Trains.com

Subscriber & Member Login

Login, or register today to interact in our online community, comment on articles, receive our newsletter, manage your account online and more!

Your worst model train wreak!?

10178 views
77 replies
1 rating 2 rating 3 rating 4 rating 5 rating
  • Member since
    January 2007
  • 10 posts
Posted by SD40-2 on Tuesday, July 24, 2007 5:34 PM
thats terrible. so howd the divorce go??
  • Member since
    July 2004
  • From: Canada
  • 121 posts
Posted by ghonz711 on Tuesday, July 24, 2007 5:36 PM

My worst... I was about 4 or 5.  My dad and I had just finished installing a loop of track around my bedroom, about 7.5 feet off the ground.  My one and only locomotive at the time, a PC (IHC) train set Mikado fell off on the inaugural run.  We forgot to nail one end of a piece of flextrack to the shelf and the track slipped out.  It was the first go at a layout for me, and since my dad (unfortunately) isn't a model railroader, same with him.  He was running the train way too fast.  Even I at that age wouldn't have run the train at full speed when the track was only three inches from the edge of a seven foot shelf (I am happy to have been gifted with a strong appreciation for all things over 100 dollarsTongue [:P]).  My Mikado plummeted to the hardwood floor and snapped.  The cab was destroyed, the boiler knocked off, and I had to chase my pilot truck down the stairs.  We brought the train to the LHS and they told me it was not repairable.Disapprove [V]

Ghonz

- Matt

  • Member since
    April 2007
  • From: Memphis, Tennessee
  • 446 posts
Posted by SD60M on Tuesday, July 24, 2007 6:26 PM
Man you guys have seen some bad ones! Good news though i got my SD70MAC back up and running the only problem is i have to put some new headlights in on the front but the ditchlights still work THANK GOD! Anyway keep it coming!
Long Live The Burlington Northern!
  • Member since
    April 2007
  • From: Western transplant to the Deep South
  • 4,256 posts
Posted by Cederstrand on Tuesday, July 24, 2007 6:34 PM

Is that SD70MAC in N scale? If so, how do you like it? Any you like better? (it's one of the locos on my wish list)

Cowboy [C):-)] Rob

  • Member since
    May 2015
  • 779 posts
Posted by Dallas Model Works on Tuesday, July 24, 2007 6:34 PM

Taking the reciprocating saw to the layout in the "house we were never going to move from" when we moved...

A different type of wreck, but a wreck all the same. Sad [:(]

Now I build modular!

Craig

DMW

  • Member since
    March 2007
  • 2,751 posts
Posted by Allegheny2-6-6-6 on Tuesday, July 24, 2007 9:26 PM

You mean your not supposed to wreck trains on a daily basis? I've been nick named Gomez Adams by some of the guys in our club I have so many wrecks. One of my most recent disasters was with an Athern CNJ SD40. I had been waiting for it to come in at my local hobby shop for about a month. I get it home and I'm like a kid with a new toy. Well that never changes no matter ho old you get. So I put the SD40 on the mainline hooked up to a 38 car train and head off in to the HO sunset. She climbs the steep grade to the summit and just as she's about to cross the steel girder bridge she decides to male a hard left turn and take just about every car with her over the edge. It was nothing short of havoc. Cars and parts all over the floor four and half feet below. Amazingly the  only damage to the SD40 was that the front truck came completely off. I carefully placed it back in the box and the next day I brought it back to the shop with my head hung in shame. After giving me a good ribbing which lasted for about an hour the guys laughed and said oops it was like this when we opened the box. I guess you get a little preferential treatment when you pay the guys rent every month. But wait it gets better!!! He tell me hey we have some good news for you, your two CNJ RS1's  came in today. He said lets check them out and make sure there's nothing wrong with them before you go home and try and commit suicide by jumping out the basement window. So he opens the first box places the engine on the test track it makes a loop and a half and stops dead and starts SMOKING!!!!!!!! We couldn't believe what we were seeing. We take #2 out of it's box and the body shell come clear off the frame! I was like thats it I'm going to take up something safe like stamp collecting. Luckily we fixed #2 with a couple of screws that were laying in the bottom of the box.

