Model railroad accidents

My biggest derailment happened when a hotshot intermodal train and a mixed freight approached a double crossover at half speed (full speed combined). Little did I realize, Both the turnouts were thrown. By the time I realized it, both the trains colided head-on. The locomotives went airborne and landed in a full parking lot next to an Amtrak station on top of many parked cars. I'm very happy to say that all engineers and pedestrians were ok, but I wish I could say the same about their cars! [:P]

-Brandon

I haven't had any major catastrophe's on my home layout, but I did witness an astonishing pile up on the club's "traveling layout". A car derailed and uncoupled from the train, leaving the tail end cars ,sitting ducks for a 60 mph impact. I can't explain how this happened, you'll just have to look at the 3rd photo!






Jeremy

I left some tools on the track after some work on the layout. [banghead]

I was running my son's military train, and going through a weak springed turnout, the first car behind the two F2 consist picked the points, derailed and uncoupled at the same time. The switch was thrown towards the diverging route, which then went into a tunnelon a tight curve. Just upstream from here is the lower end of a five percent grade, and needless to say, those M1 Abrams go about 68 tons apiece.

The first flatcar drifted wide off the turnout/curve and hut the tunnel abutment, and the momentum from the grade ensured a full scale disaster, with most of the flats accordioned into the lower reaches of the rock face. The tanks were carying both fuel and live ammunition, but none of the rounds cooked off and there was, thankfully, no fire.

The NTSB ruled the accident as equipment failure, and no fines were levied. DoD tried to make a stink, but it was their word against the line's as to whether the turnout or their flatcar initiated the failure. The engineers were aware that they had lost some weight, but continued as low speed through the tunnel, and were surprised at the carnage on emerging from the other end. Rumsfeld choppered out to the site the folowing day, and generated more than 250 memos on various subjects, but refused to comment to the media without checking to see if national security was at stake.

Probably the biggest accidents I've had on the railroad happened when I still ran everything on the carpet. It was mostly just a few cars falling off the track, but one time, my P1K DL-109 went straight off a curve and landed on its side on the carpet, and the truck details stuck to the little carpet fibers. I had to bend a few details back into shape, but everything's fine now.[:D]

QUOTE: Originally posted by mtrails I can't explain how this happened, you'll just have to look at the 3rd photo!

How did THAT happen!?[:O]

[:D]Here are the photos of the Tester/Marvin wreck. On Saturday July 8, 2006 at approx. 16:29 EDT, Engineer Tester was heading northbound on the GTW while Engineer Marvin was heading northbound on the Ann Arbor. Engineer Tester failed to stop at the home signal to Durand displaying stop indication colliding with Engineer Marvin. Luckliy, the crews jumped off of their trains and there were no serious injuries or fatalities and the damaged cars were carrying no hazardous materials. Just a few bumps and bruises (to the affected cars anyways) This is what happens when we slide past the signals.



My Defense, I was running my CNW equipment, I was on the "Wrong" main. My train is the long train thats fine.

I've only had a few serious accidents. The first one involved my Athearn F unit derailing...and traveling down the steepest grade (100%) on the railroad. That is, the unit hit the floor. In fact, the 100-year-old workshop floor has a dent in it! The F only had minor damage--some bent handrails, knocked-out cab glass, and the motor was slightly misaligned.

Second one was when one of my flagship passenger trains did the same thing. The F40 hit the floor (similar damage to the F, except that the nose was slightly bashed in--with careful bending, gluing, and painting it's all hidden now), followed by the baggage car, a coach, and the observation car. I'd like to know how that happened...especially since the middle 3 cars stayed on the track!

Witnessed several horrible accidents at the last Manassas Railroad Festival.  Towards the end of the day the wind started picking up.  My daughters and I were checking out a Lego train display (it is amazing what is available now) when one whole corner lifted up in the wind.  It threw about half the display on top of the other.  Only the Christmas train part was spared.  The laughable thing was the guy running it looked at us like somehow we caused it.  Just glared at us.

The same wind gust also pushed a long coal unit train over on its side on a HO modular layout, just as the train crossed a high bridge.  Everything after the locomotives was either on its side or down the ravine.  About 40 cars.  The owner looked like he wanted to cry. 

I'm an N scaler, and I use stick pens to hold my track down because my layout has a one inch thick styrofoam base. Anyway, I was doing a little track work one day about a year ago, and by accident left one of the pens sticking up about a quarter of an inch. I already had two locos pulling about ten cars on the tracks waiting for me to get out of the way so they could run, and when I hit the juice, they made one full lap of the layout, hit the pen that was sticking up and all but three cars crashed off on the floor. I managed to repair everything, but it sure made me sick... I pay closer attention to what I'm doing now.

