We had a little 5.1 earthquake last night centered only a few miles north of my house. I was driving at the time so was completely unaware of the quake until I got home. Went out to the layout and found it looked more like a scale 7.0 quake had hit the layout. Fortunately, only one old AHM tank car hit the floor with little damage. At least 90% of my rolling stock is off the rails and at least 80% is on its side. As nothing was damaged, the sight is a bit comical. Check it out.
A bit of a mess at the sugar beet plant.
Look at all the missing underside details.
All rolling stock down except the flatcars (although they all lost their loads).
Those quakes can make quite a mess. We haven’t had any noticeable ones around here since I started my layout 3 years ago. We get 5.0 to 6.3 shakers from time to time here northern Nevada.
Yeah, a 5.1 in Southern California is usually one we yawn at. However, when the epicenter is shallow and only five miles away, your stuff bounces around a bit.
Any quake where you end up taking pcitures and laughing at is a good one, I figure. Glad they’re scarce here. I’‘ve got some hidden trackage that would be a mess to sort out if things started rockin’ n’ rollin’.
Just be glad it wa only a 5.1 earthquake. Those small ones relieve the pressure build up and delay any major earthquakes. The biggest one I felt was 6.0 one morning when I was working for th Department Of Defense in Northern California. The entire building did a rock and roll. Amazing that the computers kept right on working. IBM builds them strong.
I too was driving home in the S.F. bay area when the 1989 Loma Prieta quake struck, didn’t feel a thing, but many others weren’t so lucky. Thanks again for the reply and the tips about how you built your crane.
A few years ago, a good friend of mine gave me a large Pepsie bottle of what seems to be “black broken glass”, which is the size of course sand. To me this looks more like “coal” than anything I’ve ever seen on a model. My friend is a truck driver, and this is something he was hauling, and he “relieved” them of some of it. This stuff looks so good, I have been cutting-out the “fake”, molded coal on many of my steam loco tenders, and fabricating partitions for the “coal”, and just pouring it in to make it look realistic. Now, most of my locos are not OVERFLOWING with coal, and many are only half full, with the coal sloping down to the front of the tender, and some spilled on the deck plate. VERY realistic! I’m now working on the hopper cars. I don’t like glueing anything, as it looks more “real” with it actually being able to “shift” a little over time! ANYWAY, the whole point of all this is, an EATHQUAKE on MY layout would truly be a DISASTER!!! But I bet it would LOOK GOOD!
People always ask me why I park my trains in the same spots when shutting down the layout. I tell them I park them at the back as close to the backdrop as I can in case we get an earthquake. I make sure all my engines that are in the yard are at least a foot or so from the edge as well. Hopefully doing so will save at least some of them.
I think I’ll keep on doing what I’ve been doing after seeing your photo’s.[:O]
It’s all about planning and being prepared. The Government ads say to be able to look after yourself for at least 72 Hrs in an emergency. I can go a lot longer than that if need be.
I’d rather take an earthquake any day over some of the weather in parts of the country. With an earthquake it is done and over, maybe an aftershock and they happen rarely of any size to even notice but places like Florida get hit by a hurricane almost every year. Last major quake I felt was in !989, a big yawn for me and I live close to all the damage that was done (some of those places we wondered how they permission to build).
1965, north of Tokyo, a JNR train powered by a catenary motor was just above the epicenter of a quake. It was bounced into the air, then the tracks moved laterally about 200mm. Loco landed upright, undamaged and with the pantographs still in contact with the (undamaged) overhead wires.
The same quake caused a minor, ‘Shake the building,’ jolt at Yokota AB. I was in the base library at the time. A young lady, newly-arrived in-country, asked, in a half-panic, “What was that?”
“An earthquake,” I told her. “Nothing serious.”
The look she gave me was a classic!
Chuck (Modeling Central Japan in September, 1964 - hopefully without earthquakes)
Well, after two days of multiple aftershocks (one as high as 4.8), things have finally settled down and the layout is operational again. In answer to a previous question, the original 5.1 quake was centered in La Habra. I live just a few miles south of that in Fullerton (near Basta Junction on the BNSF). When we were kids, earthquakes were always like rollercoaster rides and rather fun. As adults, all we can think about is whether this rollercoaster ride is going to cost us money! Spoils most of the fun!
