Have you ever had a Model Railroad Disaster or a near miss? What was it? The first time using you use your brand new DCC locomotive and it slips out of your hand as you remove it from the box. And your train room floor is made of concrete. The special passenger train derails on track 1/2" from the edge of the layout. Leaning on a shelf layout and it collapses. Your 6 year old nephew grabs the DCC controller while you go out to use the bathroom. The new mining kit you worked 3 weeks on gets smashed by aliens (cats sit innocently at the scene) Tell us your tale of Woe, please, you'll feel better (maybe) See ya Ron
Almost finished an Athabasca Shops etched brass caboose kit, assembled, detailed, painted, weathered....tried to screw the couplers on and dropped it. Thin brass and concrete equals very realistic crumpled caboose.
Not me personally, but let me relate a conversation I had with a visitor at an NMRA Open House I hosted this Spring. We are talking about wrecks and money to fix them and this fellow says, "I've had four disasterous things happen to me in 40 years of model railroading. Three ex-wives and model railroading itself." I didn't have a comeback for that one. Jim:startled:
I ran my very first locomotive off the track and straight to the floor on the first lap around the track. Broke the couplers and I was ready to scrap model railroading then and there. Greg Amer The Industrial Lead gregamer.com
I have seen someone backing into out stub ended staging yard at the Pikemasters forget to watch his train and he backed all the way off the end of the benchwork. Me personally, well my layout is exposed to the elements and I have had some fun with that. Just this last week I left the window in the shed infront of my yard open. Result was several cars toppled over on their sides. Then a Spider decided to be helpful and made a big web over everything.
Have I had a WHAT? Disaster! I was beginning to sing a tune I'd heard a number of years back, "If it wasn't for bad luck, I'd have no luck at all". See thread I started and if you'd be inclined take a read. More of a rant... as it continued. Here we go: http://www.trainboard.com/grapevine/showthread.php?143802-Heat-Expansion-and-Metal-Sheds&highlight= I still haven't recovered from this fiasco. I have four more spots in my hidden staging yard where I need to re-install track. The hardest place to get to. I guess you could say YES! I have!
I have had probably the usual. Such as a soldering iron accidently melting a pricey item, derailment to a concrete floor, etc. But the above quote beats anything (so far) I could possibly say!
The roof on THE Trailer collasped sending ceiling parts, insulation, and water all over the layout and trains. Salvaged what I could and started over in THE RV. Got a new bachmann 4-8-4 for THE Wifes S Excusion Train. Had it setting on the shelf above the computer while I laid track on the new THERR. Went to pick the loco up gingerly to take it out and run it. There is a fine line between gingerly and a decent amount of finger pressure so things dont slip out of the hand. It landed on the desk and broke off the trailing truck. Scooped up all the pieces and parts and put it all in the jewel case. Another project...like I dont have enough already *sigh. Then....Ran my first DCC train on the new layout. Turned around to grab a drink of Ice tea. I smelled the smoke before I saw it ! The loco ran thru the double crossover with one set of points going the wrong way. Melted a truck !!!...Grrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrr. Yet another project. There are hundreds more stories...but may as well let others relate theirs...LOL
My son's 16th birthday.My cousin's also 16 daughter shows up for the party.I have a 60 car auto parts/auto rack train running around.It's being pulled by a totally scratchbuilt SD60M I built long before Atlas made theirs.I just get finished telling her and a few others there that it took me 40 or so hours to piece it together from a few different locos.She asks:"what are the trees made of"? I answer:"ground foam rubber".She reaches down,"RRRRIP".. tears one right off the layout..As she looks at it,she glances over,FINALLY realizes that I'm staring at her,and that she did an extremely stupid thing..She gingerly puts it back,and it promptly rolls down the hill right in front of the train,which promptly goes off the track,every single loco and car going straight into a garbage can on the floor,all landing right on top of the SD60..I don't even look at her,I say:"I bet you can be in your car and half way home before before I get to that locomotive"...I heard a car door slam before I even finished,never saw her again..LOL!! Other than a few damaged couplers,nothing was damaged,luckily,I had thrown away a wad of cloth,everything landed on it...
My biggest disaster happened a few months back while going through a cleaning session with my lovely running N scale LL GP 38-2. After I completed the servicing, I held it by it's shell which is pretty tightly attached to the frame all the time, was carrying it to put it back on track, and suddenly a small section of the roof got detached... I fumbled, the loco slipped, then I saw it falling streight on the nicely polished concrete floor - with a strange feeling of panic, anxiety and sadness. The fall broke both its couplers, thrashed the rear (stairs, railings, etc), and when I did life it from the ground without any will to look at it, the rear truck just fell off! I ordered a new truck from Walthers, spent about 4-5 hours repairing the whole damn thing - some stairs and railings couldn't be repaired like new after all, but the loco actually runs better than before with the new truck and servicing - so I am not that unlucky after all! But yes, that few minute of trauma was enough for this year I guess.
Two crashes , 30 years apart. first wife took base ball bat to first mining road ( 4'x4' ) UP- PWW&RB RR Aug 1982 .... road went bankrupt. Divorced first wife. Second crash was this past monday , lay out is on 18" x 6 ' blue foam, it sits on extra easy chair in tv room during the week as it shares office space as I work from home . After having it set up on office desk , I set it aside for the week, this time I did not get it set back far enough on the arms of the chair and it did a half gainer to the floor , good thing for 6 lb foam under the carpet . no rolling stock got mashed but it did take out a few trees, new flag pole , sent log trucks tumbling and broke off the roof and dust collector of resaw shed, dislodged the controler ( DC ) and riped out the loop trak.. I was going to blame it on BNSF as their track is only two blocks away but new home is vibration proof ... old home next door use to rock and roll 50 times a day .. shook it self a part , I kid you not . we get 30 or more trains a day thru here.
