Embarrasing

[railfanespee4449]

What was your worst train mishap. Mine was nearly destroying a Sunco tank car with the wrong cleaner!

[cnw1995]

Fortunately, in this scale I have not experienced real disasters besides the usual spectacular high-speed derailments on curves.

[FJ and G]

making a river with styrofoam, painting it with latex, then adding a layer of resin. I think you can guess what happened. Fortunately, the floor at the time was a slab

[AntonioFP45]

After having meticulously cut out the radiator grills of an FP45 so I could install metal "See-Thru" grills, I applied liquid Cyanoacrylate Adhesive to the exterior surface to glue the grills on.

Pretty easy to guess what happened next! That BRAND NEW plastic body looked like it was hit with molten lead!

[daan]

Mine was also with a river. I made a styrofoam base and added a pump on the high end with a tube from the lower end. I embedded the whole thing in my h0 layout and added landscaping with colored sawdust. Then I added water and started the pump..
Within minutes the sawdust soaked all the water, so I added more, and eventually my layout was covered with a colored mud-like stuff..
Never use real water when you want to have water..

[brianel027]

Some years ago I was working on a custom painted Lehigh Valley SP caboose - painted after the yellow Lionel SP version that came with a train set... yeah, I know, not prototypical... oh well.

But I was also working on several projects at the same time. So I grabbed what I believed to be a can of Dull Coat and without looking started spraying... a nice stream of Parrot Green all over my nice yellow caboose.

Ever see one of those cartoons where the character's hair stands up, the eyes bug out and the ears spin around - it's possible that was my reaction. I hope no one was watching me at the time... I don't want to end up on America's Funniest Videos... though there would be the advantage of the mention of Lionel Trains on network television.

Fortunately I had previously gloss coated, so using some isopropyl alcohol, I got nearly all the green off, though I did have to do a little brush-work touch up around some rivets.

The moral of the story is work on one project at a time, OR at the very least be sure the color you are about to spray is the color you actually want to spray. I speak from experience and have since learned my lesson.

Funny, but derailments on the layout are very very seldom a problem for me since I started reattaching all trucks on rolling stock with a tighter lock-nut screw, or making alterations to die-cast truck mountings.

[Buckeye Riveter]

You asked what was your worst train mishap. Well, back on May 31, 1956, I sure wish I had stayed awake that night.

We left Baltimore’s Mount Royal Station in the usual fashion late in the evening. The big diesel engines of the westbound B&O National Limited growled and the brakes squealed entering the train shed. We boarded and took our seats in the sleeper car as usual. In the middle of the night we awoke from an awful commotion. The porter was yelling and my mother said we had to move. We left the compartment and began walking towards the back of the train. Injured passengers in the coach behind us could be seen in the dim blue night-lights. Heads were being bandaged. Relocating to another sleeper car I fell back to sleep.

The train was traveling backwards when I awoke the next morning, and breakfast was not being served. At mid morning the train stopped in a small mountain town. We disembarked and walked to a small coffee shop near the train platform. A small breakfast was purchased, and we returned to the train just in time to see a railroad relic uncouple from the remainder of our train. The small coal black steam engine chugged along the tracks towards the old roundhouse, much to my delight.

Later we learned that our train had been wrecked when it struck a rockslide exiting a tunnel. The engines and baggage cars derailed and plunged from a bridge into a steep river gorge. Several cars left the tracks, including the dining car located directly ahead of our sleeper. Our car remained in the tunnel. The engineer and fireman were killed in the wreck.

I sure wish I had stayed awake.

[daan]

Great pictures Buckeye!! though that was a not so great happening that night, these pictures tell what happened and show the railway equipment used in that time..

[Anonymous]

Goodness Gracious.

That must have been scary. I would have turned away trains completely. I wouldn't want t have to do with anything with the word train in it.

My most embaressing moment was when I was in the 5th grade. The local shortline railroad (not this was before train went back into myrtle beach. We got on the tran in conway.) gave us a train ride to learn anout the history of railroads in Horry County. We traveled the whole line which brances into North Carolina too though.

Well, what happened next was both embarassing, scary, fun, and dangerous. After leaving the conway depot heading notrh, we crossed over a narrow bridge.

It was so narrow, that the ends of the raiload ties hung over the sides. Well, any wy, me and my friends luke and patrick we standing on the open platform of the harriman coach (one of 2 on the 4 car train. 2 harrimens, a streamlined observation, and a heaveyweight observation car used by president rosevelt on the wistlestop special and herbert hoover).

The conducto (I am good friends with him now) forgot close the half door and put the platform bcak in place. My friends and I were so skinney (we still are) that we stood on the bottom step togeather.

Well, you can imagine what happened next (infront of the teacher and 5 classmates, so we were not forgotton and left behind) Patrick sneezed so hrad that he stooped of over and almost fell over, I grabbed the back of his shirt and Luke grabbed mine.

But sadly Patrick lost hi ballanc, and pulled us over as I was holding onto my shirt and Luke was holding mine. The teacher sreamed and the kids on the platforms (everybody was out on one of the platforms on the coaches) all sreamed. The Conductor tried to grab us, but he lost his ballance and grabbed the hand rail, so we went plunging into the water sreaming and yelling I love you everybody to the kids on the the train. And, then we all splashed into the water.

It was fun, but we realized how dangerous and scary that was. Well, lucilly the bottom step was only 7 feet from the top of the water (the highdive at the local pool is taller than that) and the water was only 13 feet deep like the pool too.

The teacher was so scared that she would get fired over this that hwen we got back to the station (if my mom had cought wind of this she would have, but my dad thought it was funny as did my friends dads) she called our dads to bring us dry clothes. She had stood us out on the platform after the condutor shut the hlaf door to dry. We stayed there for the rest of the ride, but it was really hot, so we were glad that we were out the as there is no airconditoner in those cars.


Nick