What is your most expensive model railroading blunder/mistake/accident?

[brothaslide]

I was breaking in a new Athearn SD40T-2 on my layout and had it running for a while. It was pulling a 5 car Athearn intermodal train. The engine derailed and took a dive off of the layout along with the intermodal. The intermodal was OK but the engine didn't work after that.[V]

[cacole]

It sounds like you have your track too close to the edge of your layout if trains can fall off when they derail. You need to put plexiglass or something along the edge to prevent this from happening again.

[Anonymous]

Well, my worst was when my DB Class 103 electric took a dive off my desk.

Massive damage to a rare (In North America) and expensive electric.

I will fix it one day.

[orsonroy]

I accidentally glues a Shinohara three-way switch together on my last layout. $60 bucks turned into a pile of scrap rail.

I haven't had an engine make the freefall of death.....yet!

[brothaslide]

QUOTE: Originally posted by cacole

It sounds like you have your track too close to the edge of your layout if trains can fall off when they derail. You need to put plexiglass or something along the edge to prevent this from happening again.

This happened 5 years ago. Thanks for the solution - but unfortunetely, I do not have my layout anymore.

However, I'm looking for some great stories. Some times it's good to not take ourselves so seriously and have a good laugh.

[cwclark]

I accidently knocked over a bottle of CA glue into the gears of a brand new Athearn UP AC4000....the gears were ruined... so, I go to order the parts to replace the entire truck and the new part cost $5.00 less then a brand new engine...moral to the story?...if you take out an Athearn locomotive engine, trash it and buy a new one...Another time my 8 year old son took a 25 car train down a turnout I wasn't finished installing yet at the end of the layout in our old house...(he's on his own now and His kids are giving him the payback he gave me for the stuff i pulled on my dad)...and I looked up and the entire train was hitting the floor..one coupled car after another....it took me a month to straighten that mess up...Chuck[:D]

[Anonymous]

My Athearn Dash 9 took the free fall of death last year.[:(]

[Anonymous]

Before I had the safety switches in to create a dead spot at the drawbridge on my layout my Grandaughter drove a Proto E8/9 with eight Walthers passenger cars over the edge and onto the floor. I CRIED . The proto and most of the cars were junk!!

HAVE A BLESSED DAY AND REMEMBER SANTA FE ALL THE WAY
BOB

[brothaslide]

QUOTE: Originally posted by Heartland Flyer

My Athearn Dash 9 took the free fall of death last year.[:(]

I feel your pain.

[Anonymous]

when i tried weathering my C454, santa fe 40-8cw, and my brothers gp 40-2.

oh yah and when my Bachman F40PH took the free fall of death to the floor

[Anonymous]

The other day MarioPuzzo (Jarrett) and I were chatting on AOL AIM and he linked me to a California model club home page. There were members pics on the site. One of the pics was called "Mouse Creek". The guy said that while the resin was drying a mouse got into it. To me it looks like the mouse is still in the resin. I don't have time to find it and post a link, but maybe someone can. If not maybe I can do it later. This definately is an "accident".

[Big_Boy_4005]

Choosing the wrong location at the Mall Of America. Had I located the layout on the first floor near the east entrance I might still be there today. A quarter million dollar boo boo.[#oops]

[Anonymous]

I've spent hundreds on HO scale steam engines for my small switching layout. Not one of them is a capable switcher, some are good road engines, but in that critical 0-5 mph speed range not one is acceptable. My worst diesel is far superior to my best steam engine. I sent my P2k 0-6-0 back to the factory some time ago and haven't heard back yet. Like my other steamers, it has a loping, hiccuping motion that's very obvious. It's been a real disappointment. After hundreds of dollars in engines, gears, motors etc and countless hours I gave it up and retired all steam, reluctantly.

smyers

[bcammack]

Taking up this hobby? [:)]

[Junctionfan]

For me the most expensive thing was I had an old Via train set that cost $200. I stored it on the top shelf of a closet. I left the closet door open by accident and my cat knocked it down effectively turning my via train into a via wreck.

A friend of mine in my club had a Kato dash 9 catch on fire-not to sure why. Another person had a NW athearn autobox's wheels melt on the track. One time we were moving an autorack train up a hill and one of the couplers broke in the middle of the train (damn McHenry's) and sent 12 autoracks down the grade and off a trestle. Had to fix the couplers and minor cosmetic work had to be done.

[Anonymous]

Not having a really good plan for a layout that provided logical locations for switchable industries. My first layout was a spaghetti bowl of track, so I tore it out. Several years later, I resurrected the left over switches and lumber, and built a copy of John Olsen's book layout, somewhat expanded. It runs perfectly with DCC and sound, but it is still plywood after 5 years. So I'm going to tear it apart and try to design an around-the-walls layout that will actually have some thought going into it!

[MAbruce]

Sometimes I think my layout is my most expensive blunder... [sigh]

[orsonroy]

QUOTE: Originally posted by smyers

I've spent hundreds on HO scale steam engines for my small switching layout. Not one of them is a capable switcher, some are good road engines, but in that critical 0-5 mph speed range not one is acceptable. My worst diesel is far superior to my best steam engine. I sent my P2k 0-6-0 back to the factory some time ago and haven't heard back yet. Like my other steamers, it has a loping, hiccuping motion that's very obvious. It's been a real disappointment. After hundreds of dollars in engines, gears, motors etc and countless hours I gave it up and retired all steam, reluctantly.

smyers

Gave up on steam! Egads, no!!!

