Tonight at the Model Railroad club my Broadway Limited RSD-15 fell about 7 feet to the ground. It will need reassembly, but considering the height of the fall, nothing major happened. Not even a broken coupler. My trucks came apart, so I will have to reassemble it. I think it will survive.[:(!]
ouch
WOW thats horrible…Im so afraid of that happening with our layout …Ive thought about adding a net around the sides that are capable of ejecting an a piece of motive power. Kinda like the netting that you see around aircraft carriers…just a thought
7 feet? That’s quite a fall. And it survived? Amazing!
Yeah that is quite a fall. Hope everything works out ok. it scares me to think of how much you spend on a loco and then there is the possibility it is all for nothing.
I can still remember when I brought in my Life-Like 4-6-2 Pacific into school for show and tell. It fell about three feet onto the tile floor, that wasn’t a pretty sight. I still need to try to fix that.[:(][B)][:0][V]
I sure am sorry that happened. But I don’t think it was horrible at all. I think it was great. If it wasn’t huty any more than you describe, then count your blessings!!
I can sympathise with you a full 1/3 of my motive power is on the shop because of falls like that. Fodder for rebuild and repaint I guess.
James
So as it was falling, did your life pass before your eyes? I imagine each inch it dropped I would be reliving my life, cause as soon as it hit the ground, so would I!
Glad to hear it wasn’t totally discombobulated, and you are obviously the next lottery winner, with luck like that!
I probably will not survive such a event. (Heart, stress etc)
So I plan protective measures to catch engines that jump the track.
My BLI M1a took a hop off the rails once and fell a foot onto it’s side onto the plywood below. It remains one of my best engines today.
One of my cats got a hold of the IHC Pacific and that thing fell to the carpet 4 feet down. The damage was fatal to the engine due to the angle of impact. And yes I still have the cats.
But a true “great drop” of several feet to concrete or similar… I wonder if factories such as BLI actually do it to see how they stand up to it.
Alive, or stuff.
Just like real trains do somtimes.Ours are just easier and cheaper to fix[:D] At least no one died.
I’ve yet to lose a loco that way, though I have a frontrunner car that’s had the grab irons reglued a few times after vertical exits for the scene. The puzzling ones are the locos that seem to have had a drop before you even open the box - have a few Athearn BB locos that needed the frame straightening out even though they were brand new.
I launched a Proto 2000 GP9 of the kitchen table after I programmed the decoder, luck for me the body was still off.
A few years ago, on our Christmas layout, I was running my Lionel Berkshire. Now, that’s a heavy, cast engine, and I have made it heavier by bashing it into a specific MoPac Berk, adding cast brass details with epoxy.
As it rounded a curve on the outer loop, my son flipped the handle on the recliner right next to the layout. The foot rest popped up and sent the Berk across the room. Engine and tender flew ten feet, landing in a pile on the floor. Neither was harmed, but my pulse raced there for a minute, partly because the 6 pound engine nearly hit me in flight!
At least the damage ain’t that bad.
Am I the only person that has never dropped an expensive model off of ANYTHING?
My life flashed before my eyes, but it was incredibly short, being in second grade. I am still beating myself up for bringing that to school.[B)]
I once had an American Flyer 4-4-2 fall off the layout after going through an open switch. The engine survived the fall without a scratch but the first boxcar broke a coupler.
I bought a couple of LL 0-8-0’s off ebay, the owner had one fall off the layout, the other he sold straight was OK,…nice deal, the engine needs minimal repairs, just patience and it will be running, but I will mod it to look like a BRC switcher.
I know the feeling! Many, Many years ago I had a brass loco dropped, by an errant elbow, to the cement floor below. I tried, but could never get the darned thing to run well after that. I sold it on eBay and the fellow tells me that it runs like a charm now. What can you do, some guys have the knack, while others don’t. O now have a 4 inch clear plexiglass protector around all of my layout. Some of you may not thinkl that’s cool, but it has saved MANY a fall by locos and cars, so I think it’s more than worth it.
Norman - engineman1