This is a highly improbable but totally true story…
Sometime last year I bought a box of junk cars and locos off ebay. There were a couple of things I wanted that looked okay with a little TLC, and the rest-- paint fodder, something for me to tinker with or practice airbrushing or something. In this box was an old Bachmann 2-8-2 loco that had seen better days. I tried it out once just to see what its story was-- it was a dead short across the rails. In fact, it didn’t even sit on the rails properly-- the front wheels were on the rails while the rear wheels were perhaps half and inch off the track. The bottom motor mount was cracked. I could see where stuff had been glued back together-- it had been dropped at some point, and dropped good. It was toast.
But no biggie. I bought the box for other reasons and not for that loco. Maybe I can “rust it up” and put it in a scrap yard or something. Whatever. But tonight my (3yo) kid saw it sitting on the shelf and wanted to look at it. So I get it down and give it to him. He can’t break it any worse anyway. So why not? And anyway, he’s usually very gentle with the trains. So while I was working on rollingstock, fixing wheels and couplers, he was playing with the loco and some other cars I’ve given him that he can play with while we’re “working”.
He accidently dropped the loco-- and of course immediately broke out into tears-- and I stopped what I was doing to comfort him and tell him not to cry, especially not over that locomotive, its already broken. So as I’m picking it up something looks different about it-- and the front and trailing trucks had come off. And I couldn’t really see how they were supposed to be attached anyway. On a whim I took it over to the DC test track and stuck it on the track. Without the leading and trailing trucks it sat on the rails okay.
I fired-up the transformer and lo and behold, it lurched. I gave it a little nudge and it lurched again. So I pushed it down the track a bit and all of a sudde
Kinda sounds like the way my old LHS used to fix trains…
I’m with you 100% on having your little man work on trains with you, my guy is now into rail fanning with me and grabs his hat and says lets go chase trains. All we ever do around here is go and take a few shots of trains on sidings or an occasional freight but he loves it and that good enough for me.
Yeah, we go down and “work on the layout” a lot. It doesn’t really matter what we’re doing. He just enjoys hanging out with Daddy I think. Not that I mind. I enjoy it immensely. And he’s a terrific engineer. Great with the throttle-- better than me most of the time actually So I usually let him drive and I be the conductor. Works out pretty well. We make a good team!
Great story. [:D] Makes me think of my son. He’s 10 now and not so much into the model trains, but we still get out of the house and go chase them every now and then… “train hunting” is what we call it. Then again, its a good excuse to get out of the house and hang out… and I am sure the slushies we get, helps. Thanks for sharing.
Hopefully this loco won’t ever grace my layout again… if I’m lucky… but it made my kid feel better.
I suspect I’ll hafta stick a tender on it but I’m thinking there’s gonna be a problem finding a DCC decoder for it. So he can run it back and forth on the DC test track if he wants. It really is in pretty rough shape, its “miraculous recovery” notwithstanding.
As far as becoming a 2-8-2 again, I was thinking of splitting the difference and going for a 2-8-0…
We had summat like that awhile back with me nephew–came over one fine day and he was working on a recalcitrant H16-44 that did not run at all–he dropped it----danged if it did not knock something back into shape—mind you the front porch and coupler were plain ol’ wiped off but the dang thing of it all was that ran–like a charm too–[%-)]
Hopefully no unplanned accidents occur here as well as in your case----[:-^]
You’ll never know. He might ask about that engien one of those lifetimes down the road. I’ve got a pair of old Bachmann 4-4-0s. One I dropped when I weas a bit younger than your own, (carried it everywhere with me. Lawns not a soft landing point) the other a replacement that wasn’t really, We know when the parents aere subbing us. After about 14 years though of little thought on the engines, I’m looking at trying to rebuils one of the 4-4-0s with the parts from the other (and some replacement stuff from who knows where) and call it mine again. SO I wouldn’t ditch the poor guy just yet.
Great point in the story. It is Our kids that make the hobby. I spend enough time away from the family with work. Any time I can be a with and build good memories with my children is a winner for me. Besides if this hobby is to continue it needs …Kids who become adults who are kids again remembering time with Dad and the trains.
So I usually let him drive and I be the conductor. Works out pretty well. We make a good team!