I had a 70 car train of walther quads fully loaded with live loads. all rode on kd barber trucks with intermountian 36" wheels. three proto gp-30's on point, two 30's and a gp-20 40 cars back, and three more gp-30' on rear. had just climbed a left curve 2 1/2 percent grade with no problem. went through the next town, rounded the curve leaving town, came to passing siding,
switch was fouled with piece of ballast in pionts. they were perfectly centered. the first two lead units went straight through switch and in between tracks. they abruptly stopped...........the helpers..........didn't.............15 cars in front of mid-train units went to outside of curve.............all between mid and rear end helpers went to both sides of track in town, there was a scale 10" of coal on the station platform, two chevys and a ford were buired in the station parking lot. rear helpers stopped 9 cars shy of mid train units. i had screened real coal. there was a dust cloud rising over the back drop.
thre investigation revealed that the switch had recently been ballasted. the "work crew" had failed to clean the switch and its points. the pionts had been glued in place along with the piece of ballast. i was not cited, and not banned from live loads on the club layout. as i had been running live loads there for 8+ years with not one derailment of a loaded car. empties however.........are another story.......especially with helpers.
In 1990 a 50 foot cat invaded the small PA town of Dennyville. From out of nowhere a giant feline emerged and was strolling down mainstreet knocking over buildings and boxcars and using vehicles as little more than playtoys. He merrily ate the foliage as local residents looked on in horror. Not even the national guard couild stop him as a convoy of army trucks was merely brushed aside. Then just as mysteriously as he appeared he left. While there were no fatalities the ground was littered with toppled freight cars and their spilled cargos.
The fictionalized version just sounds alot more interesting than saying a cat climbed onto the layout and knocked down some of my train cars.
Guilford Guy wrote:Horn hooks are great for straightlining cars! A kid in my youth club had a long train of 40 ft cars with horn hooks and when one truck jumped at the start of a curve he grabbed it to correct it but the 3 locomotives kept pulling which straightline around 20 or so cars!
Actually KD couplers will do the same..Its all about train handling skills and not grabbing cars when they start to derail.
The X2F coupler will work quite well when properly body mounted.
Larry
Conductor.
Summerset Ry.
"Stay Alert, Don't get hurt Safety First!"
2005 Santa Fe RH&MS convention in Pasadena. I Volunteered to open my N scale railroad for the layout tour. It was my first open house (naturally). Everything went fine on the morning test run (of course!). Guests started arriving and I sent the two trains out for their continual run. About ten minutes later I heard a crash deep in the bowels of the staging level. The eastbound train had been sent down the wrong track slamming into the rear of another train. The cars knocked cars of trains on the adjacent tracks off the rails. About that time the westbound pulled over on the 1-1/2 turn up hill spiral, which had never happened (eastbounds had sometimes bunched up when the slack ran in and folded a couple of cars off the rails on the downgrade). That ended the operation. Moral: Never, but never, challenge the Demonstration Demon!
ardenastationmaster
Well this was a freak accident that just happened today. I was testing my Athearn SW1500. Now, not all of my couplers are the same height, which was the problem with 2 of my boxcars. So after a couple times around the loop I felt just fine that they would be ok. So any way I had to go and answer the phone. Usually I stop the locomotive when I'm doing something, but this time I forgot. This is what I think what happened: The boxcar behind the gondola unhooked on the grade and rolled down the hill. The boxcars landed at the bottom of the grade. The SW1500 push the cars up the hill, No problem there right? Wrong, for some odd reason the coupler on the boxcar hung just low enough it to hook on the switch part. The SW1500 kept pushing and one of the boxcars went to the side. I was lucky enough just to com in the room about when it ended, so I turned off the power. Now I learned a lesson today, have all your couplers the same height.
My Youtube Channel: http://www.youtube.com/user/JR7582 My Flickr Photos: http://www.flickr.com/photos/wcfan/
Learned a couple of things the hard way watching my son:
- There is such a thing as too steep a downgrade for model railroads and toy trains- There is no such thing as brakes on model and toy trains- When the train starts free-wheeling down the steep downgrade, the only things left in control are gravity and God- father and son can share a moment of helpless terror together watching a free-wheeling Lionel passenger train charging downgrade turn the track into the guide rails for a gravity seeking missle launcher
- There is such a thing as too steep a downgrade for model railroads and toy trains
- There is no such thing as brakes on model and toy trains
- When the train starts free-wheeling down the steep downgrade, the only things left in control are gravity and God
- father and son can share a moment of helpless terror together watching a free-wheeling Lionel passenger train charging downgrade turn the track into the guide rails for a gravity seeking missle launcher
Yes, the train succesfully launched, and turned its gravity seeking guidance system on. Yes, the silence is deafening between launch and impact, and about 10 seconds after impact. No, the transformer "off" stop did not survive our pathetic attempts to abort the launch. Yes, ever since The Event, all grades have been relaid with O42 curves instead of O27. Yes, Lionel trains are quite durable. Losses included a marker light and bell on the engine, a roof off one passenger car, and cracked roof and ends on another passenger car. Certain losses are acceptable. No, no Lionelville citizens have reported traumatic injuries in the making of this drama.
later
Fred W
fwright wrote: Learned a couple of things the hard way watching my son:- There is such a thing as too steep a downgrade for model railroads and toy trains- There is no such thing as brakes on model and toy trains- When the train starts free-wheeling down the steep downgrade, the only things left in control are gravity and God- father and son can share a moment of helpless terror together watching a free-wheeling Lionel passenger train charging downgrade turn the track into the guide rails for a gravity seeking missle launcherYes, the train succesfully launched, and turned its gravity seeking guidance system on. Yes, the silence is deafening between launch and impact, and about 10 seconds after impact. No, the transformer "off" stop did not survive our pathetic attempts to abort the launch. Yes, ever since The Event, all grades have been relaid with O42 curves instead of O27. Yes, Lionel trains are quite durable. Losses included a marker light and bell on the engine, a roof off one passenger car, and cracked roof and ends on another passenger car. Certain losses are acceptable. No, no Lionelville citizens have reported traumatic injuries in the making of this drama.laterFred W
WCfan wrote: Well this was a freak accident that just happened today. I was testing my Athearn SW1500. Now, not all of my couplers are the same height, which was the problem with 2 of my boxcars. So after a couple times around the loop I felt just fine that they would be ok. So any way I had to go and answer the phone. Usually I stop the locomotive when I'm doing something, but this time I forgot. This is what I think what happened: The boxcar behind the gondola unhooked on the grade and rolled down the hill. The boxcars landed at the bottom of the grade. The SW1500 push the cars up the hill, No problem there right? Wrong, for some odd reason the coupler on the boxcar hung just low enough it to hook on the switch part. The SW1500 kept pushing and one of the boxcars went to the side. I was lucky enough just to com in the room about when it ended, so I turned off the power. Now I learned a lesson today, have all your couplers the same height.
Did you put the spray paint on there?
Was it Jessica on the phone..?
My BEST wrecks happened in my youth. My brother and I would run our Athearn Hustler around our (at least 4x8) table top loop. With a little too much throttle it would not hold the rail on the 22" curve, and would slide on its side partway around. After that it was FULL throttle down the long straight. The Hustler never did reach the wall 3 or 4 feet from the edge of the layout, but it did reach the floor 3' down.
We operated our F7 and GP9 and their trains much better.
Timber Head Eastern Railroad "THE Railroad Through the Sierras"