I am refurbishing an operating Merchandise Car with coil couplers and am a bit confused on how it was wired. Each lead from the coil goes to the solder lugs on each coil coupler. This will not operate the mechanism as I tested it out and one lead is a hot and the other is a neutral...if both leads are wired to the couplers, you only get a hot thrown from the operating track from the slide shoes- the coil is fully insulated from the neutral.
My other question is that if the slide shoes are used to activate the mechanism, the coupler(s) will also open. So this car was not meant to be operating while connected to a train but only in a siding? Was this car wired correctly??
Thanks for your insight.
Greg