I got a new Athearn CSX Dash 9 today and after running it some I was going to park it and my two GP38 in the train yard service building and I misjudged my my approach to the yard and my GP38 hit my brand new Dash 9 sending off my layout down to the cement floor of my garage, a scale 348 foot fall. I see my rear trucks sliding across the floor and part of the body going the other direction… I figured it was right off… After collecting the parts they all went back together fairly easy and she is running just as good as before. Not that I recommend letting them plunge off the table but thankfully HO scale trains are fairly tough.
Oh, imagine what it would be like if the fall and locomotive were real! If only prototype locomotives were built so tough.
I have had 2 make the Leap of Death. First one was a Bachmann GS-4 Steamer, we where running in the dark and the GS-4 stalled. While we where messing with it a Big Boy rear ended it. Shell and motor made it but had to get a new set of drive wheels.
Second time I was running 4 Proto F-3 as a MU. Led engine stalled for some reason, dirty wheels? The other 3 pushed it of the bench. Shell lost a horn and front coupler took a while to find, but other than that it lived.
Cuda Ken
Now, Ken, you see, if you’d been running DC instead of evil DCC that calamity never could have happened! [}:)] [;)]
I have yet (knock on wood) to have any of my locos experience The Drop. I do have a double crossover located uncomfotably close to the edge of the benchwork (a condition that will be greatly mitigated once the scenery crew reaches that area) and have had some freight cars derail and take the leap at that spot. Luckily, I have such piles of junk on the floor around the layout that they haven’t been able to fall very far.
Jim
Yep if I had DCC it would not have happened… Hopefully I have DCC by the end of April. At closer inspection this morning I have to get a new coupler and the cover on one of trucks was right against the wheels so a little tweaking and she is right smooth again. I wonder what else I can get that the hobby shop today while getting new couplers
Jim, I was DC at the time! Don’t ask how OK. [:-^]
I lost a TGV that way. We were runnning it at prototypical speeds (i.e., full throttle). The cat was sitting on the shelf with the throttle, as she often does, but for some reason on this day, she decided to take an experimental poke at the train as it went by (which she has never done before or since). She barely touched it, but the motion was enough to send it flying off the side of the layout.
I made a desparate grab for it, and managed to snag the last coach in the Powered Loco, 3 Coach, Dummy Loco trainset. The coupler / truck assembly connecting that car to the one ahead broke, and the loco and the first car smashed into an unrecognizable jumble of pieces. Total loss (and I haven’t been able to find another).
I often wonder what would have happened if I HADN’T grabbed it and just let it fall…