Sounds like you've just had really bad luck with steam models. I've got well over 100 steamers, from old Varneys to brand new, not out of the box yet P2K. Most of the new-generation plastic steam are great performers at slow speed, even through switches. The P2K 0-8-0 is a great switch engine, as is the Bachmann Spectrum 2-8-0, and the general consensus is that the P2K 0-6-0 (which you're having issues with) is the best steam switcher ever made, performancewise. I've even got an old Alco brass B-11 0-6-0 that's over 20 years old and which runs beautifully through my Peco electrofrog switches.

Switching to diesels...that's not right!

[AltonFan]

I purchased a fair-to-middlin' PFM Russian Decapod. I disassemble the engine to make repairs, and find I need to acquire parts. I left the dissassembled decapod laying out for some weeks or months. Grandma got in a house-cleaning mood, took the engine and threw it in a box, not regarding the parts. Now the engine is lost among my packed-up railroad stuff, will probably never work again, and due to the appearance of a plastic Russian Decapod, is highly unsaleable.

The other mistake was buying a cantankerous brass FM Trainmaster shortly before Atlas came out with their better plastic ones.

Live and learn...

[Anonymous]

QUOTE: Originally posted by TEFFY

Before I had the safety switches in to create a dead spot at the drawbridge on my layout my Grandaughter drove a Proto E8/9 with eight Walthers passenger cars over the edge and onto the floor. I CRIED . The proto and most of the cars were junk!!

That's why little shouldn's be allowed to operate your expensive varnish! I feel your pain.


My most expensive blunder had to be my first layout. We put close to $1000 on it and it turned out to be a mess! The benchwork warped with humidity, trains ALWAYS derailed at a switch that was about half and inch from the layout's edge, there was a slanted 3% grade (not superrelevated, slanted!), the ballast would sometimes make trains jump off the tracks, the switches just didn't work, in other words, it was a mess!

[Anonymous]

Not packing my Walthers North Shore Line cars with enough padding in their boxes. By the time they survived two moves and I re-opened them, each car had at least 1 smashed end casting, which are now out of production. I've cast one of the intact ones into a rubber mold and produced urethane castings, but it's just not the same. But I guess it'll have to do.

[BNSFNUT]

Droped a Atlas GP on a concret floor , total loss ,damanged trucks, frame and shell.
The fingers are getting stiff with age guess I will have to start using two hands to handle locomotives and cars.

[Don Gibson]

Buying an $800 Samhongsa made N&W Y5 and finding the Santa Fe used only Y3's

[Anonymous]

orsonroy

Yes, you're right in that I guess I've had bad luck with steam as others own some of the same engines I do and they just love 'em. I have a Bowser A5s that I converted to Sagami power which was great until the axle gear split. I replaced it twice and even rebuilt it to the new Bowser can motor. But it's gone...it just isn't the same. I hope the P2k 0-6-0 comes back some day and runs well. My Bachmann 2-8-0 runs way too fast and hitches along as though ill. It really bugs me because the only thing that got me into RRing was steam, to begin with. Believe me, I love steam. If they worked well for me, I'd have fewer diesels on my route.
smyers

[johncolley]

Building a great layout in too small a room, 2 levels with a 4-tier helix. My 1940's freights look OK on the 24"radius, but my Empire Builder 85 footers look like toys. So tear it out and re-do a bit less layout with bigger curves and a gentler helix. Is that what they mean by "The Learning Curve?" Remember, getting there is half the fun!

[Anonymous]

My most expensive blunder...

Buying three Red Caboose wood reefers, and trying to put the first one together with ACC glue (not a pretty sight), and messing up the other two also. Since then I have learned to make sure you can actually build something and have the tools to do it before starting any projects...

[METRO]

I had an entire commuter rake take a plunge:

When I was first building my mountain sections, I built up some nice floor-to-celing styrofoam mountains (still to be finnished) and laid the track...

I was testing the track by running a train over at increasing speeds. I must have missed a kink in the ballast, and pow, off goes the whole 10 car commuter train, sliding down the side of the mountain making a nice big dent in it before hitting the floor. I saved the locomotive (it needed a new cab) and most of the coaches but it was running with the coach cab car forward and that was a total loss.

[coal drag]

I never should've started buying coal cars. Over 2000 of them and I still need to complete several train sets. Once you get coal fever, it's with you for life.[#wstupid]

[Anonymous]

I was in o scale when a dealer convinced me I had to have a zw transformer. Since I had the new MTH tracks and switches, Mth uses a circuit board underneath the switch mechanism to connect the rails across the switches. The zw blew out all circuit boards costing about $750.

[egmurphy]

Being asleep at the switch (and working outside the country) about 25 years ago when my mother sold the house a few years after my father died and significantly downsized to move into a small apartment. My Lionel trains from back in early childhood went bye-bye (plus my stamp collection, coin collection, and goodness knows what else that I had left at home when I went off to college and later kept moving around the country working).

Ed