The sand pit has got to go. You have enough logs for the Shays to haul.
Install your layout on the ceiling.
Make your backdrop a lifesize photo of an attacking rotweiller.
Install a throw switch in your track wiring:
Layout in use: 12 volts DC Layout unattended: 15,000 volts AC via cattle fence charger.
Remove basement/attic stairs.
Install loaded mousetraps on all gondolas.
Equip crossing gates with razor saws and Exacto knives.
Hang catnip in tunnel. Cat peeks in one end— 40 car 2-8-8-2 at full throttle goes in the other. Your cat will never forget this.
Hook up rail sounds to your son’s Marshall guitar amp set to ten. Select “diesel roar” when cat takes first swipe at caboose. Works every time.
Find your cat sleeping on the layout. Gently place Walkman headphones over its ears and play the Mighty Mouse theme song at full volume. Cats hate the Mighty Mouse theme song and will permanently associate it with the layout.
AND THE NUMBER ONE WAY TO KEEP CATS OFF LAYOUTS?
Convert to Z scale and put the layout in a drawer!
Or be like me and have the cat scared to death of you. All I have to do is yell CAT! at the top of my lungs as deep as I can and the cat takes off running.
Surround sound and blasting the guitar riff from Freebird or Fred Bear at full blast works too.
My cat, who is almost 18 years old, has long, fine hair. She came to live with us when she was three months old, and lived in the house for about a year, until my wife developed an allergy to her hair. During the time she lived in the house, she jumped up on my N scale layout all the time and tipped over the moving trains. Moreover, despite my vacuuming the house and layout twice a week, her fine hair collected on the track and clogged up the gears of the locomotives. Because of her hair, I had to send in two locomotives for repair. Nevertheless, I loved to watch her interact with the model trains. Now, at a different house, she lives in the basement garage with that same layout, (while I’m building another [HO] layout in another basement room). However, because of her age, she can’t jump on the layout any longer. I still have to constantly vacuum her room to keep down the hair problem.
But a dog won’t jump on the layout, scratch up the legs, use a pile of ground foam/sand/ballast as a… You know. [X-)] I’d love to have my dogs down stairs but one’s too old and the other is not that bright to climb down the stairs.
