Imagine sticking your arm into a tunnel trying to retrive a stalled loco…and then upon reaching the loco it starts slithering and rapidly moving. Well this happened last night. No it wasn’t a current keeper gone haywire, but a huge black snake that took up residence in the lengthy tunnel at Talbot Springs. It didn’t take long to figure out how the reptile gained entrance to basement…sump pump! Today I went outside and installed a screen over drain pipe in back yard. This would be a good thing for all to check as this could have been a not so friendly snake. Also by some miracle, the snake did not toss any equipment from the rails to the floor.
In the 19 years I have owned my current house, we have had three snakes inside. We have no idea how two of them got in.
.
The third one was waiting in a shrub outside the front door, and when we opened the door to leave, he slithered in like he owned the place. I was abel to wrangle him into a waste basket and get him back outside fairly easily.
I would definitely need new underwear if that happened to me. I am with Indiana Jones when it comes to snakes.
Frind of mine lived in Florida for a few years. WIth him, it wasn’t snakes, it was lizards. One perched on the edge of his front porch roof, and when he opened the door, it jumped into the house. After that, he carefully checked every time he came home. Doesn’t help when you are inside the house and leaving though.
glad you didn’t freek and kill it most snakes are our friends event the not so nice, ones i had a 6 ft coontail in my shop layout building , it started singing when i opened the door , found my snake hook and put it in box and took it to the river.
the only thingi found on layout was a bob cat when we lived up north, was winter time and about 40 below , the cat was sleeping on layout near stove , he got startled and left some resious ruts in layout getting on the move .
I’m not particularly afraid of snakes, played with 'em as a kid. But if I reached into a tunnel and unexpectedly touched a slithering rapidly moving creature, It would have probably been ME tossing equipment, and possibly scenery and anything else in ARMS way to the floor! Dan
Yeah, the lizards are getting completely out of control. Iguanas, Gila Monsters, Alligators, etc.
.
With me it is tree frogs, especially the 4 inch long invasive “Cuban” tree frogs. If there is one near the door I will leave until it is gone. I hate them.
Well, this “old” Bronx guy has been retired in Orlando for a few years now. Took awhile to get used to the “friendly” black snakes. Sure wish we had them back home in the good old days to get rid of them uninvited four legged cheese loving long tailed rodents. (Those of you from the Northeast know which ones I’m talking about)
Anyway, had a similar experience right after we moved down here. Reached under the layout to retrieve what I thought was a transformer wire that had come loose. [:O] It went one way, I the other.
My neighbor, who was a witness, to this day, often cheerfully recalls the event. [:(]
Glad it wasn’t me, but where I used to work, we had a very large raised floor computer room. Tons of cables going every which way under there. Since the building was originally a warehouse, not designed to be a data center, there were plenty of ways for critters to get in to the under floor space. Sometimes the techs would pop a floor panel and find one of the cables moving… I guess the snakes were drawn to the coild up cables, like a duck is drawn to a decoy. What’s odd is it was definitely NOT warm down there, because of the mainframe processors we had some serious cooling systems. Occasionally there’d be a field mouse or similar, but the snakes probably took care of those.
Sometimes it’s the most innocuous critters - at my old house, something was getting in the spare bags of mulch in the garage, we figured field mouse, so I set up a Havahart trap (peanut butter and oatmeal - bet bait!). COuple of days, nothing. Came home from dinner one night, saw the trap was sprung, Grabbed a flashlight to see what I caught - as soon as I shined the light in the trap, the critter let out the most ear-piercing scream I’ve ever heard outside of a horror movie. I dropped the trap, I was so startled. Luckily didn’t hurt the critter any. Took him across the street to the field and let him out - he didn’t want to leave the trap without a litter persuasion. It was a vole.
There have been some classic cartoons in MR over the years, to wit, mice have taken up residence in a tunnel and are being chased out by the locomotive. Don;t recall any snakes. Might be a bigger problem for an outdoor G scale layout - squirrels, snakes, rabbits. I have yet to see a snake in my yard (and if I ever get in the pool and there’s one in there, the pool is getting filled in), but we have a LOT of squirrels. I’d imagine I would have some problems if I ever get around to setting something up outdoors.
I’m originally from South Philly … as soon as I saw that “youse” … knew I was dealing with someone from near home. We said “youse guys”. Like … “youse guys wanna go get a soffpressel?”
A similar thing happened to me on my first layout when I was in my teens, although the element of surprise wasn’t there as much. We let my brother’s pet black snake loose on the layout just to see what he would do. We marvelled at his ability to go through open doors on boxcars without disturbing the car. The problem started when he got into a tunnel and we couldn’t get him to come out. I guess he got a little excited with my hand thrashing around in the tunnel trying to find him because he bit me and held on! I kept my wits (he was only a blacksnake) and pulled him out while we was still latched on. I dislike snakes, and the experience left me a little shaken, but no real harm done.
The club I was a member of in the late 90s decided to tear out two sections of the layout so we could add a much needed industrial park,remove a ugly mountain,add a small town and modernized the scenery since the scenery been in since the 70s and was showing its age.This project was finished in six or seven months.
The first train across the layout was our track cleaning train that used a AHM snowplow with a bright boy attached to the bottom pushed by 2 Athearn BB FP7As.
Several of us notice a gray blur exiting “Scary Tunnel” followed by the track cleaning train pushing pieces of a mouse nest.
Reading about all your encounters of the rather bizarr kind sends little shivers down my back! I am just glad I live in a region of the world where snakes and other pests are as rare as hen´s teeth. I think the last snake sighting was about the time William of Normandy set sail to conquer England and that´s a long time ago - even for our standards!
No, the only critters we can expect to dwell on our layouts are little spiders, which make the old lady shriek, but are really harmless!
