Monday the 1st: A Perfect Day for Disasters

T

TomPM

Another Fried Egg Fan
Oct 15, 2002
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Drexel Hill, PA
www.trainweb.org
Good morning folks

Not much happened on the modeling front this weekend.

What model railroad disasters or accidents have you had (or willing to own up to:D )?

For me one of the worst involved my Bachmann Spectrum K-4. I was running it to test it and a new track plan. Everything was going smoothly, then suddenly it was crossing a turnout when it jumped up off the tracks. It then proceeded to skid across about a foot of bare layout and off the layout onto the cement floor. Damage was a broken pilot and the drive rods on one side came off. The locomotive runs but is not operational at this time. A more recent disaster involved the Cement Distributor tracks before I had the bumpers installed. I left an Atlas PS-2 covered hopper and an Atlas S-2 loco on the tracks after I was testing clearances. A few days later I went to test another loco on another part of the layout forgetting the hopper and loco were on the tracks. When I applied the power the loco pushed the hopper off the layout and followed it. The damage was a broken truck on the hopper and the cab broke off the loco. The hopper was an easy repair. The loco took some time and patience. After the repairs were done a little weathering was applied to hide the repairs and the loco is back in service.
 
I didn't get a tight seal on the layout's edge and tried pouring WS water-glue to make the edge of a lake. That stuff ran everywhere and was as sticky as honey - luckily I was in the garage building the benchwork at the time so I didn't ruin any carpeting inside the house. I poured too much and it took days and days for it to harden.
 
Herc Driver said:
I didn't get a tight seal on the layout's edge and tried pouring WS water-glue to make the edge of a lake. That stuff ran everywhere and was as sticky as honey - luckily I was in the garage building the benchwork at the time so I didn't ruin any carpeting inside the house. I poured too much and it took days and days for it to harden.
Click to expand...

OOOOPPPPPPSSSSS sign1 sign1 Glad to hear that it didn't get on the carpet!!

About 6 months ago, I was trying to open a Testors paint jar that had been sitting on my desk for a loonnngggg time and when it wouldn't open, I got frusterated and tried using plyers to twist the lid. BAD idea, I squeezed to hard and the jar shattered and the paint went all over the carpet in a puddle:oops: :curse: . I cut the top of the carpet away and it is hard to notice now but there is still a tan mark on the carpet were the paint spilled.
 
When I first got started I had but one engine, a Bachmann F7 from a set I bought to see if I wanted to do N scale. (I even had it converted to MT couplers.) I was testing my new trackwork on the layout in the garage. I built it with a branchline going off the layout. I left the engine going around the loops and went inside to grab a bite to eat. I came back and could no longer hear the train running when I discovered the TO to the branchline moved enough to allow the engine to go that-a-way.:eek: Needless to say the engine did go that-a-way, landed on the rear coupler and broke the flang that held it to the truck.:cry: UPDATE: after all these years, a while back I bought a bunch of junk Bachmann F7's at a train show and was able to take one of the trucks from that bunch and finally repair my precious first F7.:D
 
Welll... For those of us that answered the "Dumpster dive" question..........

We "found" a bunch of wood, in someone's trash.. :) Brought it home and assimulated it into the layout.... We started hammering it to the frame work... and my friend says "Oh S^%^" i said what??? he said:

TERMITES!!!!

I looked... and out of the wood, comes 5 of them.... I did the only thing I could think of .. Hammer time!!!!! I squashed them then we sprayed the wood, with insecticide.... Discolored it, but no one ever noticed.. :D We then, kept watch for a few weeks to see if there was any sign of damage .. and there wasn't :) :)

That would have been a bit difficult to explain to my mother.... Uhhhh we have termites in the house... because we brought old wood in that we trash-picked....

Yeah right!!
 
