Cats

I guess I must just be lucky -- I have a cat that is all over my HO scale home layout and she has never disturbed or damaged anything.  She even lay on the layout near where I was working during construction to supervise.

tatans

seriously, why would anyone ever allow a cat near a layout?

It gives us an endless source of long threads.   The best bit is always when we get round to the recipes.

well they kept the Grackles off of the layout, and all they ever do is take over the bar stools, so the issue is what with cats and layouts?

tatans

 seriously, why would anyone ever allow a cat near a layout?

Our cats are the actual owners of our homes. We just pay the rent/mortgage for them. One of our female cats tipped over a module that I had removed from the main part of the layout to work on it. It scared her so badly, she's never been near the layout since. I DID have to seal up the bottom of the mountain areas of my layout to keep the male cat out. I'd see a pair of eyes peering out from a tunnel.

 We have three cats, and two dogs (dog story in a bit). 

 None of the cats bother the layout, but one day................That day our fat cat "Hannibal" well he's about 25lbs and he was meowing like crazy.  Jumped up on my layout ( I was working on something), and I was in shock.  Not that the fact he jumped up, but he's on my layout!!  After I yelled at him, and gave him a pop, all I heard was him running up the stairs, then up the second story stairs.  No problem since.  Our cats ages are: two of them are brothers 8 years old, and Hannibal is 5.  Maybe old age will keep them away even more.

 The dogs, well no problem, but when we go away (in a blue moon when that happens, thanks to our zoo).  I get alittle worried about the dogs and the layout.  Not them messing up the layout but the male dog............well............you know................ *cough* LEGS *cough*.   I guess if we got out this year, I will have to use something to block all of that (legs, blocking off the bottom of the layout).

We had a cat once that used to go up into the train room and knead her claws on the extruded foam.  Needless to say that was not a popular activity with the head landscape designer.  Cat went to live with son, much less damage these days. 

Long cat hair can mess  up an engine in a hurry.

I think that, to a cat, small engines and cars can look like a good lunch, derailment time!!  Fun to play with even if they don't taste too good.

Saving grace, keep the mice and rats out of the train room.

Have fun,

Didn't you know?

Dogs have owners

Cats have staff!!

Actually I don't have 'Spring' getting up on my layout anymore---seems he has issues with a certain RS2 that makes noise at him---

One of our cats got up on my previous layout but when i went to remove him he gave the look! I quitely

left the room

Greetings,

We have two cats.  The older one liked to sit in the middle of a loop of track and follow the train around.  Once in awhile she would swat at the last car and knock the train off the track.  It was a lot offun when she would lay her tail on the track and not lift it before the engine rolled over it.  Try cleaning cat hair out of engine wheels.
When I had my first layout built she was still small enough to sit on my shoulder.  One day after I completed the tunnel/ mountain she was on my shoulder watching the train.  This was fine until I changed the route and sent the train into the tunnel.  She leaned forward as the last Amtrak car entered the tunnel.  As the Engine exited the other end of the tunnel she FREAKED OUT, clawed down my back and ran upstairs as fast as she could.  She has never been back even though that layout is long gone.

Our young cat loves to climb and explore.  She has used the layout as a jumping point to the small basment windows.  I still have some sections of the ceiling open as I still have drywall work to do.  She has been found roaming between the joists.  Once I have that closed I do not know if she will move into the interior of the new mountains.  This cat will also "hunt" my sons toys.  We will wake up with small toys, magnet letters, etc. on or next to the bed.  Once I get to placing cars and figures I am sure some night the basment door will not get closed right and we will wake up with HO scale "kills" laying next to my slippers.

Christopher

I perfer dogs over cats because unlike cats,dogs don't climb over everything..

Have two old cats, the nutty sisters I call them.  Anyway, our house is a split level, you have to reach the railroad by going through the garage.  The sisters don't even know where the garage is, leave alone the railroad room.  Life is much simpler that way.  I don't have damage, they get to live.

Bob

Over the weekend, I was working on a corner module of my clubs traveling layout in my home. It has a mountain on it with a tunnel. One of my cats was watching me work on it and came up, crawled into the tunnel and got stuck. I couldn't pull or push her out and thought I would have to tear down the beautiful mountain. After about an hour she was able to work her way out with no damage. My other cat jumped on top of my wood stove once. She never did that again. 

tatans

seriously, why would anyone ever allow a cat near a layout?

You obviously have not shared a house with a cat! It is never a matter of "allowing" the cat access anywhere. The cat WILL find a way into anywhere he/she thinks may be interesting; just leave the door ajar for a few seconds and the cat will quietly go in. It is in a cat's nature to explore, particularly in anyplace it is not wanted. If there are small moving objects in there that make noises, that just adds to the interest. 

BRAKIE

I perfer dogs over cats because unlike cats,dogs don't climb over everything..

Seconded, and dogs can be trained to do stuff.

It's just the puppy stage can be bad; leave anything low enough for them to get at, and you'll find a snarrled up mess pretty quick.

 Heeeerrre kitty kitty kitty...

 Yes, dogs can be trained. They also need ot be taken out and walked in the middle of winter or in a pouring rain, etc. etc. Cat problem was easily solved, my layout is in a spare room and I keep the door tightly closed at all times. I've never had a problem getting myself or construction materials throught he door and the cats sneaking in and heading right for the layout. That curiosity factor means that on the way towards the layout, there are dozens of other things for them to check out which gives you ample time to catch the instrusion and send them packing.I do often find them waiting outside the door forme to come out but they tend not to try anything sneaky while I'm looking at them. I'm sure if I walked away and left the door open they'd be in in a flash so, I don;t leave the door open.

