Have any of you ever taken someone out to your train room to show them your layout wanting to impress them, and/but, for some reason nothing worked right, and you felt that maybe somebody had placed a really nasty curse on you for that day ?..
I took my favorite aunt out to my train room recently to show her why I spend so much time back there, and not a freaking thing went right!.. Either the locos kept derailing, or the trains would break while in the tunnel. After about five minutes, she was like - We’ll that’s real nice Mark, and walks off. You can’t imagine how stupid I felt. Oh well. I’ll make up for it one day when she’s over again and I’m sure everything’s up to snuff.
Nah. That never happened to me, never happened to anyone I know, never heard of it happening to anyone; never even heard of it happening to anyone here on this forum. [:-^][:-^][:-^]
Ever heard of the laws of physics? They’re feable compared to the law applying here.[B)]
There are a few antidotes:-
State at start of visit (before you reach the train room) that you’ve been sorting out a couple of gliches and you hope things will go okay.
Before that dust EVERYTHING and clean the track on just two routes you select.
Check all the wiring and switches… starting at least a week before.
Strip down and fully service the locos to go on the point of only two trains.
Test run those two of sets locos over the two routes.
Oh god yea. My layout operates flawlessly when I’m alone. The train gods don’t like it when people visit or the wife wants to see where all the money is going.
Couldn’t help but think of the Murpheys Law thread when I read this.
Thing is, if you hadn’t made a point of “showing” it to her, and instead she’d just walked in while you were running trains, the outcome might have been very different.
It’s alright though…you’ll get to show her the real fun sometime. Better yet, let her just walk in on you…[:-^]
This seems to be a common occurence but I’m not sure we can blame Murphy for all of it. When we operate alone, our attention is on the layout and we do all the things we are supposed to do. When we have a guest, our attention is diverted as we tell them everything we can think of about our layouts and we forget to do some basic things, like setting switchpoints to the correct position for the oncoming train. We also have points on our layouts where we know we need to watch our speed but when our attention is diverted, we don’t always do that. Sure it seems like some problems wait for guests to arrive to spring a surprise on us, but I think a lot of the problems are our own doing.
I had someone stop by to operate the layout sight-unseen. The first train on the schedule was pulled by an engine I’d hardwired a decoder in. Wouldn’t you know it; one of the frame leads had a cold solder joint that decided to let go right then. So, his first crack at my throttle, and… nothing. [:O]
Fortunately, I had a 25W pencil-tip iron on my workbench and had the problem fixed in a few minutes. We made it through the schedule OK without too many problems.
Last week we had an appraiser come out and he had a fit over my layout in the basement. He wanted to see the trains run, so I powered up and started my Athearn F3AB and of course the dreaded MRC decoder took a dump right then and there. Murphys law. Dave
“If you are a lone wolf operator, you will never have a problem of any description until guests are present.”
Third derivative:
“The severity of the problem will be in direct proportion to the importance of the guest, or the importance of making a good impression on that guest.”
Translation:
If your buddy from work comes over, trains will derail on an ordinarily trouble-free turnout. Head-on collisions of DCC equipped brass locomotives only happen when your fiancee’s parents come to call.
Chuck (modeling Central Japan in September, 1964 - MZL, analog DC)
Funny, this never happens to me when my bud charlie comes over.
Of course we’re BOTH running trains (THANK YOU DIGITRAX!!!)and talking.
Of course it is a 4’x8’ layout…
Actually no…Even when guest engineers would help operate my ISLs(industrial switching layout) all went well as I expected.You see I do not believe in Murphy’s law,gremlins etc.
What I do fully believe in is a well maintain layout and well maintain equipment…I will NOT settle then anything less then 100% on equipment and derailment free operation…Why? Since the clubs can have smooth and derailment free operation during open house I will not expect anything less on my ISLs…
Yes indeed. The layout works best when alone and there is no one around to say “hey look, itsn’t that neat?” to.
One possibily worse situation is when you invite several people over to see the layout and realize one of them only wants to see how fast the train will run. Of course that’s the twit running the only loco that doesn’t have it’s top speed adjusted to prototype so it will run about 160 SMPH. Watch the parts fly…