Couplers revealed

LEGO Trains at NMRA
(one of mine is in the pic!)
Image via Wikimedia CommonsA while back, I posted about the apparent change in the LEGO train coupler design, in which it seemed likely the old style coupler which consisted of a 3 part assembly (buffer, magnet holder, magnet) was going to be replaced with a single piece.

Railbricks, the fan generated LEGO Train online magazine had a piece about it at the time as well. It was discussed on quite a few venues, including LUGNET.

The LEGO Company has announced the new design, via a release to several fan sites, including Railbricks, which has this copy, and it confirms the speculation of fans, it was done for safety reasons.

I think the old design is more flexible, but the reasons given for the change (safety) do seem fairly irrefutable and they have put some thought into interoperability.

It's nice to see that the fans speculating got it right, and nice to see that LEGO announced the change well in advance via fan media. LEGO is getting better at working with fans.

What do you think? Good change or bad? Well publicized or not?

From the what were they thinking department

The iconic LEGO brick.
Image via Wikimedia CommonsThe LEGO company continues to confound and confuse adult train fans.

Their latest move, apparently, is to replace the current magnetic coupling scheme, which uses magnets free to rotate around a horizontal axis, in a way that finesses which end is which polarity issues, mounted in a holder that is free to swivel from side to side (to allow the train cars to go around curves) and then mounted on a buffer, with a new scheme in which the magnet is apparently encased inside the buffer.

Why?

No one yet knows for sure. Speculation in the online LEGO community has it that this is to address safety concerns that might arise if young children swallow magnets... there have been reports in the media of children suffering problems when two magnets join adjacent stomach or intestinal walls and cause blockages.

How do we know this?

Seems that the new part libraries just refreshed into LDD show some new parts. You can see the images at this LUGNET post.

All in one and presumably harder to swallow by kids.

Oddly, these will probably be harder to swallow by adults too, as they make it harder to build things compared to what they replace.

Well, one more old style part to hoard, I guess, along with 9V motors and track.


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