Well it finally happened. Last night I lost two locos to gravity. I have been running my layout for a long time with no problem like this but I guess it just wasn’t meant to be. I have a small room and my layout takes up almost half, a fact which still amuses some people I know, so I can’t really play around with too much that requires a lot of room to work with. But usually no problems until… I was trying to run an ill-fated coal train (usually no problem) when I saw the train come around after being momentarily distracted. Sure enough, two engines were about to go for a dunk. I grabbed for them but only had time to deflect them. My SD40-2 model, which was having running problems anyway, got knocked into pieces. I don’t know the fate of the SD60 as of yet. I still haven’t found where it went.
I finally gave up on the coal run and switched to my intermodal train. Some things just weren’t meant to be.
I’m planning on safetyness to prevent this on my layout to be, maybe short tree stumps lined up near the track or some fence or whatever creative thing suits. Sorry to hear about the thump, better track down that elusive engine. My test track has some track near the edge right now and my BLI 2-6-6-4 is on it now with a test train…careful as she goes!!! As always, when running your train, always keep on it. But maybe it deserved to run off since it ran so bad…
whuh wuh, well, maybe you just got a parts engine when you buy that brand new replacement…
I haven’t had any destroyed locos so far, although one loco did fall a while back. Luckily it landed on a bag full of stuff (only a one foot drop) and survived. It’s still operating. I need to do something about leaving stuff near the edge and the cats though…they’ve already caused “The Great 2008 Staging Yard Wreck”… no damage luckily.
Sorry to hear about that tragedy. Good luck finding the SD60![tup]
I had a kitbashed GP40FH fly off the end of my table after a switch faliure. And I also learned that a piece of glued clump-foliage isn’t an adequate bumper.
I’ve been lucky so far. Last week I had a kit-bashed chop-nosed E-33-2 and a one-of-a-kind old bachman E-60 repowered with an athearn genesis chassi hit the deck while moving boxes arround. no damage at all. I think I got lucky because both are in the shops, no couplers, and most details removed…
now watch me destroy something at the club tonight…
That really hurts. Maybe you can invest in some hard board and build a fascia around the layout with a lip high enough to keep the equipment on the table next time a major derailment like that happens. I have built L girder benchwork for my layout and when i install the fascia, It will always rise 1/2" higher than the plane of the layout just for that exact reason. Derailing equipment will stop on the lip of the fascia board and just short of going into the brink by doing so…chuck
Thanks, Trainfan, for reminding everybody to protect equipment from falling off the layout.
I do exactly as Chuck mentioned, and I have fascia around all of my the completed layout sections which is high enough to stop roll-offs.
Layouts with drawbridges and swing gate that open into aisles whould be wired to cut power to tracks if the gate or bridge is open, too.
If I wish to operate a news section before installing fascia, I ALWAYS staple a cardboard fence to the layout edge prior to running the trains. I learned the hard way long ago with a brass locomotive. It was quite a shock to me at the time.
I fail to see how a locomotive could fall off the layout at the rate of macro-ultra-slow speeds some people run their train systems, at a train shows there seems to be a fetish to see just how slow trains can run, I watched 3 guys standing gawking at a locomotive which seemed to be stationary but they were so excited just how slow the loco moved. I’m not sure exactly what "scale speed is but I think it might be a little faster than what I have seen (and no, I don’t mean roaring around the layout around curves leaning on only one rail)
I built a wooden guard rail all the way around my layout, may replace it later with a wooden fascia, but for now it’s made from 1/2 inch square wood runinning horizontal with 1/2 inch square uprights it’s attached to.
It’s better than seeing 300 to 500 dollar engines nose dive to the concrete floor below along with a lot of hours of work in kit built freight cars.
My layout is 6 foot by 24 foot walkaround 3-6 ft by 8 ft tables joined end to end.
One day on my 1:29 scale railroad a gust of wind blew a train (fifteen cars and two GP9’s) off the tracks. A few months later a UP double stack train going through our valley was hit by an estimated 106 mph wind gust that blew twenty double stacks off the tracks. I guess my accident was prototypical.
A reason for switching to outdoor G is the trains are already on terra ferma and if I can’t see them I can trip over them.
This thread reminded of something that happened 40+ years ago on one of my old HO layouts. I had been running a train on an outer track, not going too fast. Came around a curve and stopped to throw a switch so the train could go on to an inner track. With the train stopped and as I went to throw the switch, the whole train, except the engine, decided to fall off the track. Thankfully the couplers were strong enough so nothing went on the floor. It was like on the old Laugh-In TV show where the guy on the tricycle would stop and then fall over (Arte Johnson I think).
I’m a young un, and I know what your talking about (never seen an episode of it, though). Hey, just keep looking for that SD60, it’s bound to turn up. Just don’t step on it.