and start it from there. With PF/PU, I can't. The train must park next to me so I could press the "On" button. That is the major disadvantage for me over powered rails systems.

@Ridgeheart:
Phones can be, and usually are, built with backwards compatibility in case the latest network hasn’t been rolled out everywhere yet, but they can’t be upgraded to be compatible with the next network format that follows. Any 3310’s that were built for 3G probably also had 2G hardware, but both of those systems are belly up where you live. I mean, the hardware may still function, and you can use it as a backup address book, but you’d need to move somewhere that still has a functional 3G network if you want to place calls with it. If you live close enough, you might be able to mooch off of Belgium’s or Luxembourg’s network until the end of 2025, and France is keeping theirs running until sometime in 2029. The UK _may_ keep theirs running until sometime in 2033, but they don’t have any firm plans announced. As for the rest of Europe, it looks like most of the networks are already shut down, or in the process right now.

If you have one that was built with 4G hardware, it should still be compatible with various networks across Europe for another decade. The 5G version probably hasn’t even gone into production yet, but those should work for the next 20 years. So, if that’s someone’s favorite phone model, they may be able to keep upgrading the hardware, but each individual phone has about 10-20 years before it becomes obsolete (depending on exactly when during the product lifespan it was manufactured).

I had to deal with this a year ago, since that’s when they’d announced 3G would go dark in the US. I’ve still got my 3G phone somewhere, in case my new phone gets lost, stolen, or destroyed, so I won’t lose _every_ phone number, but it won’t find a compatible signal unless I go to Canada (they shut down in 2025 as well).

@elangab:
You have to push the power button to get it started.
Batteries time out after 2 hours, and you have to push the power button (or swap batteries) to get it restarted.
You _must_ use the app if you want to control a non-train motor as constant-on like any previous generation of powered trains.
You need a device that’s capable of running the app (and good luck finding a complete list of which will or won’t).
You can’t walk away from the layout with the device running the app, or the layout shuts down.
In crowded public settings, you may have trouble connecting the app to a motor because of how many stray Bluetooth signals everyone walks around with.

I did learn of one interesting trick that makes it not suck so mightily as I previously thought. If you have a tablet, you can run the app on that (leaving it plugged in to wall power), and use another device to control the app. The guy who showed me that says he runs the tablet with everything uninstalled and/or turned off except what he absolutely needs to operate the trains, which helps with signal interference apparently. I _think_ he said you can even run it with the handheld remote.

Talking about old phones, I still use an old Sony dumbphone from at least 15 years old as an alarm clock. I think I got my first smartphone in 2011 and this one has been there permanently connected to the charger ever since. Until a few weeks ago, when I unplugged the charger and forgot to put it back in later. I was quite surprised that even after so long it still took over two weeks to drain the battery (and make me oversleep...)

But back on topic: they had so much cool stuff back then, it basically was a full-featured model railway, just made from Lego. And just look at all of the cables in that video, would kids nowadays even understand all that? And for some additional horror: besides the regular double connectors Lego also had cables with separate connectors for each lead, which made it very well possible to short-circuit everything. But somehow the average kid back then knew the difference between + and -.
(and they didn't even use colored plugs for each lead like Fischer Technik did)

To be fair, as a system I'd say the 9V with metal rails was better. After all, having to add that center rail just for power is just not practical nor realistic. And I say this as a collector of Trix Express model trains, which also uses a highly unrealistic three rail system. But as a whole, nothing will ever come close to that 12 volt era, truly the golden era for Lego trains with so much amazing stuff.