 

Needless to say the guys in the club don't like me even getting close to their more expensive stuff...............lol

Just my 2 cents worth, I spent the rest on trains. If you choked a Smurf what color would he turn?
  • Member since
    January 2007
  • 10 posts
Posted by SD40-2 on Tuesday, July 24, 2007 10:49 PM
I have a bad habit of leaving trains on the main line benibd a row of biuldings so the other day i walk in the train room and start mt csx freight that i like to run and came around the curve and slamed into the csx coal train i had left. no damage , just have to pay attn more!!!
  • Member since
    March 2007
  • From: Wausau, Wisconsin
  • 2,354 posts
Posted by WCfan on Tuesday, July 24, 2007 11:27 PM

 SD60M wrote:
Man you guys have seen some bad ones! Good news though i got my SD70MAC back up and running the only problem is i have to put some new headlights in on the front but the ditchlights still work THANK GOD! Anyway keep it coming!

Sign - Ditto [#ditto] Man you guys have has some bad ones. The worst one happened when one of my GP9Ms fell off the layout because of a faulty switch. It fell about 3 feet off the table. The body was kinda smashed up, but I got it back together. I really hope none of these wrecks happen to my new P2K SD45.

  • Member since
    September 2005
  • From: Mass
  • 1,063 posts
Posted by trainfreek92 on Tuesday, July 24, 2007 11:29 PM

I havent finished a railroad yet but.... My worst wreck came on my Birthday! My dad wanted to run 2 locos at once. So they meet at swith and one loco knocked my B day present off the layout Censored [censored]. The moter was shorted out, luckily I was able to get credit and pick up some extra track.

TK

Running New England trains on The Maple Lead & Pine Tree Central RR from the late 50's to the early 80's in N scale
  • Member since
    March 2007
  • From: EASTERN USA
  • 221 posts
Posted by LD357 on Wednesday, July 25, 2007 1:57 AM

Laugh [(-D]A train wreak?  never had a ''wreak'',Laugh [(-D]

 Years ago I had a lot of TYCO stuff and my dad [THE fix-it wizard] got some broken locos we found at a 2nd hand store running, there was one...an F7 I think.....that was wired so that it ran the opposite way the others did...and I played Gomez Addams a few times,  only broke the couplers and scuffed up the front.  That was ''on purpose wrecks''

 The only ''wrecks'' I've had recently were from me dropping stuff...like a brand new Athearn SD40 [fortunately it was the dummy half of the set],I picked it up and it slipped right out of my hand and hit the floor.....only thing that broke was the coupler cover and the corner of the steps...a little glue fixed the steps and a quick scrounge in the parts box produced a coupler cover.....I was very happy it wasn't the heavier powered half of the set...that woulda made me say bad words!!Censored [censored]

  Of course I have the ever present derailments, but they never result in damge to anything but scenery.

LD357
  • Member since
    November 2005
  • 1,223 posts
Posted by jeffers_mz on Wednesday, July 25, 2007 3:54 AM

I've been pretty lucky so far, though minor accidents eem to happen to usually perfect rtrains whenever anyone else is watching.

The worst in terms of spectacle was whan my son's Model Power Rocket Forces train, actually two of them, picked a turnout coming down the 5% grade just before the tunnel. We ended up wth about 15 cars accordioned against the mouth of the tunnel, but no damage to train or layout.

The worst in terms of cleanup was when I was testing out a newly completed and weathered old time work train, just after running an OT passenger train that was parked on hidden staging. Apparantly the power was left on to the staging track, and the passenger train backed off the end of the siding, just far enough to unrail one axle of the MOW train, one of those stealth derailment type of things. 

I thought I heard a little extra clickety-clack but then it quit, and about a minute later that car came off, which derailed the whole train on the steep grade. It was sort of a stringline deal, all the cars fell over to the inside of the curve, and down the embankment to the next level, 4 inches below.

