Their was a small fire on the layout at the Chicago’s Museum of Science and Industry.
http://www.topix.net/content/trb/3433237072085763385331942405021516018976
It must have been a stray ember from one of the steamer units that caused the blaze. It’s been so dry lately…[swg]
Tom
Couldn’t get the link to work for some reason[?].
I hope the fire was HO scale small, not major urban center small.
Chuck (modeling Central Japan in September, 1964)
From the Chicago Tribune:
Small fire derails museum exhibit for couple of HoursPublished December 14, 2006
Visitors to Chicago’s Museum of Science and Industry were moved away from a train exhibit Wednesday afternoon after a small electrical firebroke out, a fire official said.
A transformer associated with The Great Train Story exhibit caused the fire about 11:15 a.m., Chicago Fire Department spokeswoman Eve Rodriguez said. The fire, which was on train tracks not visible to visitors, was put out immediately and there was no danger, said Lisa Miner, the museum’s director of public relations.
None of the museum’s visitors was injured, and the building at 57th Street and Lake Shore Drive did not have to be evacuated.
But Rodriguez said visitors were removed from the area around the fire.
Miner said the exhibit was running about two hours later.
The Great Train Story is a 3,500-square-foot model train exhibit that depicts the railroad’s winding journey between Chicago and Seattle.
Chuck,
Just copy and paste the entire link into your search window at the top of the screen and press ENTER. That should get you to the web page on the fire. Thankfully, it was small - even by HO standards.
Tom
Mrs O’Leary’s HO scale cow must have kicked over an HO scale kerosene lamp…
-George
I’m kind of curious how a fire could have happened in the first place…supposedly, a “transformer” had a “short.” But those words get used an awful lot as generic terms. No breaker or fuse installed on this transformer?
Whenever there is a model railroad in a house that is involved in a fire “transformer” and “short” seem to be the default cause. (IIRC the fire that destroyed John Allen’s G & D layout was initially blamed on “model railroad wiring”)
When I was much younger I had a bad habit of leaving aluminum sided passenger cars on their sides on the track - with the transformer power on - of the HO layout my dad built for me. Although the family came to recognize the smell of an over heated transformer, not once did it ever come close to catching fire.
Might be a job for the Mythbusters…
-George