My very first "New Haven" retro paint. An Athearn GP-60, that I had added metal grabs and lifting eyes, snow plow...The works.
I was wiring up a control panel for my service area. With alligator clips from the rails leading to my meter, I was checking the electrical cut-off on one track. I had two other switches already wired and checked, but forgot to mark them. On a track next to the one I was wiring, my prized GP-60 was parked. I had to go to the bathroom, when I came back, I opened up the throttle and hit the a switch. But it wasn't the meters needle that moved. The GP-60 took off, shot through the yard and on to an unfinished branch line that lead to nowhere but the edge of the layout. Like a F-14 being catapulted off an aircraft carrier, it launched off the layout. It landed on the carpet, rolled on its side til it rested pecrariuosly on the edge of the attic opening. Thinking it had stopped. I took one step to check the damage(it was about five feet away by now), It took one more tilt and down the attic access it went. By the sound, it hit every step along the way.
When I got to it on the floor below, the cab was cracked, the plow was broken, coupler missing, some grabs were bent, and a side frame from the front truck was damaged.
Needless to say.....Modeling was done for the day.
 
eightyeightfan1 said:
My very first "New Haven" retro paint. An Athearn GP-60, that I had added metal grabs and lifting eyes, snow plow...The works.
I was wiring up a control panel for my service area. With alligator clips from the rails leading to my meter, I was checking the electrical cut-off on one track. I had two other switches already wired and checked, but forgot to mark them. On a track next to the one I was wiring, my prized GP-60 was parked. I had to go to the bathroom, when I came back, I opened up the throttle and hit the a switch. But it wasn't the meters needle that moved. The GP-60 took off, shot through the yard and on to an unfinished branch line that lead to nowhere but the edge of the layout. Like a F-14 being catapulted off an aircraft carrier, it launched off the layout. It landed on the carpet, rolled on its side til it rested pecrariuosly on the edge of the attic opening. Thinking it had stopped. I took one step to check the damage(it was about five feet away by now), It took one more tilt and down the attic access it went. By the sound, it hit every step along the way.
When I got to it on the floor below, the cab was cracked, the plow was broken, coupler missing, some grabs were bent, and a side frame from the front truck was damaged.
Needless to say.....Modeling was done for the day.
Click to expand...

ooooouuuuucccccccchhhhhhhhh

Thats got to hurt!!
 
None of mine can hold a candle to eighty-eight's epic disaster, thankfully.

A couple of the few that I remember exactly how they transpired.

The first is "The Wreck of Number 6636", involving our little ex-Southern Ry switch engine, a Model Power product.

Dsc00216.jpg


Despite its tiny drive wheels, this little 0-4-0 is one of the fastest engines on our layout since there is virtually no down-gearing between the motor and the driveshaft (apparently, the designers thought the small wheels themselves would be sufficient gearing). Like real-life steam locos with no carrying wheels, it is quite unstable at speed. One day I decided to try and see if it could hold the rails at full speed. Predictably, the answer was no. As it hit the sharpest curve we have, it literally launched itself into the air and sailed across the outer track and lodged itself in the back of the control panel. Amazingly, there was no damage. In reality, the coroners would have been scraping the cab crew's bodies off the front cab wall due to the deceleration on impact.

The most recent damaging accident happened to F-M Erie Built #6001-A. The engineer disregarded a red signal and plowed into a freight train at a track crossing. That accident is alluded to in these threads:

http://www.the-gauge.com/showthread.php?t=22037
http://www.the-gauge.com/showthread.php?t=21787

I've created a diagram on a photo of our control panel to show how a locomotive can suddenly take off on its own, when its block is shut off, on a DC layout.

The Erie-Builts don't usually run since they and their passenger cars look rediculous on our 18" curves (why'd we buy the things in the first place?!), but I take them out of the box every once in awhile to strech their wheels. Fine time for disaster to strike!

crashdiagram.jpg


#6001-A was running light. A long freight train led by GP38-2 #4623 was also running on the layout. The freight was crossing the interchange at the back of the layout, in the direction indicated by the black arrow. #6001-A was waiting at the crossing at the location marked by the yellow bulls-eye. The electrical block, highlighted in red, was turned off by the toggle switch to stop #6001-A and allow the freight to pass. However, silly me neglected to notice the problem caused by the length of the freight. Before the end of the train had cleared the crossing, #4623 reached the other end of the same block occupied by #6001-A at the location marked by the green bulls-eye. This caused #4623's wheels to momentarily transfer power to the "shut off" block and start #6001-A, which plowed into the freight cars still passing through the crossing. It then derailed with enough force to fall off the edge of the layout to the supporting table, then bounce off of that to the floor. Somewhere in there the horn broke off.
 
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