The ballast gondola from the MOW train was filled with, yes, loose gravel, and it went everywhere. It took most of a day to remove all the buildings and trees, get the shop-vac in there, clean up the mess and replace everything.

We have a rule, now, no loose loads. 

Otherwise, fingers crossed, we've been lucky.

  • Member since
    July 2004
  • 2,741 posts
Posted by Paul Milenkovic on Wednesday, July 25, 2007 11:18 AM

I had gotten back into model railroading because I had heard that the Midwest Regional Rail Initiative was going to get Talgo equipment (fat chance, money never came through), and I wanted to build a working guided-axle model to exhibit as part of a passenger-rail advocacy campaign.

So the guided axle trainset (a trainset in transit or transportation lingo is a group of cars that form a passenger train, semi-permanently coupled like Talgo or otherwise) is in a rough, undetailed state, but there are all this little ABS links and brass pins making up working axle steering and pendulum tilt; the layout (still a layout or a pike, a trainset means something different) is still under construction and as far as I have gotten is a single track, point-to-point, with just one curve in it.

So I was running "pendulum banking system tests", where I accelerated as fast as I dared to see if the pendulum tilt suspension was banking the cars into the turn on the one curve, and then stopping short of the end of the line.  In one test, the loco stopped at the right place, but the experimental trainset managed to separate at a Kadee coupler.  The loco was safe, but the trainset went past the end of the line, flying past the precipice in a classic parabolic trajectory on to the cement floor below.

I spent the next hour picking up scratch-built ABS guidance arms and brass pins.  Since this was a scratch-built model that was roughly built as an engineering prototype, I got it all put back together in working order again.  I have built three more generations of guided-axle train models, but I still keep and operate "Pioneer Guided-axle Train" as a reminder of how far I have come on the "learning curve" scratchbuilding working guided-axle trucks.

If GM "killed the electric car", what am I doing standing next to an EV-1, a half a block from the WSOR tracks?

  • Member since
    October 2001
  • From: OH
  • 17,574 posts
Posted by BRAKIE on Wednesday, July 25, 2007 12:11 PM

My worst wreck involved my FA1 A/B set and a Bowser K4.The side swipe happen at the club when the engineer of my FAs overshot the signal and fouled the fouling point-the block gap is at the switch-and was struck by the K4..The FA cab unit rolled down the hillside and on to the big catch-thats the floor..Needless to say the cab unit was totaled.

The engineer was suppose to stop at the signal.

Larry

Conductor.

Summerset Ry.


"Stay Alert, Don't get hurt  Safety First!"

  • Member since
    April 2006
  • From: THE FAR, FAR REACHES OF THE WILD, WILD WEST!
  • 3,672 posts
Posted by R. T. POTEET on Wednesday, July 25, 2007 10:28 PM

Allegheny2-6-6-6, just be happy they haven't nicknamed you Gomez Addams!

From the far, far reaches of the wild, wild west I am: rtpoteet

  • Member since
    March 2007
  • 2,751 posts
Posted by Allegheny2-6-6-6 on Thursday, July 26, 2007 7:16 AM

One very important thing I forgot to mention in my post was a great idea/fix for the prevention of many such disasters. Well it won't keep your stuff from falling off the tracks etc. but to keep them from crashing onto the floor and smashing into a million pieces at my wife's suggestion I've placed netting around the entire perimeter at places where the railroad runs near the edge f the bench work. She had some old cargo type netting they use in kid's rooms to hold stuffed animals. These things are very stretchy and al I did was screw in a couple of cup hooks into the bench work and prop the netting open a bit just wide enough to catch a falling train with a thin piece of cardboard about an inch wide folded to a 90. NO! I haven't tested it with one of my BigBoys or Challengers but I'm confident it will work. Leave it to a non-railroad person like my wife to come up with a good idea. Now if I can only get her to weather all my rolling stock I'll be set. She did one boxcar that would rival anyone's work. I guess it's all that arts & craft nonsense..........lol

Just my 2 cents worth, I spent the rest on trains. If you choked a Smurf what color would he turn?
  • Member since
    February 2005
  • From: New Brighton, Minnesota
  • 1,493 posts
Posted by wctransfer on Thursday, July 26, 2007 9:40 AM

Im not going to say anything more than.... Ever forget momentum was turned on?

