I received an engine this week that I really wanted. A limited edition of my favorite rail line, with DCC. I got it out of the box, put it on the test track, and quickly found out the back wheels of this “never taken out of the box except to take pictures” engine were not turning. After taking it apart and breaking a delicate hand rail in the process I managed to reattach a loose drive system. Rather than being upset I started thinking “This is not as bad as when …”
In my early 20’s I was a full time musician living in the city and doing a lot of traveling. My parent’s house was still home and I returned twice a month. One time, to my horror, I found my 4x8 layout had become a storage table. My mother used a screw driver to pry up all of the track. One engine and the rolling stock were dumped into a box with track piled on top and stored in a damp corner of the basement. Some of the buildings were broke, and I never did find two expensive locomotives that I purchased with money I made while working for a coal company. That 4x8 grass covered piece of plywood is still being used as a table in her basement. I still have the Tyco layout book, some rolling stock and rusty track to remind me of what I once had.
(Sorry if this has been done before. I did a search for “disaster” which did not return anything.)
House fire went up through the closet where I had put the trains. Where they’s been before was “too damp.” Post '55 Lionel melted down, most older stuff survived with some damage. 10-12 pr switches, gone. Pre-War was in the next room (whew!), survived.
Loss of family photos was also personally devistating.
I had a dozen American Flyer S gauge locos. About thirty cars, lots of track and switches with the rubber roadbed, a talking station and many buildings stored in a closet with my HO equipment. While I was in the Army my parents wanted the closet space and gave all the American Flyer stuff away. I didn’t find out until I was out of the Army for six months. All gone.
Why can’t parents respect our stuff? Where are all these trains our parents thru away? Some big service track in the sky. And yes I know how you feel. I too lost my trains. I live in the foothills of Northen California " gold country ", and sometimes we get fires. Back in 1989 we had a forest fire come thru our area and burnt down over 200 homes in a weeks time. Our house was gone on the first day of the fire. We were givin a short amount of time to evacuate, so as I’m grabbing clothes and things, I go into the next room and there sitting in the middle of the room is my 5 x 10 HO layout. What do you grab? You grab the closest thing to you. An Athearn GP-7 and 2 box cars. Time to leave. So you hope by some grace of God that you house won’t burn down, but it does, along with your lifes photos and cherished things. After the fire all I found of the layout was a bunch of weights from my rolling stock and a melted transformer. Sad sad sad !!! But I learned, It’s just stuff. Now I’m on my 3rd layout and It’s alot better than my old one. So cheer up, buck up and start agian. Such is life. And yes I still have that GP-7 and it still runs great, want to see it? Then check out my pics in Photo Gallery.
After painstakingly working on a model it was time to ‘wrap it up with sealer coat of Dullcote’. Only problem was that in my haste instead of grabbing the can of Dullcote I grabbed a can of flat black…and yes I applied it.
I dropped a Proto 2000 GP38-2 and broke off a little corner of the rear step. I found the broken piece a few weeks later after I purchased a new one off of Ebay, lol.
After picking up my DD40AX off the floor in pieces which had derailed due to a turnout I forgot about leaving open–that my Dad was right. I should have put up some transparent fencing there. About 15 years ago.
Who was the Mfg and what model was the loco you had to repair
About a year ago I was running my brand new Athearn CSX Dash 9 and I forgot about my pair of GP-38 running on the track and they met and my beautiful Dash 9 I had only in my possesion for less than hour went crashing to the cement floor and into a lot of pieces. I was able to get it all back together and it is now one of my best running locos I have.
This duh-head put 12 volts to a 1.5 volt GOW headlight bulb to test it. Got a tad bright before departing to light bulb heaven. Turned out replacing it with an LED was a close color match and a rewarding challenge, since the space alotted for a front headlight in a P2K switcher is close to microscopic.
