Natural disasters

[Rene Schweitzer]

It's not pleasant to think about, but Mother Nature will do as she pleases to anything in her path, including your railway. If something has happened to you, how did you deal with it?

[kstrong]

I had an ice storm take down half a tree, resulting in a few very large kinks in the track. After the tree was cut up and removed (breaking my neighbor's chainsaw in the process), the kinked section of track was removed and replaced. There was some damage to one of the switches which was reparied by "friendly persuasion" instead of replacement.

My old pond could also fall into this category, being destroyed by an upswelling of groundwater. However, since I knew the potential existed--but chose to ignore it--I can hardly consider it a "natural" disaster.

Later,

K

[Anonymous]

I've not voted since I have not laid vast setions of track, but I can for see many future problems!!! Bring them on, part of my fixation with operating a Large Scale railroad is dealing with the maintenance and, if need be, damage control.

[Anonymous]

The wind event that caused this damage to my warehouse happened exactly a year ago. Notice that the little Korber station in the upper righthand corner was knocked over but not damaged in any respect.

Luckily I was able to put it back together and made sure it stayed by using silicone caulk on the inside corners. Also, pins made out of brass rod reinforce many parts.

Regards,
Bill C.
South Jersey

[Anonymous]

Yeah Wev'e been hit by monsoons, took my StainZ

out once and one end of my Ice Train another time.

Ian

[Anonymous]

RENE
I don't run trains when it's real windy any more , they got blowen off the track and i had to glue them back together, super glue does wonders. Ben

[toenailridgesl]

Enough said?

[SandyR]

I've been lucky; one derailment due to a slug crossing the tracks and the train hit it (eeeuw) and once the dog was playing with a soccer-sized ball and rolled it into the train when it was on the trestle. Spectacular derailment.
But even the 5.4" of rain from Hurricane Frances did not wash out the railroad; I guess that since it's been out there for 11 years now, it's pretty well settled in and the drainage problems worked out.
SandyR

[whiterab]

We are building the layout on a slope in the Hill Country of Texas. We expected drainage problems so we carefully ditched the area above the layout to direct the water off the back yard to each side of the layout.

We overlooked one small area we now call Cave Springs.



We though this hole in the natural rock wall was just another common animal hole. What we didn't know was that it was actually an outlet for water coming out under the limestone ledge from the back yard. After a 7" inch rain, the water began pouring out of here like a fire house. The runout took out part of our retaining wall.

We now have a dry river bed and a 52" bridge. The drainage is part of the scenery. Makes for a nice river.

What the track looked like after the rain


Believe it or not, the water tower cleaned up nicely with a garden hose.

[bman36]

WOW!,
Some great shots you guys. Nothing here so far. Snow sure can bury things here. Other than that we'll see what the future holds! Later eh...Brian.

[Anonymous]

Woah!? That actually looks a bit like a real washout.

Where abouts in the Hill Country are you at? It look like over in that area where there is heavy "slate" like rock. Frio River country? Kerrville?

[whiterab]

Capt.

The railroad's name is Guadalupe Forks which should give you a clue. We are outside of Hunt - about a mile from the confluence of the North and South Forks of the Guadalupe river. Just west of Kerrville.

We were just starting laying track when the storm hit. Unfortunately there was a pile of fill dirt between the runoff and the track. The dirt kind of moved. By the way, burying the track puts a great patina on the rails. That part of the rails are a great grayish black now.

Luckily the track was only down on a temporary basis at the time. Early enough for me to change some plans. The track is now raised up on a concrete sub-roadbed. When Mother Nature starts making scale raindrops, I'll go back to a fully ballasted sub-roadbed.

[whiterab]

Wait a minute!!!!

Ignore my last message. What I should have said was that I was trying to be true to the prototype. I was deliberately trying to model this. [:D]

[Anonymous]

Whiterab,

It looks a bit like the way they used to ballast the San Antonio and Aransas Pass Railroad, just dig around the outside of the ties and leave the center.

When I was in highschool I went to Kerrville to a speech and debate camp at Schriner College, later in life my brother-in-law Steven bought some land over near Frio Country near Garner Statepark. The ground was very rocky.

[Anonymous]

Well let's see now [8)]
The first time was back when I first started in G scale on my second year into the first layout. I don't have any pictures, but we had a terrible hail storm with baseball size hail that tore everything up pretty bad. Lost some track, but most was ok because it was on concrete blocks back then. I had few buildings and I got them all inside in time. Since it was a tornado warning, I also moved all of my extra rolling stock from the garage into the basement with the rest and the locos. So I was lucky that time.

Now this year. 3 hurricanes have come barreling thru here in central FL. The nice thing, you get lots of warning and everything but the track itself was brought in. I attempted to reset up again after Charlie, but then came Francis and work was halted and reversed as everything was brought back inside and stayed inside until a couple weeks after Jeanne came thru. Buildings are now back outside, but still lots of work to be done. The layout did real well other than alot of leaves and some debris on the layout, but damage was done when the building was re-roofed and one of the workers disobeyed the order from his boss to stay out of my back area and managed to crush one bridge(stepped on) and bent some track when he walked on it [:(]

[Rene Schweitzer]

Wow, these are some stories (and pics!) Amazing.

[jtrost]

I have some BIG trees in and next to my railroad. We had a major ice storm last winter which took down a lot of trees. Totally blocked the driveway but didn't even come close to the railroad. [:D]

Whew!

[rbrr]

The hailstorm of this past july 11th . . . I had been planning on having another open house this year but so much to clean up . . . . was cancelled. Shredded a lot of plants making things quite desolate. Worse than winter . . at least we have the snowplow to use if the temps don't get below -5c and oh yes too heavy {w/moisture} a snow tends to be impossible for even the SD-45 to clear.

Doug C
calgary

[Anonymous]

Lets See, huge ice storm, Jeanne (we actually got some winds), about a foot of rain from both Ivan and Frances. I think my railroad has seen its share of distruction.

Also, a tornado passed an 8th of a mile from my house during one of those storms (forgot which).

[Curmudgeon]

We have actually run trains through 5.0 or greater earthquakes, windstorms that took trains off the rack (fixed with a fence), power outtages (with battery r/c we just kept on going), monsoons, ice storms, once a mole infestation (acetylene), the closest was a 20' branch, 4" diameter, that broke off in a windstorm and fell right beside and parallel to the big, curved trestle and missed it.
No pestilence yet.
When it snows, we call the plow crews. The new grade up through the blasted out cut has been fully blocked with 2 feet of snow before, but the old grade is called into play for both uphill and downhill trains, so we keep on going.
TOC

[Anonymous]

I had the top of a giant dead digger pine come down on my 13" gauge railroad a couple of years ago. The big branches came down and speared the track. It broke two of the rails (the rails are wood similar to strap iron rail, but no metal on top.) I had clear all the braches out of there replace the rails and regrade where the branches landed. I wasn't able to get some of the braches out of the ground so there is part of a tree branch a couple of inches under the road bed. I have had a couple of oak trees fall over the line, but none of them did anything to the track. I have a oak tree right now that broke at the base and is leaning up against a another oak tree on the other side of the track. I have to duck down under it or other wise I run my head into it, which I did once moving a pushing my ballast car down the line.