Have there been any train wrecks on your layout?

I've been real careful, but I was running in conventional and forgot to turn off my brewery siding switch and POW! ZAM! BANG!....my T&P switcher slammed into my Santa Fe fast freight on the main line. No damage but my heart was beating.

Tex

Worst one for me was my first train set. When I was only about 6, my family had friends over one day with the same age kids. I turned on the train for them, and they started yelling for the controls. So I let them, and of course first thing they did was to turn the knob full speed.

The timing for maximum disaster couldn't have been more perfect.

They openned the throttle right at the start of the straight-away, and it hit the 027 curve at something like 150 scale mph. That little train not only fell off the curve; it flew off with such force that it cleared the end of the table, went a few more inches, and put a dent in the wall next to the table. I was expecting to see a heap of carnage, but amazingly the only damage was a bent cowcatcher. Those 4-4-2s are tanks!

no...never...not even once......

When I first switched to TMCC, I would forget to switch the TPC back to Conventional mode and all my conventional locomotives would start up @ full throttle. Launched many off the bench...I'm better about that now...Very rarely happens

Had a head on recently. The wireless thether was bent out of shape the TMCC would not work properly. Took a while to figure out that it was just the tether rather than something more serious. Why do we have the L hook anyway between engine and tender anyway? Do any of you do something more prototypical? Thanks

.

...Well, we recently had this slight turntable mishap out at the roundhouse
http://lh6.ggpht.com/_qC2A8iXt...Dg/s640/P1000508.JPG

http://lh6.ggpht.com/_qC2A8iXt...dw/s640/P1000510.JPG

quote:

Originally posted by Jeff Remy:
http://lh6.ggpht.com/_qC2A8iXt...Dg/s640/P1000508.JPG

http://lh6.ggpht.com/_qC2A8iXt...dw/s640/P1000510.JPG

Jeff, glad the crew was there to help clean up

Conventional Classic GG1 went to the floor from a curve. Throttle was at 11 volts with 5 Madison cars in tow and it still flipped! Smashed the pilot truck and popped the pantographs off. Got a new truck and all is well.

Jeff- I love it.

.

......I would love to take credit for this great little scene.
The fact is however it was the talent of one of our new club members, Lynda Bengtsson Davis that created this scene.
She wanted to help disguise the fact that we're not yet finished w/our new turntable area. We just had an open house and this last minute creative idea really got some great remarks from our guests. Otherwise it would of been just a big emptiness . Thanks to AGHR Howie for the photos.

On one of my Christmas layouts, I let my Dad run the trains. Well, he put one in a siding, and went to get another out. The sidings faced each other. Well, lets just say that the engine was not fully put away, and my Dad being a speed demon sent them flying towards each other. They met with a crash! right behind my Grandfather who had bought them for me. I don't know who was more upset with my Dad, me or my Grandfather.

rear ended



good thing the railroad police were there

I run my trains almost every day. Over the past 3 years I've had about a dozen major derailments and perhaps 40 single car minor derailments. Most were due to engineer error or occurred while backing up. So far no real damage.

Obviously, yours was one that ran well.

quote:

Originally posted by bigo426:
Conventional Classic GG1 went to the floor from a curve. Throttle was at 11 volts with 5 Madison cars in tow and it still flipped! Smashed the pilot truck and popped the pantographs off. Got a new truck and all is well.

Honest to goodness, this is from my layout.

I mean Warren Buffet's layout

quote:

Originally posted by ajzend:
Honest to goodness, this is from my layout.

I mean Warren Buffet's layout

That looks like some of my screenshots on microsoft train simulator.

I had an eastbound NYC 20th century and a westbound B&O columbian graze each other about 3 years ago. NTSB found that seismic activity in the area caused the NB and SB tracks to shift toward each other. Minor damage. A few missing grab rails, and some scuffs along side the B&O lead engine was it. The railroad was found to be negligent by not securing the track as it was not in an easily accessible location. The railroad conducted it's own investigation finding that a rogue table leaf (brought down for thanksgiving) cause the track shift.