I have a unprotected gate on my layout and I left it open. In 2007, my momentary inattention and my custom paint DRGW SD50 almost went to the concrete floor. Only the long wheelbase and the fuel tank saved it.
Having been in N scale since 1970 and HO before that, and even earlier three rail Lionel I run out of fingers and toes to count the oopsies and major and minor disasters that have occurred. But the worst disaster to befall me had to be the tumble that two rubbermaid totes, filled with about 700 assorted freight cars and locos took back about 5 or 6 years ago. Thought eveything was well padded, not, and the best can be described was the term blunt force trauma. About 50% suffered actual broken beyond repair MT couplers, stirrups, and some trucks. Took about six months to repair all the damage. Next on the list was the aborted photography attempt on the modified Micro Ace logging mallet. Spent about 3 weeks kitbashing a slopeback tender into a longer version with a oilbunk for it. Had finished and was photographing it with some additional lighting. Noticed on almost the last shot that the tender didn't look right. Danged heat from the floods had severely distorted one side of the tender and it ended up being discarded. Damage to loco minor as was able to be fixed. And then the earthquake managed to shake 6 pieces of rolling stock and two locos to the floor. Fortunately damage was minor on just a couple of cars and repairs turned out to be fairly easy. I've had water pours get were they are not supposed to and an attempt at laminating thin plastic sides to about four Model Power bay window cabeese resulted in the cars warping severely about four months later with the cars being consigned to the circular file on the floor. Other than the trials and tribulations of spilling paint, tipping over a bottle of glue and watching it eat up the styrene pices I just cut and sanded, and wrestling with acute Zimactitis on some old steam locos that has been about it. Oh least I forget cutting my fingers more time than I can remember and bleeding on my work, having the dremel kick back and snare my clothes while I desparately try to kill the power, drilling a nice hole in several fingers from time to time and the other assorted injuries I have inflicted upon myself in the name of relaxation and enjoyment.
Well, John, I believe I'd feel a lot safer not being around while you are kitbashing, etc. Sounds like a real danger zone. I wouldn't want to become collateral damage!
All the time. The latest one was a flying GE 44 Tonner that decided to jump off the edge of the layout 4' to the tile floor below. I found one of the trucks about 8 feet away... around a corner & I can't imagine how it got there... took me about an hour to find it. Good news though... snapped the trucks back in and it runs!!! It was around the time of the Summer Olympics... so... I'd give it a 10 on the dive.
countless oops here... worst two : - two custom painted and detailed engines just finished. was searching for the drives to install the shells. well, shells fell to the floor unnoticed. carpet. no big thing. but since i didn't noticed they fell down i didn't take care where i step. crrrrrrack.... both shells beyond repair. had to start again. - was working on 5 engines for a customer. paint job, detailing, all that stuff. masked and painted them. everything worked fine. then i wanted to paint another layer of via rail renaissance greenblue. that's when the lights in my paint booth decided to blow up. no big thing. i can work without light. first shell, second shell, third shell, fourth shell, fifth shell....nice and thin layers of blue. blue ? BLUE ???? woo woo woo ! they're supposed to be via rail greenblue (chezoom teal). because i was too lazy to install new light bulbs i did not notice i used the wrong color for all the shells. this is one reason why my sandblasting cabinet is right beside my paint booth .... and the coolest oops : i live in an appartement building with 17 other appartements. one saturday evening i was 'doing some magic' with the electrical installation of my layout . 240volts over here. suddenly some sparks, a loud bang, and my appartement was out of power. checked all circuit breakers. something had to be terribly wrong. when i turned on the lights in my living room the lights in my bedroom got weak. turning on the lights in my bathroom made the lights in the kitchen go on as well. after a few phone calls i had someone look at the things. turned out i managed to toast part of the house installation in the cellar... seems like 1/3 of all appartements had some power issues .... at least i now know most of my neighbours...
Actually Pete, the UP is in my home town in Mtn Home Idaho. My first N scale in 1979 was UP . But yes, I just about had enough of BNSF ... but it will be part of my expansion and will include GN , NP... some days I can hear their steam whiistles echoing down the Sagle valley ... Paul
Two that come to mind. I was about finished scratch building a passenger car from pieced together Evergreen styrene when I accidentally knocked over an open bottle of Tenax R7. The contents ran under the shell of the car that was laying on the cutting board on my work bench. Needless to say it turned to a slimy blob. When I attended the N scale convention in Portland, Oregon a few years ago, I packed a few models for the contest in a foam lined plastic case which was packed in my suit case. The Homeland Security folks must have opened it up to inspect one of my locos and dropped it. My custom modified Texas & New Orleans P-14 Pacific was all beat to death. All the other locos and cars were in perfect order. Wire handrails on the tender were bent and broken off, steps and other details were broken. Fortunately all the pieces were there. I managed to scrounge enough glue, paint and tools to repair it and enter it into the contest. I don't think it won anything.
paperkite: Sagle, Idaho? You probably get snow there in the winter. BNSF do much plowing on the right-of-way near you? Any pictures for us?
