When I was a kid I had a layout I was still building in the rec room next to the windows . Well my Lionel 671 (6-8-6 )was on a cannon ball run ( the only type I knew then slow wasn’t in my vocabulary) when it hit the siding switch which I open by mistake while wiring and it went right threw the window and fell 3 feet to the cement outside as my dad was walking up the sidewalk (Boy do I remember That day very well LOL. We all laugh about it now but boy did I catch it that day.
Well, it was like this. A friend of mine was interested in model R.R.ing but never had any “hands on” experience at it. One fine afternoon, after I had spiked in a complete circle for testing purposes, my friend (in his mid-30’s) dropped in. He had helped me with the benchwork previously, so I didn’t hesitate to allow him a turn at the throttle. I was running my P.F.M. (brass) Ps-4, Southern Rwy. 4-6-2 pushing a Walthers 75’ (heavy weight baggage) and a Blue Line 80’ day coach (both super detailed, hand painted, decaled kits). As the consist descended the 2% grade, my friend inexplicably opened the throttle up wide. The two cars careened off the mainline to the concrete garage floor below (42 inches). Thankfully, the loco was spared the same fate only by my throwing the toggle on the power pack in time. I was still in minor shock when he affected a silly grin and said “hee, hee, Jessie James.” Well, I’m here to tell you, that was his first and last stint behind the throttle on this Pike. I figure the two coaches were close to thirty hours lost time and the “near miss,” at least a year off my normal life expectency. Hope none of you ever share this nightmarish scenario. Let’s keep those rails “happy rails.”
[V]
I belonged to a great club. Several years ago the building where we had our club burned to the ground. We lost it all. We had an HO scale layout and an N scale layout. We tried to start over again but we never found another place we could afford. I hardly ever see any of those guys anymore.
[V]
Jaimezepeda, I’m sorry to hear of your loss. Now is the time to do some hustling for fellow model railroaders until you find someone who has a location you can share. Take heart, something will turn-up but only if you spread the word to other folks who might consider lending a helping hand for a worthy hobby that keeps folks out of trouble and into positive ideas. Wish I could help more, be patient but keep trying.
I have a brass 0-4-0 Dockside locomotive that is over 40 years old.
It ran like a dream until I tried to clean it.
As I was cleaning one of the rods & OOPPSS!!!
Now I have a broken Brass O-4-0 Dockside.
Gordon
There was a Bachmann unit I was presented with as a gift one year. I think it was a B and O 2-8-2. The one with the really big firebox.
That thing never did run right. I slowly disassembled it all the way down to the motor. Once the motor was opened two little springs jumped out and was gone.
Eventually everything was reassembled but it sits in a box for at least 10 years.
Recently I pulled it out and serviced it. I put it on a 5 foot section of track. It ran 2 feet and smoked on me.
I guess that engine was a sad engine from the day it left the factory. If they ever make that particular engine again as a Broadway unit or similar I think I will go into debt to get a copy. (Makes sense?)
Someone mentioned going into debt to get expensive engines, I thought that was sad also.
Back when I was a kid, I had a 3’ x 6’ oval that was my first layout. The track plan had been published. I think it was called the “Pine Tree Central”. Anyway the track ran right at the edge of the plywood (UGH) layout. One day I put every car I had into making up a train. The Loco was just past the center of the u-turn at one end of the layout and the caboose was a like distance past the on the other end. As I powered up this monster train, it started to pull some cars off the track and sent others wobbling. I had to make a quick choice as to what to catch. I caught the loco and watched my beautiful 200 tom crane car dive over the side to the floor. It was a nicer model than any I’ve seen on the market in HO today. It had working “Buckeye” trucks and the Pulleys on the ends of the main arms contained 3 sheeves each. The main hook had 3 or 4 sheeves as I recall. The car was made of potmetal and a lot of it got broken. It took me a lot of years to get it all fixed, but the laqst time I looked at it, one of the trucks had disinterated with age. This was some time proir to 1955. I wish now I had caught the car instead of the loco. Oh well, live and learn. After that incident, my dad made a sheetmetal tray all around the layout so no pieces ever went on the floor again.
Mr. Kramer, your friend who said “hee, hee, Jesse James” needed a good old fashioned butt kicking! I don’t really mean physical violence, but if he was no more apologetic than saying “hee, hee, Jesse James,” he would at least have gotten a verbal ripping. I hope he offered to pay for the price of the cars, materials etc. or tried to make it up to you. That is the only decent thing to do.
It sounds like you had a pretty cool dad, SteamHostler !!![8D][^]
I was installing my very first decoder in a Proto GP9 and couldn’t get it to work. I was sitting at the kitchen table and had the Loco on a piece of 3 foot flex track. I cranked up the throttle to full on my Digitrax Zephyr and it still wouldn’t move. I phoned up a buddy of mine and asked him if he had any idea what I did wrong. He asked if I put it in forward or reverse on the Zephyr and of course I didn’t. I turned it to forward and the Loco took off like a bat out of hell, knocking a container full of Kadee couplers, springs and screws on to the floor before it flew off the table crashing into a chair, leaving a nice gash in it and finally ending up on the floor. I still had the cordless phone in my hand and my buddy says to me “well, did it work?” I let out a big YAHOOO and told him “yep, that was the problem.” I didn’t mention anything else though, lol. I’m just glad the body was still off.