Alec

Check out my pics! [url="http://wctransfer.rrpicturearchives.net/"] http://www.railpictures.net/showphotos.php?userid=8714
  • Member since
    April 2003
  • 305,205 posts
Posted by Anonymous on Thursday, July 26, 2007 1:23 PM
I am surprised there is only one photo!
  • Member since
    July 2006
  • From: Colorful Colorado
  • 594 posts
Posted by Gandy Dancer on Thursday, July 26, 2007 1:43 PM
 Allegheny2-6-6-6 wrote:
to keep them from crashing onto the floor and smashing into a million pieces at my wife's suggestion I've placed netting around the entire perimeter at places where the railroad runs near the edge f the bench work.
At the club before we had scenery, all the track was just like a giant perpetual bridge.  Much equipment found its way to the floor.  After a major accident at the club we went with the netting route.  All sections of track that ran through hidden areas where there would never be any scenery had nets placed below them.  We soon discovered anything that went into the netting got all the fine detail tangled up and consequently ripped off - sometime worse than the floor crashes had been.   It didn't last too long.  Recently we have put guard rails up all along the "hidden" sections.  It can still be a nightmare when something derails in the tunnel between the guard rails, but it still has easier and quicker access than when the nets were installed.  Looking back it might have been better had we put the nets up with velcro rather than hanging it from hooks.
  • Member since
    July 2006
  • From: Colorful Colorado
  • 594 posts
Posted by Gandy Dancer on Thursday, July 26, 2007 1:45 PM
 Iceman_c27 wrote:
I am surprised there is only one photo!
Did you look at the other two related threads?  They have several pictures.
  • Member since
    May 2003
  • From: Morgantown, WV
  • 1,459 posts
Posted by cheese3 on Thursday, July 26, 2007 1:53 PM
I had 7 hoppers derail in the mountain on my old layout. My dumb self didn't leave an access hole of course. i actually had to cut a hole through the under side of my bench work to get to them. I only pulled out 6 though! when i tore the old layout down i found the 7th car, i had actually forgotten about it so it was like getting a new car when i found it i was rather happy!!!

Adam Thompson Model Railroading is fun!

  • Member since
    July 2007
  • 1 posts
Posted by tomhouston on Thursday, July 26, 2007 3:01 PM
Hi guys,
My most obscure wreck (if not worst) came when running on what was basically a 4'x8' OO setup extended to go round the outside of a small room.
I had a Hornby Flying Scotsman pulling 10 passenger cars,  and eventually gave in to the kids' suggestions to add more cars.  Well, somewhere around 14 cars I discovered that my layout contained a flat spiral capable of holding a loco and twelve cars.
Eventually the inevitable happened,  the loco exiting the inner loop met the last couple of cars entering it and neatly chopped off its own tail....Oops.
  • Member since
    July 2006
  • 4 posts
Posted by rtrowbridge on Thursday, July 26, 2007 3:06 PM

Mine happened just last week. A friend of my wife and her four children were visiting from out of state and I was showing the train off to the kids. I had just told them not to touch anything when two trains were about to pass. The oldest boy reached over and hit a ground throw before I could stop him. This caused my Atlas GP9 to switch to the outside line, just missing my Kato PA1/PB1 and punching through the outer train. The GP9 and about 8 cars found the floor (at least there was carpeting). It knocked several couplers off, including the accumate from the GP9, which I still haven't found (It has a Red Caboose unimate on it for now).

