Has anyone on this forum ever hurt themselves in the course of pursuing model railroading as a hobby? Just like the prototype railroads, safety should always be the highest priority for us as well; however no matter how cautious you are accidents will still happen.
I for one have endured burns from soldering irons, cuts from hobby knives, and bruises from bumping my head while working under my layout. The absolute worst was when I accidentally jammed a switch point underneith one of my finger nails while cleaning track with a Bright-Boy track eraser.
Has anyone else done anything while pursuing this hobby to earn a “Purple Heart”?
In my first few years of teaching, I was dealing with 8th and 9th graders. I was young and had pretty good rapport with my students. I was dating a college freshman who asked me at one point to shave my moustache which I had carefully cultivated for several years. I followed through on the request for Valentine’s Day that year and shaved the area above my upper lip clean as a whistle. With Monday morning coming, I figured I would get LOTS of grief from the kids if I told them the truth.
So “the official story” about the missing moustache was that I had been soldering wires under my train table and some hot solder dripped into the hairs and burned them so badly that there was no choice but to shave the whole thing off.
I think the kids actually believed the story and even though I won’t be elgible for a Model Railroader’s Purple Heart, it does make for an interesting story.
I’m going to add having a sheet of drywall falling on my head at one fellows house while trying to clear out what remained of his three level layout after it came off the wall—having not properly secured the layout, benchwork separated from wall and took chunks of drywall off said wall–the sheet that landed on my noggin came from the ceiling of all things. Next time I go to this fellows place I’m going to take all precautions with me—
I ( before knew better) was using fine steel wool to remove light rust from track and for got it was on track when fired up the engine to see how the removal was improving my track power well it caught on fire and not thinking I went to step on it as a normal reaction ( I was about 10 or 11) and my flip flop fell 9off and I ended up stomping it with my bare foot. Thats the one I remember the most.
Oh boy, I got a good one. I was cutting some fake moss for my layout using an exacto knife. I was pressing hard because a piece just didnt want to cut. I slipped forward and the knife cut 2 of my fingers… to give you an idea of how bad it was, my finger was practicly inside out [xx(]. as you probably guessed I needed alot of stitches. this happened a year or 2 ago and I still dont have the feeling in my fingers and one of them has a very annoying lump [#dots]
I was running my trains one evening and a young punk pushed Mr. Plasticville Smith onto the tracks and the train smashed into him putting him into the Plasticville General Hospital for several years. Does this count? [:D]
I’ve done the usual cuts and burns, mild electroshocks etc. I did once fall down the stairs going down to the layout while carrying a grain elevator I had just finished (one of the Lionel kit ones). I managed to control my fall enough that the elevator didn’t hit the concrete…but I did !! [:O]