I had a small crash on my makeshift layout today,that could have been bad if not for the wall behind the derailment.I was running three Lionel Alco’s and 13 cars behind it, when I walked away for a second and BOOM !![:0] A highcube boxcar came uncoupled from the last unit and it was introduced to the caboose a short time later.Nothing hit the floor,but it made quiet a mess to clean up.Aother good reason the stationary layout will have a block system and plexiglass gaurdrails on the outside line.What was your biggest crash on your layout ?
I have had several at the crossing on the club layout. It never seems to fail, the second you look away that’s when your loco decides to T-Bone part of your consist. [xx(]
while switching on the inner loop, I had a derailment that sent a boxcar out and on top of the outer mainline. I was just out of reach and had to duck under to get the scene. about that time I watched my trusty 2330 come highballing around the 072 outer main hit the boxcarlay over on its side, slide the 6 to 8 inches to the table edge and and then disappear over the side with a solid thud when it hit the bare concrete basement floor. There was minor cursing and then a check of the damage… I got lucky, it hit on the end of the shell and didn’t break or bend anythng. It was and is a runner so the new scratches didn’t bother me to much.
When I forget to flip the main switch and we have a head on at the Roger’s Corner Station. Usually several waiting plastic passengers are killed or mangled by the flying debris, explosions and fire.
Then we put the trains back on the track and continue.
I had a coal drag of twenty cars and was going too fast around a curve, inertia took over and BAM all rice coal real load of coal all over the place. Since then made up my own coal loads by gluing coal to the foam and then spray painting it black. It is now lighter and safer. Remember SAFETY FIRST.
laz57
I have 3 trains on one loop and after getting them started I was working with another loop and decided to speed up the orginal loop using the MTH controllers all command. I forgot the lashup does not always respond so a couple of minutes later my GP9 bumped the last three streamline K-line passenger cars from the curve on the second level to the floor: One broken coupler, and one jammed door.
I have all sorts of adventures. None too serious though - my track is far from the edge of the layout so nothing can fall to the ground - I’ve derailed everything at least once going too fast on a curve. I’ve decapitated the bobbing clown in the Ballyhoo circus consist when going under a pre-war truss bridge - actually, it knocked off his head, decoupled the car, undid the track as well as the rest of the train. Worse for me are unexplained stopping deep in a tunnel - too much train for the engine - or stalling on a grade behind the hills in the far corner of the layout - all eminently avoidable.
This is a great question. I have had several mishaps on my layout. I am running all command control engines and the rails always have 18 volts on them. I have two problem engines that sometimes act up. They some times take off at full power full speed all by themselves. One time one engine ran into a group of atlas tank cars and the result was some broken plastic parts. There is normally no damage when I have a run away on my layout. The engines just run off the rails and trip the circuit breaker and stop. The aluminium cars from Kline are indestructible and Diecast cars are also very resistant to damage. The main damage occurs to my landscaping when a engine jumps off the track. I don’t trust these particular two engines and use them very carefully. Plexi glass guards are a must on everyone’s layout. Without it railcars fall off the edge of layouts like links of chain. The plexi glass has saved me many times.
My worst crash was about 1967or 68 when my father ran my 307 Atlantic and several cars off the end of the platform on to the concrete floor. It broke the bolt that held the side rods on and bent an axel. It now runs down the track with wouble that makes it look like a duck walking. It still runs great. In all the years I had my trans up at home dad never caught on how to run them. Mom told him to let them alone. It was always full speed ahead. He is gone now but just thinking back about him runing my trains you had to slow him down a little every so often.
In my youth, I ran a Lionel #2020 at full steam around a O-27 curve, went right off the layout and through a thin plaster board wall in my parent’s house and landed on some laundry in the wash room. No damage to the engine, just some plaster to clean up and a sore posterior from mom’s instructional hand.
Me falling on the layout Friday. smashing a Catenary pole.
I had a Challenger fly off the end of the layout but I made a leaping catch and saved it .
Jamie
One time i mis-aligned a switch and sent my scratch-built NYC Boxcab electric onto the concrete floor.Luckily it only caused minor damage (bent handrail and some scratches).I learned my lesson and put up a safety rail that has prevented any further mis-adventures!
Those high speed crashes I had as a youth still haunt me.I had a Marx steamer,one of the diecast ones ,going full blast down the 16 ft.staight ( that was on my childhood layout at my mom and dad’s house),go 2-3 ft.horizonally before it went 3 1/2 ft.vertically to the floor.It messed it up so bad it was never run again . My Dad still mentions that one.
My older son flipped up the foot rest on a recliner once and launched a Lionel Berk that was coming around the out curve on the Christmas layout across the room. No damage, but the Berk flew really well that day.
The great Mother In Law Disaster of 1997!!!
It all started when a friend of mine was having troubles with his TMCC signal(turned out he had no third prong ground). To help him I discounnected the Command Base from my layout, and brought it over to his.
That very same day, my in-laws came to visit. My mother-in-law entered the train room(no…I don’t know why), flipped on the wall switches…one for the lights and the other for the layout.
The layout sprang to life, and every blessed engine sat a moment listening for it’s TMCC signal, didn’t hear it because the Command Base was in my car, and then took off!
My brand spanking new #238E Torpedo plowed into a parked freight conisting of my entire 6464 boxcar collection. The N5C, and four of five 6464’s hit the floor, while the Torpedo continued to blow through the consist like it wasn’t there.
My wife who was up-stairs in the kitchen heard the machine-gun speed fire of an engine chugging at 10,000 rpm, and took the stairs in one leap and shut things down. [:O]
Thankfully I wasn’t home to witness this catastrophe!
Jon [8D]
Just one of several. [xx(]
The crossing is rite next to an opening for the lift bridge consequently that is where everyone likes to chat. [:I]
For me there are 2 worst accidents.
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In the Garden, LGB slammed into a sleeping dog in the tunnel. Engine outweighed the dog, $600 bill at the Vet.
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N scale: Trans Eurpoa Express (limited edition Minitrix set $500 in 1982) went sailing off the layout, the backside of the layout, nine feet above the concrete sub basement floor. Complete set was DOA.
Hi,
last week my two under construction modules in n scale 1ft *4
went on the floor with cars and engines =:0
it was my cobuilder thats 3 year old ,my son 
he fell from the chair and fell over his toolbench and took a module that was standing leaned to the wall with him ,and it fell over the other who was halfway out over the buildingtable .I heard a loud scream and saw him fell on the floor with 3 modules over him complete with several buildings and engines and wagons,( these atlas engines do take a lot of punishment and they seems to cope with it )
He ran to bed and hide himself under the blanket while I stood there mildly speaking to my self ,not .
well it was ok at last so he could continue run the trains when I had the mess cleared.
Tomas
Gothenburg
Sweden : )
The most recent near-incident involved my Z-4000 with handheld remote. The remote tends to lose control of the transformer at the most inopportune time, the last being as the coupler released on the rear observation car of a streamlined trainset on a hidden curve. I was intently watching a beautiful hudson pulling 6 passenger cars at speed back towards the curve of death, when I realized that this was originally a 7 car train! I immediatly pushed the emergency stop button on my remote , with no response! Now with about 10 feet separating engine & tailcar, & about 20 feet to my main control panel, I lunged for the main breaker box for the entire house only a few feet away. This quick action saved the train, but it also plunged myself into total darkness! The only sounds I heard was my wife screaming to know why the family tree program that she had been working on for 3 weeks was now gone forever on the now-darkened computer screen. At least in the darkness it was quite easy for me to slip away from my basement empire to my new confines in the DOG HOUSE!