But that’s the nature of the hobby. Take a disaster, no matter how small, learn from it and re-invent the wheel in the process of correcting it. We are all self-made men. (and women and children)
When my ex-wife and I separated, I left my train stuff there until I could get a storage locker. A couple of months later, I found out she had just left the house and moved in with her boyfriend. When I went to the house ALL of it was gone, including a brass 4-8-4 Northern. [8o|] [:'(]
Back in the early 80’s I had an around the walls double decker type layout in a 15’ x 17’ room that used a train lift to get an entire train from one level to the next. The lift was manually powered. There was no power cut-off for the sidings that went to the lift on either level. Nor was there any kind of automatic system to turn the turnouts to a ‘safe’ position. Neraly all my motive power at that point was Athearn. Mostly F7’s, a few GP’s and a pair of PA2’s. I had just lifted a train from the lower level to the top level and was running it off onto the line while one of my PA’s was pulling a freight on the lower level. Before I even realized what was happening the PA went through the turnout that went to the lift siding and headed straight for the yawning gap where the lift would usually be. Before I could stop it the loco and five cars went off the end and crashed to the floor. Back then the shells of the Athearn PA’s were somewhat fragile. This one was no exception. The nose broke into several pieces while part of one side of the cab fairly disintegrated. The motor was knocked out of it’s mounts and one of the shafts was broken. Upon closer examination I found that the frame was cracked, so the loco was a total loss except as a parts source for the other one.
My daughter came down to the layout one day (15 years or more ago). She had always been interested in trains. So much so, that she would accompany me to the NMRA division monthly meetings and even went with me to SER Regional meet in Knoxville (that is for another story). So, anyway, I am working on some scenery project and she decides to run some trains. She had had experience doing this under my supervision. Anyway, I have a point to point layout. She decides on the new Atlas Southern FP-7’s. Instead of pulling of slowly, she opens the throttle wide open. The worse news is that the direction for the DC was “reverse”. Well, soon the 15 or so car train and the new engines are on the concrete floor. As with Murphy’s law, the most damaged pieces are the FP7’s and my daughter is crying uncontrollably.[:'(] The good news was it was not my only brass locomotive at the time that she destroyed.[:D]
I’m 63 years old and just getting back into the hobby from when I was a teenager with a 4 x 8 layout in my parent’s basement. You know the old story: discover girls, go away to college, get married. I’m telling my 94 year old mother I am buying model trains again and she asks me whatever happened to the one I had as a teen. I say, “You have lived in the same house for 50 years and it was there when I left, you tell me what happened to it.” Bottom line, somebody got $500 worth of HO for $20 in one of mom’s garage sales.
I have two, my first was when the house from my parents burned down. It contained my Marklin train set, everything was destroyed.
About a decade and a half later my 4 DC layout was taking shape, decided to take a break from building and run some trains. One of my Kato AC4400 ran off the end of a siding and hit the floor. Luckily no major damage, just reassemble the loco and a some glue and good as knew but a huge lesson learned.
You know I thought that I would have a much more dramatic story to tell but mine are jus the same as all of your stories. I too have two stores to tell. My second one was when I was getting back into the hobby and took an interest in the expensive engines. My first big purchase was a Dash-8 Santa Fe from Atlas. As I was applying the handrails to the nose at the table it slipped and fell to the floor. I think I cried.
My first disaster didn’t come to my trains but to my grandfathers priceless Lionels. I was 4 years old and it was Christmas time. Grandpa had a display of most of his Lionels. All of a sudden smoke filled the house and grandpa took off for the garage to find the flames. Being a 4 year old I didn’t know what to do but follow him. I left the fire door open to the garage and ran back in. My aunts blame me for the rest of the house burning down, saying if the door wasn’t opened the fire would have just stayed in the garage. I was only 4 stinking years old and both of those haggs can kiss my ___! Grandpa’s hard earned collection had gone up in smoke.
Fortunately I have only had one locomotive hit the floor and it only broke a coupler. Lucky!
My worst experience was with a small loco shed into which I had installed 1.5 volt micro bulbs with reflectors for the exterior lights. My less than optimal electronics brain decided to try to run the bulbs with a 12 volt power supply using resistors to control the voltage. Problem was I messed up on the resistor calculation so when I powered up the lights they looked great - for about 2 seconds. Then, as the saying goes - I let the smoke out of the resistors and the lights went poof! Foolishly I had glued the bulbs and wiring very firmly into the structure. Big mistake! Replacing the bulbs took more than an hour and messed up the structure enough that it required repairs to the walls.
Lesson learned! Keep your roofs removable and cool it on gluing wires into place. Enough said.