Yes WVHagan, you are right. However, after the initial shock, I imeadiatly determined that here is a fellow with mind “issues” that are better left to a professional. I simply “pulled the plug” on the power pack that day and on that individual “for good.” I have long since restored the two coaches and they stand as a reminder to use discretion when “casting pearls to swine.” Happy rails to you.
That’ll teach you to program in some momentum [:D]
Good thing the body was off, I have several P2K’s and with all that detailing I really don’t think they could stand a trip to the floor. Sans body, it would be hard to damage that massive metal chassis.
–Randy
I have 2.
First happend MANY MANY years ago. We used to have a 4x8 plus a little we set up in the family room from november through january. My Dad did most of it, but I helped with wiring and I was the only one able to run trains without running switches and derailing. The year my Dad passed away, I wanted to keep up with setting up the trains, so I managed to get it all set up myself (I was about 10 that year) and operational. So I’m runnign a train with our MDC boxcab diesel - anyone that has one of those will know, they are kind of slow and noisy. So it’s chugging around when all of the sudden it takes off at warp speed and flies off the end of the layout…WHOA! Smahed to bits. I still have the parts, plus a complete new loco I got a few years ago, I have a good kitbash project in mind for that - the new one runs just as slow and just as noisy as the old one - how it eveh got to warp speed liek that I’ll never know.
Number 2 happend a few months ago, before I had a mainline loop complete on the current layout. I was runnign a train back and forth over the completed section using my father in law’s Atlas Trainmaster (with sound). Got near the end of the track so I cut the throttle - only the drive train in Atlases is SO good it coasts - for a LONG time. Shoved 2 of my Kato covered hoppers right off the back of the layout and onto the floor. This things mostly snap together so it was pieces everywhere - luckily nothing broke and I was abe to round up all the pieces to reassemble them.
–Randy
Prior to my most recent move, I spent a lot of time (and more money that I’d care to admit to) trying to scratchbuild/kitbash a double-track Warren Truss bridge for the layout that I’m currently building. I spent many long hours cutting and gluing together Evergreen styrene sticks for this thing.
Come moving time, I decided that space was a premium in our overcrowded car, and that the bridge would have to go in the movers’ truck with the rest of the household goods. I tried to prepackage it a little to protect it from damage…
When I was unpacking boxes in the new house, I was alarmed to find my bridge in about a hundred pieces in the bottom of a box where it had no business being. Fortunately, I think I can put it all back together, but that was about the saddest sight I think I had seen in a while. It reminded me of the part from the movie “A Christmas Story” about the broken lamp: “… so the old man gathered up the shattered remains of his major award…”
No stories to tell, but I sure have enjoyed hearing all of yours…I mean, enjoyed the sharing, not the outcomes. I haven’t opening up my throttles because my 22" radii are not conducive to that speed, and because I would be highly deflated if I damaged either of my two steamers. They’re not brass, but I had to part with a whole bunch of it in order to get them, just the same!
Randy is right; program in some inertia and momentum settings to get a more protoypical acceleration and deceleration if you have DCC. The former saves the zipping off the program track phenomenon, but the latter makes for some interesting accident pictures when two trains collide at low speed at a crossing or at a turnout. Yup, been there.
During the holiday season last year, I spent about 3 days detailing a blue box GP-38, and I must say It turned out good. My buddy came over one late afternoon and we shared some liquid holiday cheer. after he left, I decided to tryout my newly detailed loco. and when (hick-up) I fired it up at max throttle and forgot to set the (hick-up) turnouts right, I had said loco and parked boxcar on wooden floor(hick-up), the loco did not recover from it’s injuries. So i have learned “don’t drink and throttle”.
My first week with a new Atlas Dash 8-40C, with a decoder.It derail on a switch by the time, I got over to it there was smoke pouring out of the *** thing, and part of the shell melted.
And people laugh at me when I mention ‘resistive’ short circuits… prime example right there, it didn’t draw enough power to trip your booster’s circuit breaker, but it sure was enough to smoke the decoder.
–Randy
I should learn my lesson, although I haven’t had a tragedy in 3 years. I’ve wrecked 2 athearn SD40-2s, unknown SD40-2, SD40-2 dummy, Mikado, P2K FA2. the FA2 was my most recent tragedy, and my worst. I once dropped a kato SD40-2 on the floor, but I was able to reassemble it.
Matthew
Hope this isn’t too boring or strange or unreadable.
Key Imports Brass Bigboy rounding a turn it had passed over at least a 1000 times derailed, rolled down a 15 inch enbankment and then 45 inches to the floor. We are holding the funeral Thursday.