Tracklayer

 

When I was a kid, one time a kid came over to my house who wanted to wreck trains, they were mine, I did not want them wrecked, wouldn't let him run *MY* trains that way.

So the most common wrecks on my layout are some wheel picking the leading points of a turnout, or running into some break away cars that didn't stay coupled.  Luckily, as long as I'm watching, can catch it and stop in time unless in momentum mode.

Sometimes I fall asleep on the floor watching.  Try not to though,  Just in case.

 

 

 

 

   This wasn't as much of a derailment as it was an off layout freak accident. Last month I absolutely destroyed the handrails on my HO Guilford SD26.......I was removing the shell (after taking out the the coupler boxes) to install a decoder, and as I was pulling the chassis and shell in different directions, my butterfingers sent the shell flying to the floor, and the chassis still in my other hand. Let's just say I would have been happier if the mechanism had hit the floor, at least truck and fuel tank details are easier to repair than super thin plastic handrails

Darth Santa Fe wrote:

How did THAT happen!?

I can't explain! I scratched my head over it too. As I continue to look at the photo, it's just mind boggling. It looks like the coupler on the second boxcar got lodged in the trucks of the forward boxcar during impact. As I recall, nothing got broke either!

I have had no serious accidents myself, but I heard a story about a guy, who was running his trains when the phone rang. He got up to answer it...opening the drop-leaf bridge on the way out. Yes, we all know where this is going. He came back just in time to see his 3 expensive brass locomotives hurtle off the edge. He managed to catch the last one, but the other 2 were ruined. So always, always, always, always--[5 minutes later]--always, always, always,--[10 minutes later]--always, always have an electrical lockout that cuts power to the approach tracks when it's open, if you're going to have a drop-leaf bridge.

P.S. Nice levitating boxcar, Jeremy!

Our club was at our monthly meet in June. The little kid who was running the train was running to fast and when it came down the curved grade (quite steep) the loco fell, then the tender, then the 2 coaches. Boy it was funny and everyone had a good laugh. Nothing was damaged thankfully!

One day i was running my trains and had to run to the bathroom and when i came back my daughter (18 mths old) had managed to throw the train into reverse and throw the track to the only dead end. As i entered the room again i got to witness the tail end of the train start to derail and by the time i reached the controller to stop the train it was too late. Now mind you i was doing test runs of cars, which concisted of around 30ish cars) so enjoy the pics.












Enjoy

Nick

Train #1aSouth The Virginian fast coal was traveling on the outer main near Newtown's Farm when the #6 car derailed on the Whicert Creek bridge. The car then got "stuck" on the bridge and proceeded to derail the rest of the train off track on the corner, spilling coal onto the inner main. Clean up took awhile!!!

 

P.S. I wish I would have taken a picture of this. Most poeple in here would have gotten a laugh because the corner were the coal was dumped....is 4.5ft from the front edge of the pike and no lift out, drop down or access other then the aisle. I've since done away with "live loads" until I build the new layout which won't have track more the 2ft from the aisle!!!!!!

The best wreck I have seen was when a group of us were running my friend Tom Stacks' layout.  he was not watching and ran his train led by his kato N&W SD40-2 into the rear of Herbs' train at full speed.  took out the caboose and 6 cars of herb's train and the 2 engines and 4 cars of Toms'.  Caboose wound up on om of another car with the lead engine on it. All on their sides.  Killed the engineer and firemen in lead engine and the conductor and brakemen in the caboose. 
NTSB ruled it was the engineers fault.  Railroad sued the engineers widow for negligence on his part and won the case.  They will be selling his house to collect part of the damages awarded them.

Oh the horror and the humanity......and M/T coupler replacement !!!

Mine is simpliest to explain with a photo:

Yes, the caboose is not touching the ground!

I was driving the Wisconsin and Southern Railroad train on my club's layout as we were displaying at the show. Since we are a loop display layout we run two trains on the same track sometimes. I had an ore train running ahead of me, and the engineer failed to notice that his train had last it's rear half. I come around a corner and see the caboose, but even though I slammed on the brakes it was too late. Unfortunately at the same time a little excursion train was passing on the outside main, and the slack running out of the ore cars caused cars at the opposite end to derail on the bridge, and they smashed into the passenger cars. Trust me, it was a mess.

Noah

The worst accident that I've expirenced was pretty minor. I had a Sante Fe Plymouth switcher (55 ton) (and soon to be CSX once I change the paint/decals) slipped through my hands and landed hard on my concrete floor. But the good part, the only damage that was done was to the rear, and it just got scrunched up. Still runs perfect.

Geesh.

Little hands make big mess! eh dad?

This is what happens when you turn your back on McHenry couplers for a couple of minutes. I had stepped into the back room to get another loco off the display shelf. The train came around through the scene you see below. The last few cars came uncoupled. I came back into the room just in time to see the two locos (both powered Athearns) slam into the uncoupled cars. The impact broke the coupler on the front of the loco and one of the buildings got slightly uprooted as the cars slammed into it.