The youngest child later pulled the Kato off the layout, breaking its coupler. And the oldest kid (who threw the ground throw) decided to modify my Spectrum 4-8-2. The coupler was missing, so he unthreaded the screw holding rear truck to the tender and superglued a freight truck with coupler to the tender. Of course he didn't bother telling me about it. I found it a couple of hours after they had left. It took about an hour to remove the freight truck and ream out the hole so I could reattach the correct truck.

 It wasn't a good week.

 The sad part is that I've been running on the "Pink Foam Express for almost three years and had finally finished the scenery in a marathon session two weeks prior to this happening. It was the first time anyone other than family had seen the completed layout.

  • Member since
    June 2003
  • From: US
  • 4 posts
Posted by Bobwright on Thursday, July 26, 2007 3:51 PM

My biggest problem with a model train wreak came in a Intercontinental Missile count down review meeting. Two of us engineers did not need to pay attention to the meeting.  So I was telling the hydraulics engineer about the time I was running three trains.  The layout was in an el shaped room.  The second level had a 90 degree crossing at the corner of the room.  Two trais collided on the second level and fell onto a train on the first level.

As I finished this sad story my buddy looked me straight in the eye and asked,

"DID YOU CRY MUCH?"

Bob Wright Florida L&N Lines
  • Member since
    July 2007
  • 5 posts
Posted by louisfols on Thursday, July 26, 2007 6:02 PM

If earthquakes count-the 1994 Northridge one did over $1000 in damage.

 

  • Member since
    July 2006
  • 1,414 posts
Posted by Guilford Guy on Thursday, July 26, 2007 6:45 PM

Where to start :)

Um, well, we had a prototypical operation at the lexington hub division modular exhibition.
There was a member with 2 kitbashed Guilford GP40-2LW's. Well I was keeping my passenger a good ways ahead and looked back and saw it wasn't there. I stopped on the outskirts of crossingville, told the conductor to guard the end of the train (portable dude wit red flag) and went to check out what had happened. I saw the end of his train stopped near West Acton so I followed it along... Turned out one of the Guilford Widecabs had decided to do a barrel roll although it only succeeded in falling on its side. That is prototypical operation. 

Now When I was acting as the yard master we did not have much of a lead aka a 9" jumper. We had to use the inside mainline as the lead. Well, a train had just passed and the other was on the other side of the layout so I throw one of the automatic switches. I was assembling a large 30 car train of 2 bays. Turned out I had flipped the switch which sent you over the inside main on a diamond to the outside main. I had a high CV and had just crossed the diamond when i realized the mistake and throttled down  unfortunately the train kept on going and slid right into the audiences favorite train Thomas, who was running at about throttle settign 20 down the outer main. Thomas jumped off but was quickly rigthed and stopped. I was trying to get out just as the other train came barreling along the inside main. Luckily it stopped and the switch crew was able to get it back into the yard.

When the Guilford locos had another back up, the end of his train was stuck ungarded in the tunnel. The Tunnel began on a module rigth beside the corner module. I unplugged the throttle and move over a ways to plug it back in when i see the end of the Big G freight stuck. I tried to find a jack to plug in the throttle and I did but not before seeing the train round the bend. It went into emergency but got away with derailing the tank cars at teh rear of the the Big G train.

Alex

  • Member since
    April 2003
  • 305,205 posts
Posted by Anonymous on Thursday, July 26, 2007 6:47 PM

Train Wrecks are not instant, and take time to complete.

I remember as kids we abused the Lionel O scale Hudson and it punched through everything we put on the track. Keep in mind these items were semi-stone/concrete like building blocks and we were trying to discover the mass needed to stop the engine cold. I suppose we should have picked up a few cobblestones or a few bricks from the street to make some real blocks.

  • Member since
    May 2007
  • 5 posts
Posted by wesolint on Thursday, July 26, 2007 9:05 PM

See a good model train wreck on my YouTube Channel.

 http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=QdgPYV_2Cdo

<object width="425" height="355"><param name="movie" value="http://www.youtube.com/v/dAwiappebzs&rel=1"></param><param name="wmode" value="transparent"></param><embed src="http://www.youtube.com/v/dAwiappebzs&rel=1" type="application/x-shockwave-flash" wmode="transparent" width="425" height="355"></embed></object>
  • Member since
    May 2007
  • From: East Haddam, CT
  • 3,272 posts
Posted by CTValleyRR on Thursday, July 26, 2007 9:20 PM

This one is another cat-astrophe... (Don't worry-- keeping the day job!)

