Your Layout Superstitions

[locoi1sa]

 The old saying goes.

 When your up to your butt in alligators you tend to forget your objective was to drain the swamp.

  I spent a ton of cash and countless hours super detailing an older Atlas RS1 for the PRR. When I put the decoder in I used 18 volt bulbs instead of the LEDs I usually use. Well you can guess what happened.  The bulb melted the shell I spent so much time on. Never deviate from your normal practices. It will always bite you in the (insert bad word here).

     Pete

[blownout cylinder]

R. T. POTEET

Now ever since I was a wee-one I have worn a cuff in my Levis. Care to guess who found the part a week later when she turned down the cuffs on my trousers prior to washing them?

Uh huh---I  had a part land in my pocket on a few occassions. And I did not notice until after i got the pants washed----

If you think that there may be 5 possible ways that something might go wrong and figure out a way to circumvent those, a sixth way will show up

Whenever you set out to do something on your layout you must do something else first----

Nature always sides with the hidden flaw

and Tussman's Law---

Nothing is as inevitable as a mistake whose time has come

[R. T. POTEET]

DavidGSmith

. . . . . . . . . . If you only have one piece of material you will miss measure so as to make it useless . . . . . . . . . .

Railroading is fun. Right.

Dave

Had this happen more than once. I've done quite a bit of scratchbuilding N-Scale structures using basswood; I once got distracted and cut a wall an inch too narrow . . . . . grabbed a new piece of basswood, rescribed it with the 1 X boards and then . . . . . you guessed it . . . . . cut that piece one inch too narrow,

A short vignette regarding lost parts: many years ago I was building one of Bowser's K11 Pacifics and dropped a Cal-Scale part on the floor. I hunted all over for that part to no avail. I was stationed with the Air Force in Germany at the time and so running down to the hobby shop was not an option. I fired off an order to Bowser for a replacement.

Now ever since I was a wee-one I have worn a cuff in my Levis. Care to guess who found the part a week later when she turned down the cuffs on my trousers prior to washing them?

[Anonymous]

 After a longer, work and family related hiatus from the hobby, I started out again and built a small Marklin layout, just for reasons of nostalgia and to find out, whether the bug bites again. Well it did, and a Marklin layout soon did not suffice. So i decided to sell it - in time for Christmas. On the day a guy showed a to take a look at it, my control system goofed out on me, so I could not run a single train on the layout. Did I know that I´d just simply had to rest the system? You know the answer...

Btw, the guy bought the layout as he wanted to hook up his own system 

[PASMITH]

tinman1

Thats the condensed version. It was known as the 50-50-90-10 rule,  50/50 shot of getting it right with a 90% chance of picking the wrong one, with only a 10% chance of getting it right if you go with the "other" option, leaving you with that 90% rule. Confused?!! Thats why for any 6000 ton displacement ship, 3000 of those tons would be repair manuals

This is known as the Black Swan Rule. You can look it up. Peter Smith, Memphis

[DavidGSmith]

 And here I thought it was only me. Note that you will find the spot you missed when painting or weathering only when you have cleaned your brushes. Glue will stick to you better than what you are trying to glue. If you only have one piece of material you will miss measure so as to make it useless. I could go on for ever but we know most of this.

Railroading is fun. Right.

Dave

[gmcrail]

 These are NOT "superstitions"!  They are carefully arrived-at conclusions based on observation over years of experience, as are your conclusions regarding marauding felines.

Murphy is a so-and-so, and you can never beat him completely. You can sometimes out-think him, but he is incredibly persistant, and will, in the end, get you.

teen steam fan

What ever can go wrong will, if it hasn't, you did something wrong

 

 You have hit upon (almost) the original Murphy's Law: "In any field of scientific endeavor, whatever can go wrong, will."  Originally stated by the NASA scientists, IIRC.  There are innumerable corrolaries, many of which have been stated by previous posters.

