Does anyone else have a funny-now-not-then story like this? My daughter was visiting from Birmingham Alabama with her two children, and while I was at work, my two small grand-daughters and my two grown daughters were at my house. While my daughters were talking outside, the little girls were playing together inside. When my phone rang at work, I thought nothing of it until my daughter frantically said, “Oh gosh, Dad, I couldn’t find the kids and called and called for them everywhere. Then, I found them downstairs and they were playing underneath your train tables.” Fear set in. My daughter went on to explain that the playful 4-year olds had apparently climbed on top of the table and de-coupled my trains, then hid underneath, where they pulled out a lot of the wiring. I was afraid to return to my own house. My daughter said it wasn’t that bad, but I just thought she was trying to make me feel better. When I went downstairs, I saw that although damage had been done, it wasn’t anything that was not able to be fixed. The girls had done what most young kids would have done–they played. They moved around the figures, rolled the cars over the roads, knocked down some trees as they crawled along. I cleaned everything up, and now the girls know that they can always enjoy my trains…with me. I wasn’t angry at them at all, and they knew it, but to this day, one always blames the other for what happened. Like I said before, they do what most young kids would do! [;)] Who else has a story like this? ~Dave
well, i have had this happen to me only with my cats. they will jump up onto my table and one will bite my trees and actually uproot them while my other cat watches my train go around the layout, as if it was an oversized mouse (its really a P2K switcher). i just think it could be worse. what if your dog got into the train room?[:-,]
Am I having a case of deja-vu or didn’t you post this exact story word for word about 4 months ago? Maybe it’s just a flashback?[%-)]
My brother-in-law has two helixes on his layout. One of them has a large, flat, puffball tree covered area on the top. The family cat found one day and decided that it was a very comfortable place to sleep. Now keep in mind that this flat area is about 5.5’ off of the floor. One day he came down to the layout and noticed a mess on the floor directly under the center of the helix. There was trees and plaster everywhere. It did not take too long to figure out what had happened. I can only imagine the look on the cats face when gravity took over.
Loather I did post this exact story about 4 months ago. I dont know what happened. I certainly didnt repost it. My apologies. Dave
If you look at the original post he posted it on 3-11. The 2nd reply was today so somebody brought the thread back to life.
-Smoke
I cant say that I have had my kids take stuff apart but my cat… now that is a different story. I dont know why but the only corner of my layout that could not be reached easily was his favorite. I planted over 200 trees in this corrner and was very proud of my work, it was really late when I finished it so I didnt take any pictures of the new forest, I figured I can do that in the morning. Well by the time morning came I found my forest was kitty clearcut down to the last tree. I was furious with the kitty and taught him some lessons on aerodynamics. Right after I got a few of the salvagable trees back up the cat did it again. He knew better than to stay up on my layout when I walked in (he ran and I could not catch him this time). I could not shut the door because I had to remove it just to build the layout. I had trees and bushes made out of the same foam and glued down with the same glue all over the layout and he never went after that stuff only my hard to get corner. Kitty got quite a few flying lessons from his expliots on my layout but the thing kept getting up there no matter how wet, how far he flew, how hard he got smacked or whatever else I came up with at the time. Stubborn cat. I almost put a picture of him on my post office wall.
Well, I don’t know if I would consider this a real “wreck”, but oh well. Here goes!
One day while I was looking around on the layout, I found a small red spider who mad its home inside the place where the protective plastic film on the foam insulation board had peeled back and rolled up (my layout doesn’t have a lot of scenery on it since I re-built it almost a year ago).
Anyway, I found the little booger and left him alone (big mistake). About a half hour later, I was watching my brand new (at the time) Athearn Genesis SD45-2, with sound and DCC, roll past the station, which is about 5 linear feet away from my Digitrax Zephyr command station. Just then, as I was bending down to get a good look of the train going by, the little red spider (who was about 5 scale feet across) reappeared beside me and made his way to the tracks. Before I could do anything, he was stopped on the tracks, facing the train. During the mad dash to stand up and get to the Digitrax, I looked back to see the poor thing raise his front two legs as if to say “You want some of this?”
Splat. [xx(]
I finally got to the controller and put the train into emergency. Luckily, when I backed the train off the spider, I found that he hadn’t made too much of a mess. Just a few legs to pick up.
-Brandon
Now that is funny.
This is by a model railroad friend in our local club - and it’s true too, as I was there at the end of the story!
A MOUSE IN THE HOUSE
by Lou McIntyre
I had just entered my train room when I heard a scratching sound coming from Porter Road. Since there is normally very little commotion caused by the local residents in this sleepy little settlement on my Hampton & St Martins RR, any sound at all would be unusual. As I glanced right, I spied a field mouse galloping toward me across the 300’ long Gully Bridge. At the end of the trestle, he took a right turn and disappeared under my layout. After the shock wore off, I hoped that he had appreciated the convenience of the trestle that kept him from having to climb down the 100’ to the bottom of the gully and then back up the other side.
Over the next few days, I began to discover a sinister side to this tiny visitor. First, I found that a moose (not mouse) and three fishermen were toppled over into the stream where I had placed them. I hesitate to guess what the attraction may have been, but thankfully, none of the victims had drowned.
The next attack came against my model trees. I discovered clumps of 3-4 fallen spirea trees and piles of seed husks conveniently piled on my track. My layout has thousands of trees on it, so this rodent invasion was moving way past humorous to downright threatening. At least he didn’t seem to be picking on the majority of my trees, those made with oregano shrub tops.
Armed with peanut butter, I set my first trap. The trees continued to fall. The trap was re-armed, this time with cheddar. The trees continued to fall. Success finally came with Cheez Whiz; Paul Bunyan would no longer work his deeds on MY railway.
I cleaned up the mess to prepare for a visit from some of my fellow model railroaders. When they came over recently, I related the story of my mousing adventures. During
The strange thing is, when I clicked on it there were 0 replies. It was up on top of the first page like a brand new post with no replys yet.[%-)]Didn’t notice the date. Glad I’m not losing my mind![:P] I’ve been having a lot of deja vu lately.
Loather, go figure. This post must have been several pages back, with no replies. There sure have been some good ones so far. have a good evening all and thanks Dave
hmm…
apparently I brought this thread back to life[:D]