 It's not just layotu destruction - if I'm working on something else I may have a hot soldering iron or a bottle of glue ont he workbench, definitely not things you want a pet getting into.

                                                --Randy

tatans

seriously, why would anyone ever allow a cat near a layout?

Because we don't have that option.

For the most part our 2 cats stay off my HO scale layout. Though I did wake up this past Saturday and found one sleeping on my new parking lot. As for the loop of HO scale track on the floor and the O scale layout, well that's a different story. The cats own the O scale layout (Not much to damage, It's Hi-rail O and the only scenery is green carpet). Also they get off the layout really fast when you move a train or blow a horn. As for the HO scale floor track: 

every once in a while they'll slow things down a bit (that GP9M is at full throttle)...

The other culprit on the O Scale layout: 

Enjoy,

Jamie

No problem here.  My two cats  Spooky the Maine Coon and Uff-Dah the Norwegian Forest Cat are strictly house cats and my MR is in the garage.  They have absolutely NO intention of leaving the confines of the house and imperiling their position on the Food Chain, LOL! 

Of course, helping Daddy with MR projects on the kitchen table is a whole 'nother story.  Especially if it involves Spooky and a caboose.  She's an inveterate cabeese-thief.   Uff-Dah on the other hand, is fascinated by can motors.  "Ooh, Daddy, it WHIRRS!" 

They're very well behaved.  For cats, I mean.

Besides, they know that I'm the one with the Opposable Thumbs.

Tom  

Is there some relationship by MR's to cats?

Cats are the most compatible housemember.

The wife has the honeydo list and complains that you spend too much time in the basement

The dog constantly wants your attention.

 The young kids need constant attention.

The older kids can care less about your empire.

The cat will just watch you work on your project.

In conclusion the cat is the only household member that both does not hinder your progress and takes an interest in your projects.

 MEOW!

 And don´t forget how much extra-work you can get by having a cat.

-Restoring models and landscape.

-Disassembling your locos to remove all of the pesky hairs.

-Vacuuming your entire layout and trainroom with a regularity that borders on OCD....

(Buy a dog instead)

I guess I should consider myself lucky.  My three cats stay outdoors.  I tried to bring one of them in and she freaked out everytime the refridgerator compressor turned on.  Another one could care less, she would rather be roaming the neighborhood and catching mice.  The third, well, that is a different story.  I had him in one day and I was sitting down to paint some passenger car interiors with blue paint and he spilled the jar.  This cat is named Bandit because he has a grey mask on this head and back.  The rest of him is white.  So with him spilling blue paint and getting it on his white feet was amusing. I tried to wash it off with water, and I still have the scars from that.  After a year of that it finally disappeared. 

In fact after that little fiasco happened, I got even.  I got him neutered.

My train room is seperate from my workshop.   Kitty Kat is a regular at the workshop but is not authorized to enter the train room.   I seem to spend more time in the workshop than the train room, except when I have guests. 

My cat is now banned from the basement.

It started as a missing person's case when I discovered that one of the fishermen under the bridge on my layout was gone but his fishing pole was still there.  I never found the body but Gracie is still considered a Feline of Interest.

That was about a year ago.  More recently, Gracie had taken to resting right in the middle of my freshly plowed field (it's April 1954 on my layout and time for planting).  That was annoying because it took some time to set up the field in the first place.  Then, I noticed a broken telephone pole and a downed transmission tower.

So, now Godzilla, I mean Gracie, is no longer allowed in the basement.

My cat died. She accidentally got locked in the train building when I bug bombed it. She was a mess the next day. Crawled off into the woods and died. Too bad. She was the only cat I could tollerate.

I'm even more mystified now, with ALL the people that have cats and allow access to the train room, we are lucky up here to have 2 sets of nesting bald headed eagles, they certainly take care of any cat population and luckily they keep the cats out of our gardens.

tatans

I'm even more mystified now, with ALL the people that have cats and allow access to the train room, we are lucky up here to have 2 sets of nesting bald headed eagles, they certainly take care of any cat population and luckily they keep the cats out of our gardens.

Tatans: 

Could I borrow your bald eagles a while?   No cats in the garage, but there's a family of raccoons that uses my garage as a freeway between the field over the backyard fence and the neighbor's garbage cans across the street.   Gets a little testy sometimes when I'm running the trains in the evening, LOL!  

Those suckers are BIG!   And MEAN!!

Tom

Tom,

Come to Kansas.  I saw one last night that I could probably put a saddle on him and ride him.

I was dating a young woman and she asked me how I liked Cat's? I said fried, not the answer she was looking for?

 When Shaddy was a puppy she use to come out to the train room with me and watch the trains with some interest. I went to the mens room and she wanted to stay, Oh well whats is she going to do?

 I cam back and she caught the nasty sound Like Like GP 38 for me. Stood there wagging her tail and dropped it at my feet when I sat down. She was very pleased with her self. She is 8 months in this picture.

 She had just dropped her prizes and was backing away in the picture. She has all so caught a few rabbits (did not kill them) few cats, 1 possum, and a owl. Owl was after the little white Dog Tiff.

 I don't have a picture handy of Shaddy grown up, but this Sonya, Tiff and my self. Sonya and Shaddy are the same breed.

 Sonya and Shaddy are Irish Wolfhounds. I piety the fool that would break into my house!

        Cuda Ken

This is what the engineers in my locmotives see when I'm not around

I've been lucky, Molly hasn't knocked anything down or broken anything YET!!!!!

Right now, she's more fascinated with the guinea pigs we have. Thank fully