How many of us have experienced the sometimes destructive mixture of pets and model railroading. I have two cats who are part of my family. "Newman" and "Linus". Newman tips the scales at 21 pounds (truly a man's cat). Normally we don't let them in the garage but sometimes one or the other will slip out. Yesterday morning I got a real surprize when I opened the door to go out to the garage and found Newman perched on my work bench. He'd spent the night in the garage. I didn't think too much about it as I tossed him inside until last night when I went to run some trains, and found my Walthers twin track truss bridge in splinters. He had obviously been "walking the tracks" and put his full weight on the bridge. Well, I spent all of last night removing the bridge and constructing a temporary filler piece to get the trains running again. Nothing like this has happened since I was a kid and had HO trains VS my mother's siamese cat. Anyone have any similar experiences to share? One time one of our Ntrak members brought an infrequently used module to a set-up complete with a family of field mice.
I don't have any pet catastrophes to mention yet, and I stress the yet. I live in a two bedroom apartment by myself. I have a dog, about a year old and I know that once I start doing any modeling there is going to be some trouble. Now don't get me wrong, Tristan is a wonderful dog, but he's got what you might call a bit of a chewing problem (though in his defense he has gotten much better). As a matter of fact, I had to do some creative rearranging in order to completely empty the second bedroom so that I might keep him in there (with his toys and away from my furniture) while I am at work. The time has come to start filling that bedroom with a layout, so I am not sure how things are going to go down. At least he can't jump up onto the layout. Maybe it's time to think about getting a house? Good luck to all of you with pets. Steve
Steve, I had an Australian Cattle Dog puppy that ate my furniture. He put teeth marks on everything with legs. Humans and cats included. Paid $500 for what was supposed to be the best behaved dog on earth. Six months later I sold him (at a loss,) to an Amish farmer.
I really never had anything bad happen due to our two cats, but they did "help out" quite a bit . In this picture, Primo is helping to rerail a couple of cars (or derail, I forget). I was a little concerned with this picture, as I thought I heard the theme from Jaws. All in all, they are very good with the trains, although they will not be getting into my new train room with my knowledge.
Bury them? They are still running around. I will run my trains and they will lay under the layout and go to sleep. I almost think the like the click-click-click sound the train makes running around the layout. Sometimes they will even sit on a stool and just watch. You can't get mad at your "children" for showing an interest. Unless they eat a freight car or a locomotive (which is why I didn't pursue Z Scale).
I like pets, however, after seeing what a cat can do to a model railroad, I have decided that I need a cat around the layout like a canoe needs a trap door. My wife had two cats before we met (named Black Bart and Torquemada), and when she suggested getting another cat, I suggested naming it "Taco", upon which we decided to get a dog instead. We now have 3 scottish terriers who, while having no interest in the model railroad, love to dig and sometimes my back yard looks like an open pit mining operation. Cats are great for some modelers, however, I will stick with the dogs. Cheers! Terry
Paul, I hope that is not a Yorkshire Terrier you have there, otherwise, you are in the running for the largest of breed It looks like you grafted a picture of your beloved pet on a picture of your layout (although I am probably not supposed to know that). Have Fun and happy modeling. Cheers! Terry
PF2, you can say: "It's the attack of the 50 foot Catzilla!" Sure hope your cat learns to put the cars back on the tracks after he's done playing with them.
I have a 2yr old free-roaming Iguana named Einstein,I found him on my layout for the first time not to long ago.Not too much damage as I'm not that far along with scenery. But he did look funny with the Mi-Jack container crane stradling his back! OMG! ITS IGZILLA!!
My Siamese liked to sit on a mountain just above a tunnel opening. She would watch the train disappear into the tunnel and would at the last second try to swat the caboose. Apparently, the goal of her game was to see how close she could let the end of the train get to the tunnel and still catch it. She only weighed 9 pounds, thus she did not do any real damage. Apparently the voltage was potent for that small a body, because now and then she would step on a live track and jump a couple of feet straight up and then look at me with a "what-the-%^&*-was-that" look.
Got a Siamese myself. So far with the layout (under construction) in the garage, the cat has had little little time for investagation. She has shown interest in the trains as everyone else's. Not as much since she too hit a live track. Than again it might have been the MOW Crane that smacked her on the side of the head at the same time. I had setup some Atlas Snap Track on some mangled foam. I was seeing for myself the "how tight a radius" theory on longer freight cars, with a dogbone shape. The crane was on loan. The track was only pinned down. So when she jerked, that moved the track against the opposing track and sent the crane spinning. Bonk! She gave the same look, but with a "I'm torqued at you" finish. Women! Ya show what ya do, they join in, get thumped, get mad at YOU. Whatcha gonna do... Ha! Just joking for you lass' out there. Nothing was hurt or damaged, just egos.
Wow. Sir Prize, A layout in a garage in Florida. You better watch out for those king sized Palmetto bugs,(aka cockroach). You might mistake one for a pennsy E-8. Man could I tell you guys a Florida cockroach story. It has nothing to do with trains, so I won't.
Tell me about it Herman, and I'll tell you about the west Texas stink bug that dumped two E-8's in the dirt, and it was real dirt!
Not all cats behave the same around model trains. More than a couple of decades ago, when I was living in Atlanta, a neighbor decided to set up a "Christmas Garden" train set under his tree. Work was done on the sheet of plywood on his dining room table. They had "adopted" a stray cat, which promptly presented them with four kittens. By the time the layout was set up and could be run, the kittens were just about old enough to be adopted out, so they weren't newborns. Anyway, the children thought it would be interesting to place the four kittens on the layout and watch their reaction. Each reacted differently. One became frightened and leapt off the table, another completely ignored the train, the third watched it intently but took no action, while the fourth wiggled its rear and attacked! No damage was done, but it did not appreciate the laughter of ten humans. We ended up with the watcher, who managed to get under my layout once and stick her head out a tunnel entrance.
OH YA!! I got a friend in the bug removal biz. All taken care of. Plus, once I get it actually going it's only there till "the messy part" is done. Humdity levels running at 50%. That ain't good for layouts. Got bug tales too. I'll just say the one that flipped me off after hitting it with a hammer made me nervous.
Gregg, you should have taken a photo of the cat looking out of the tunnel, it would have made a cover shot for the Chessie RR.
This doesn't have anything to do with model railroads, but the "yet" that I posted earlier has come about. I had bought the book "Nothing Like it in the World" by Stephen Ambrose about the building of the transcontinental railroad. I am sure some of you have read it, and you'll have to tell me how it is since I will no longer get that chance until I buy another copy. My dog decided that I didn't really need the book anymore and completely destroyed it . I mean completely...nothing like it in the world. Pun intended. Since I got my dog from the local shelter, the book actually cost more than the dog. If I had thought about it I could have shown pictures, but I cleaned it up before thinking. Steve