I built a step stool with a layout-level shelf on it so that my young children could observe trains in operation.  Unfortunately, the cat decided that she liked lying on the shelf next to the power pack and watching the trains go by.

One day, I was operating my beautiful Kato HO-scale TGV Sud-est (orange & gray, powered loco, 3 coaches, dummy loco) at realistic speeds (say 120 or so scale mph).  Now suddenly, the cat, which had formerly been quite content to simply watch the trains go by, decided to take an experimental poke at the train as it zipped by.  She barely made contact with it, but the train rocked sideways, jumped the track, and began its graceful arc to the hard concrete floor 48" below.  I made a desperate grab for the train, but succeeded only in clutching the unpowered loco, smashing the pantograph and snapping off the lead truck, which remained coupled to the coach ahead of it.  The rest of the train augered in to the hard deck.  The resulting "explosion" was spectacular, to say the least.  The largest remaining piece of the loco was about a square inch (even the motor came apart), and pieces of the loco and coaches were strewn over about twenty square feet of the floor.  Only the dummy loco and the rear-most coach were salvageable.

Needless to say, the cat is now banned from the basement when I'm operating trains, and I keep my spray bottle of wet water handy to discourage her when she does get down.  Even so, there are times when it's obvious that cat has been doing her Godzilla impersonation on the layout when I'm not around.  Grrrr.  Angry [:(!]

And before you ask, it's my WIFE's cat.  I can't afford a divorce.

Connecticut Valley Railroad A Branch of the New York, New Haven, and Hartford

"If you think you can do a thing or think you can't do a thing, you're right." -- Henry Ford

  • Member since
    July 2006
  • 1,414 posts
Posted by Guilford Guy on Thursday, July 26, 2007 9:20 PM
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!

Alex

  • Member since
    August 2006
  • 3 posts
Posted by gluefingers on Thursday, July 26, 2007 9:45 PM
Twenty-seven cars...straight down the floor.  It was the best trail-and-error way on how NOT to build a staging yard.  This was back in the 1980's when the concept was in it's popular infancy.  I had built a five track, double ended, yard right under the main classification yard and quickly finished-off the area with wood panneling.  Since the yard above was controlled by twin-coil switch machines, I was concerned about access to them and the staging yard's sub-roadbed was barely wide enough to accommodate the ends of the ties on the outside tracks. Scared to death of electronic "do-dads," I had placed a clear plastic viewing window asstride the fouling point at one end, leaving one to guestimate if the other end of the train was clear of any passing traffic at the other fouling point. This was a recipe for disaster.  If one was wrong, the first evidence was the sickening (familar) sound of plastic crunching...closely followed by the horrifying scene of the layout "pooping", previously obfuscated, cars.  One night, I had just proudly completed collecting a 26 car (+ caboose) Rounhouse Thrall unit coal train, and was showing it off to my MR friends.  To save some bucks, they were tied together with some dummy couplers that, even with filing, nearly welded the string of cars together.  I still don't know what errant rolling stock started the fiasco, but they all cascaded--like a huge orange and black snake--to the floor.  Before the layout end-up in a landfill, I got pretty good at replacing busted stirrups...and stuff  But between that incident and the end of the "Cascade Southern," a couple of muscles puckered every time a train was routed into staging.

Subscriber & Member Login

Login, or register today to interact in our online community, comment on articles, receive our newsletter, manage your account online and more!

Users Online

Search the Community

ADVERTISEMENT
ADVERTISEMENT
ADVERTISEMENT
Model Railroader Newsletter See all
Sign up for our FREE e-newsletter and get model railroad news in your inbox!