World record model railroad attempt derailed by vandals

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World record model railroad attempt derailed by vandals

Why would anybody do this? It’s obvious people have put a bunch of time in just to try to have some fun and to try and break a world record. It’s just sad to see that people call this a prank and think it’s funny.

If this is OO (HO) scale, according to my calculations based on the comment of falling short two miles from the station, you still travelled almost 700 scale miles!! Even the prototype does well going this far without problems. I say set it up again with more help and night lighting for security. Would a volt/ohm meter help find any shorts? Unfortunately, vandals derail the real thing so wouldn’t they try it here? ps: any video?

There are always some people that have to spoil all the fun…These people should get a life!!

The things I would say would ban me forever from coming here,so I’ll say something else.
People work hard to do this stuff, and yet people thoughtlessly try to rout their efforts. I hope the people who did this are given a lesson!

James May co- hosts my favorite show ‘top gear’, and when I first heard about this I was very exited, and the fact that these people put so much hard work and effort into this just for it to be ruined by some people who have nothing better to do with their lives makes me very upset. some people just have no respect for anything but themselves anymore.

A good fun project ruined by people who don’t care and have no respect for anything or anyone but themselves.

Don’t let it stop you! Try again. Try to get enough people together to send out as security along the whole of the track. Each person watches out for so many scale miles. Figure out how many feet a person could comfortably “secure” and space them along the line. It would take a lot of people, but it allready sounds as if there is a LOT of support for the endevor! I hope you can do it! GOOD LUCK!!!

I wonder how many people, young and old, are thinking about buying a train set and getting into the hobby because they saw the fun people had in setting up this attempt. I hope James tries again and succeds this time.

Brian , there wont be a video just yet, its all being done for a new TV series , he has also built a full size house from Lego, and set a slot car world record (2.75 miles long track).

BBC America will perhaps show it when its eventually aired here in the UK.

Cool, I’ve heard that Top Gear was a show that was entertaining to watch, but I thought it was only cars. If only they had a bit more up-to-date shows on BBC America

I think James May and Top Gear is one of the best and funniest shows on TV. I was sad to see that his railway was vandalized.

I am terribly disappointed at some. Hopefully they will give it another try.

It would have been a great model railroading feat, three cheers for James May for the attempt. I agree, trying it again with security would be an excellent idea.

What a neat project! People who do these things deserve to get caught & “disciplined”. I certaintly hope the project is eventually fullfilled & well documented so the rest of us can view the results.

I often stand in my garage and think how cool it would be to be able to run a track all the way across the street to my neighbor’s house. That would be about 300 feet. To hear about someone wanting to run a train 10 actual miles is awesome and definately something I would pay to see. Man, we need some better TV shows here in the states.

Things like what the vandals did is discusting to me. It is just another example of how people don’t respect others around them. I how somebody talks him into giving it another go at it.

This is a shame…

Good news though, strange and laughable as it may seem, I am hoping to start a project to run an HO scale model train around the actual World Famous Horseshoe Curve in Altoona, PA, USA. Collaborators on the effort would include the Altoona Association of Model Railroaders, local scout troops, the Altoona Railroaders Memorial Museum, and other civic organizations, and hopefully some corporate sponsors (Atlas, MRC - are you listening?) :). Talks with Norfolk Southern (current owner of the curve) will begin shortly after some other issues are worked out.

The people responsible for the vandalism should man up and apologize and help to fix the damage…too many kids with no respect for others

i say you find out who did it and make them relay and rewire the whole track so they can see just how much work goes into that sort of thing