Happiness

Model Railroader General Discussion (Model Railroader)
1

Happiness is fixing my kid’s favorite locomotive.

The only accident he’s ever had-- and it was really my own fault, I can’t blame him much. A BLI Mikado w/sound I picked-up last summer. We use it to pull the passenger train 'cause its the one he likes for some reason. (We have other sound locos, so that’s probably not the reason). Anyway, when I extended the “mainline” on around to the other side-- up to the edge of the pink foam-- about the moment I stuck in the last pin my wife called us up for dinner. I had just run the train around to the other side to test it out-- and I knew it could potentially be a problem so I reversed it in the cab (so if it accidently started, it would go away from the edge). Normally I put an edge block (a big piece of foam, well-pinned) at the end of the track but because of supper I hadn’t gotten to that part yet-- was gonna do it first thing when we came back down.

So we ate. “Good supper honey… c’mon kiddo, let’s go back and play with the trains some more!”

As I was rooting around looking for a block of foam to pin down at the end of the track, he picked-up the throttle, I heard the reverser sound, and then the throttle ease forward… uh-oh-- the realization of what was about to happen hit me about two milliseconds before it hit the locomotive…

However, I must say I was really impressed-- by a couple of things actually-- the first being the perfect arc it made as it chugged over the edge towards oblivion 40 inches down onto the cold porcelein tile below. And the fact that it was astonishingly still intact when I picked it up off the floor.

As I was picking it up I caught sight of the engineer-- I swear he was glaring at me.

The engine suffered very little damage, as far as I can tell-- a couple of extremely minor “chips” out of the tender and a cracked edge along the coal ramp, and a handrail escutcheon broken off on the loco.

I put the loco back on the track fully expecting it to be DOA

2

Congratulations on the fix. My pre-war Lionel 0-6-0 took a dive off the table back in the early 50’s. Dad repaired and it still runs when called on.

Many projects get done faster when put down, left, then returned to. Though not a rr modeling project, I recall a bolt that had to go in a hole that was out of site and through another piece. A half hour of frustration, then left (steaming). Came back later and the bolt went in first try. NO JUSTICE!

Keep the young engineer involved.

Have fun,

3

He’s 2… well, almost 3 now in a month or so. But I think he’s pretty well hooked on trains. My other one is not quite 1, will be in less than a month. He loves trains too-- as long as they’re chewy. That’s okay with me though, as long as there is some kind of chew-chewing going on… He hasn’t really figured out about the trains in the basement though-- and truthfully he’s still too young to go down there, still too much of a construction zone. But I hope he’ll pick up the bug too. It would be a lot of fun to have a built-in operating crew! And I love watching my older kid run the trains-- he’s very gentle with them-- heck he’s better with the throttle than I am. And he really likes switching the cars and doing the pick-ups and set-outs. So we have a good time together.

John

4

Happiness is: going to a big trainshow with your colleague and her 4 year old, slightly autistic son and see two pairs of eyes light up. A happy day for all of us.

greetings

5

That couldn’t be any more true.

I have an Athearn Dash 9 unit that was having trouble with electrical pickup in one of the trucks. Once it picked up power it ran very weird. I left it alone for a week and tore it apart and found that the center axle was in gauge except the right wheel was hanging out too far while the left wheel was in too far in the axle gear. After that, it has been flawless ever since.