I think we are all familiar with Murphy’s Laws - and there are a gazilion of them…The other line always moves faster - If it jams, force it. If it breaks, you needed a new one anyway - Anything you try to fix will take twice as long and cost twice as much - Hit it with a big hammer - and, one of my personal favorites, The length of the meeting expands by the square of the people present. This got me to thinking…I know there are such laws that apply to model railroading and I am about to experience one of my own - The size of the model railroad expands to all allowable space and time. Agreed??? Are there others I have missed???
A dropped tool always lands where it will dio the most damage.
The rail kink you miss will always be in an inaccessible location.
My personal favorite… the train will derail at the most difficult spot to access.
The sooner you need the replacement part(s), The longer it is out of stock. Did Mr. Murphy come up with the prase ( on a slow cargo container ship from China )[:D] Otto
The cargo container carrying your supplies will be the one that’s lost overboard in a storm.
Not sure if this is Murphy’s Law or not but I sure wish the black hole in my railroad room would disappear, I drop something and it is gone. One would think by now there would be a layer of Kadee Springs an inch thick, but I can’t find one of those rascals.
Wayne
The following is one that I affectionately refer to as “Stages’s Law”…
If you have a 50-50 chance of getting something right or wrong, you’ll get it wrong 3 out of 4 times.
Tom
I think the original Murphy’s Law was, “Anything that can possibly go wrong, will.”
Whenever you misplace something like a tool or a part, the only way to find it is to buy a replacement and throw away the receipt.
The version I’m most familiar with was often used when I was in the army and was a common line in a preventive maintenance monthly magazine. It went ‘Anything that can possibly go wrong, will go wrong, at the worst possible time’.
A rail kink that keeps showing up in a photo is never there when you go to look for it.
Brent[C):-)]
Consider - in a decade or so, cheap OLED woven into fabrics, displaying different colors and textures on demand. Consider - a big rug or mat under your work area/layout/module. Consider - you drop that bronze colored coupler spring (assuming you’re still old skool Kadee by then), just convert the rug to pure neon white - there’s that spring standing out. Drop a white styrene window piece - bam, deep black mat. Green brake-wheel? Bright pink rug!
In conjunction, your wrist-wearable NTouch with it’s OLED lens will record and retain the most 30 seconds until halted - the piece drops, stop recording, instant replay - “Ah, that’s the trajectory of that part - let me highlight the rug there”. This will be of great help when the dropped part ignores physics, much like a trailer part I dropped yesterday which not only defied Newtonian Physics by not dropping into the gutter-catchment at the edge of my worktable, which not only defied General Relativity by not dropping thru the solid plastic gutter onto the floor mat (detail parts squirted out of tweezers approach c, so this happens), but which almost defied Quantum Physics by not dropping at all, but instead ending up in a plastic tub up on the back of my workbench (almost defied, because the the tub was not covered by a lid - the part was too big for Quantum tunneling if the tub had been sealed )
The Exacto knife ALWAYs falls point down.
(Friend’s experience, leg)
That’s why I never try to catch it if it rolls off my desk.
Bob
The part you need will not be where you placed it last
Upon entering LHS you will be told the part you need will not be available for weeks
The locomotive you buy today will be on sale tomorrow…
The layout you planned will be found to be too big…by half.
After a couple of days or so you remember to check the part number on the sprue AFTER you have removed said part from sprue.
Jarrell
As soon as you enter the hobby shop door, you forget what you went there to purchase. You’ll remember it as soon as they close.
Found a good one for the exacto knives. Put a rubber band around the handle of the knife so it does not roll.
Mine is that when a friend comes over to operate, cars that don’t ever derail, derail or the track all of a sudden becomes super dirty!
The best way to convince a manufacturer to produce a model of your favorite prototype is to scratch build one yourself. Especially if it takes several months worth of evenings and weekends to finish.
No kidding!
sfb