[blownout cylinder]

Random events tend to occur in groups

The amount of aggravation is a constant---if things are going well in one area, something goes wrong elsewhere

Progress in one's layout is the exchange of one nuisence for another

Everytime I think I'm getting somewhere---I've overlooked something

And,  Jone's Law:  

Experience enables you to recognize a mistake when you make it again----

[pastorbob]

Wiring is my jinx, downfall, waterloo, whatever.  No matter how well I try to do it, something happens.  Case in point, I have three switches going into a hidden staging yard.  They are Peco switches with the infamous tortoise machines mounted underneath.  They are also very hard to reach, leave alone work on them, but they have been in place for many years without a fuss or whimper.  Two weeks ago I noticed that none of them responded to the toggles to throw them.  After long investigation, involving a fellow modeler who is a wiring wizard, it was discovered that the power leads to the torti was gone.  It turned out I had somehow snipped the leads from the power distribution by mistake.  Now, I am working to restore the switches if I ever find the wiring.

Bob

[Dallas Model Works]

Stuff that works on the workbench won't work on the layout.

Once moved back to the workbench, it works again.

And back on the layout?

Take a guess.

 

[tinman1]

Thats the condensed version. It was known as the 50-50-90-10 rule,  50/50 shot of getting it right with a 90% chance of picking the wrong one, with only a 10% chance of getting it right if you go with the "other" option, leaving you with that 90% rule. Confused?!! Thats why for any 6000 ton displacement ship, 3000 of those tons would be repair manuals

[jguess733]

tstage

When putting together a kit where the assembly instructions are less than clear: Given an either/or choice and a 50-50 chance of getting some right or wrong; you'll get it wrong 75% of the time.

Tom

 

 

Tom we have something similar to that in the Navy. It's called the 50 50 90 rule.

[mobilman44]

Ha, I sense a theme here, in that "things tend to go wrong when visitors are present"!

Might I add........

   -  The smaller the part, the further it flies when it hits the floor.

   -  The defect you least expect to occur in your loco/car/kit, will be a sure thing to happen. 

   -  The tool you need most will be hardest to find.

   -  The special paint color you need to finish the details, will be dried up.

   -  The non-modelrailroader visitor usually has one of two reactions to your layout - either "WOW", or "How much did all this cost".  Trust me, the reaction to your railroad reflect their true personality.

ENJOY,

Mobilman44

[galaxy]

I am superstitious that if I touch the layout, something will break.

I am superstitious that if I let others touch the layout, something will break.

I am superstitious that if the cat gets on the layout something will break.

In short, I am superstitious that something will break.

And I am superstitious MR. Murphy visits my layout,  often. More often than I would like.

Verily, I am proven true.

[locoi1sa]

 It looked good on paper.

 As to the visitor jinks there has been a scientific explanation. Deflection and wind age was the conclusions. Even my 10 pound grand baby will deflect the concrete floor enough to skew the layout and the extra person breathing in the room will cause wind flow problems that act upon the box cars going through the turnout.

 The worst is loading up all your train stuff in the truck the night before a show (Modular)  only to wake up to a foot of snow and a dead battery with the jumper cables stowed away neatly under the train stuff.

   Pete

[blownout cylinder]

The amount of people visiting your layoout will double the amount of things that go wrong on your layout. We had 4 people show up for an ops session yesterday--had 8 things go worng on it-----

You will always find that you're out of something just after the store that has it closes---

Glues won't

 

[tstage]

When putting together a kit where the assembly instructions are less than clear: Given an either/or choice and a 50-50 chance of getting some right or wrong; you'll get it wrong 75% of the time.

Tom

[R. T. POTEET]

In any switch machine matrix the first one to malfunction is always the one in the most inaccessible location.

When constructing benchwork your supply of screws will always be one too short and the closest hardware store will have closed five minutes before.

[SpaceMouse]

 The more expensive the loco, the longer I sleep on the couch.

[Medina1128]

 Trains will run flawlessly for months at a time... until you have visitors. The more visitors, the more problems you'll have.

[teen steam fan]

Well, I've heard that a black cat crossing your path is bad luck. Well for me, it extends to white cats and cats in general. On my layout, anything to do with the basement feline is not mentioned.

also, the hardest to get part always breaks first.

My best running models will always derail at the worst spot.

Lubrication oils always seem to find their way onto a track when an engine has a heavy train or shunting.

What ever can go wrong will, if it hasn't, you did something wrong

If it was easy, you really made a FUBAR somewhere.

Yours?