Being perfect - and, of course, not knowing anyone who can contradict me - I can honestly say that I have never had an accident!

HA!HA!HA!HA!HA!HA!HA!

I was running on our club's NTrak setup one day with a rather heavy train - sixty plus cars - on the east track - that's the one closest to the edge and is, traditionally, operated counter-clockwise.  The middle track is west operated clockwise; the inside track is called branch, and is also operated counter-clockwise.  At one point on one of the modules there was/is a labyrinth of switches designed to allow trains to move between directions.  One of my cars (the one about ten cars in front of the shack) picked the switch at this location, went down the crossover, derailed the rear truck on the car in front of it, and found itself being "towed" back-asswards down the west track where it was promptly clobbered by a passenger moving at speed;  the passenger spilled over onto branch where, as luck would have it, along came a fast moving freight, and which, before anyone could get things stopped,  had piled into the accumulated wreckage.  There was one operator in the vicinity but he was not anticipating trouble and an observer noted that he estimated that everything took place in about a two second time span.  When we sorted things out there were in excess of thirty cars on the ballast.  My train fared best because I only had about four cars involved

I had experienced point-picking at this same location several times in the previous couple of hours but with different cars; I would go lap after lap without trouble and I wasn't having any trouble at any other switches.  Nevertheless, it was my train that had originally deflected through the switch and, therefore, I was held to blame and suffered considerable ridicule about not keeping my rolling stock in quality order - two weeks later they replaced that particular switch because, it was noted, several people had come to grief at that particular location.  Apparently they found that the points on the errant switch was vibrating open just enough to snag a flange.

I've posted this before, but my worst accident was at the club.  A friend took out my brand new (just out of the box) BLI California Zephyr.  Through the helix something happened.  The train accordianed and 4 of the cars went to the floor.  He graciously replaced them, despite my objections.

Second worst was breaking in a brand new N-scale Atlas E7.  I left the room with it looping and somehow the turnout to the dead end branch worked open.  This was back in the day when the eye level layouts were the "in thing".  I got back to the room just in time to see it run through the mine and leap off the edge (52") of the layout to the concrete floor.   Hasn't run since.

Nick,

When running backwards into a dead end siding what is the pass/fail standard when they are being tested this way. If only half derail do they all pass.

Now for my input. When I was about 8 years old I had my fathers Lionel 700E #5344 pulling about 10 scale cars on the dining room floors large oval of 072 Lionel scale track. My dad wasn't home and I was highballing just to see how fast she would go! I do not know how fast she will go, but I do know it will go fast enough to dump off and break the marker light from the front of the engine. I was sick and I just knew I was in for one of my dads "paddlings" (which was not a beating) and he was gonna be mad at me. When he finally came home after working overtime several hours on 3rd trick at C&Os Walbridge yard coal puller it was about 3:00am and I was still awake. I got out of bed and went down staris to confess. Much to my suprise he did not yell, paddle or do anything like that. He told me how disappointed he was that I had done that.

I learned two things, one: don't run the trains to fast, and more importantly two: don't yell at kids for being kids, especially if you ever want them to play with your trains again. My daughter, now 24 still remembers ruining a brass caboose, two fine scratchbuilt cars and a brass Colorado and Southern Consolidation about 1000' onto the basement floor as the dead end siding was right into the aisle where the duck under was. I smiled and told her accidents happen, adon't worry, I built them so I can fix them. I got her another train to run, an Athern F unit with a Hi-F drive. Oh well kids are more important than trains and I will admit it I am a train addict. Just telling this eppisode brings back great memories of family and trains. By the way I still have the NYC Hudson and the scale track and my HO equipment was mostly  repaired and the engine still has a marker light bent at an odd angle. I do not run the Hudson to fast, and I will never repair the broken marker light. I have been playing with trains continously now for about 50 years.

 

Paul

Dayton and Mad River RR

PICKY-PICKY-PICKY!!!

The "dead end siding" you reference is officially (AAR Standard) called a "Side Track"; sidings have two switches and connects to the mainline at both ends; side tracks have one switch and is of definite length; a spur track is, essentially, a side track of indefinite length.

PICKY-PICKY-PICKY!!!

GREAT shot Jeffery!

 

jeffrey-wimberly wrote:

This is what happens when you turn your back on McHenry couplers for a couple of minutes. I had stepped into the back room to get another loco off the display shelf. The train came around through the scene you see below. The last few cars came uncoupled. I came back into the room just in time to see the two locos (both powered Athearns) slam into the uncoupled cars. The impact broke the coupler on the front of the loco and one of the buildings got slightly uprooted as the cars slammed into it.