In my years of runing model trains I've had a few minor mishaps occur.

The very first has been burnt into my mind since childhood.
I was running my very first Lionel trainset on Christmas day of 1975 around the Christmas tree,when it happened ! The tree feel over on my brand new SantaFe 8351 blue diesel set derailing it

Of course I blamed it on poor construction of the tree .

Or was it my feet that brought it down ?

Some of the worst of them happened on my childhood layout.

The layout had a back stretch of 16 ft. .Way too much running room for a child .

It's amazing how Marx steamers can fly....well until gravity takes over.

We've had a few mishaps on my friend's layout. Mostly caused by the occasionally misaligned switch track, although some are also the result of operator error.

Stuart

This was fast breaking news a year ago.

A special express N&W coal train, running express to the relief of snowbound Buffalo, slammed into the back of the 20th Century Limited just north of New York City. It appears that the New York traffic control mismanaged the special letting it run on the same track as the crack 20th Century Limited. The Limited had just switched onto the Hudson Division mainline after leaving Grand Central Terminal in New York City when the collision occurred. The powerful Y6b steam locomotive at the head of the coal train was running at 50 mph upon impact, and it pushed the last three cars of the Limited into the Hudson River at Croton. Five more cars on the limited derailed.

There have been near misses between the Blue Comet, Broadway Limited,and Southern Crescent as well. The afternoon Hiawatha has run into a local Long Island freight.

Only in tunnels - particularly, the nearly inaccessible tunnels.

Where's Billman for this thread?? lol

--Greg

The only major one I have every had, knock on wood, was when I first received my Lionel docksider. I wasn't paying attention and goosed it instead of slowing it down and it flew off of the track and into the side of my mountain. Because my mountain is made from pink foam it took a decent sized gouge right out of the most visible side of a cliff, but it was easy to fix with some coarse ground foam. Needless to say I am much more careful with the throttle now.

Paul

I posted this a year or two ago. Here is a few photos of a major wreck on my layout back then.







.....
Dennis

Dennis- ouch...

Not really a wreck, but in the 1950's my friend and I decided to clean his track with steel wool. After we got the track pretty shiny we ran his GG1 on it. We just did not bother to thoroughly clean up the very magnetic steel wool residue. The magnatraction took over from there.

My wife rarely comes down to see the trains. She did tonight and I was so intent on showing her the smoking REA reefer I bought that her dad retired from that I forgot to pay attention as a GP38 NS hauling the reefer was preparing to stop, but an oncoming C & O Alleghenny was intent on coming through, both at 20 mph no damage though. whew.

Dennis, I thought only the Acela was supposed to tilt around a turn?

Yes, the Williams SD45 and M.T.H. 50' Box Car uncoupled sending the SD45 forward at full speed to slam into the caboose, forcing the flatcars off the bridge and into the river.

Andrew

afml, I don't know if I should feel sick or be awe struck after seeing that!

AFML, that is one of the best dioramas I have ever seen on a layout.

NICE!

Thanks for sharing.

Paul

Afml, How old are you (rhetorical question)? That was a scene in a movie I saw w/ my father when I was a boy, back in the early 50's. John Wayne starred and drove a train that circa out onto a high trestle to steady it ahead of an approaching flood. The water won, and at that, I stood up, amidst the moviehouse, and screamed that Wayne was a bad man for destroying that train. Your modeling brought all that back to me in a flash. Thanks.

NickyBigBoy,

That major stringline wreck was not my fault I claim. What caused it is one of the cars way back farther picked a switch, and part of the train took off onto a siding and jerked the forward part of the train off the tracks.
.....
Dennis

quote:

Originally posted by Moonson:
Afml, How old are you (rhetorical question)? That was a scene in a movie I saw w/ my father when I was a boy, back in the early 50's. John Wayne starred and drove a train that circa out onto a high trestle to steady it ahead of an approaching flood. The water won, and at that, I stood up, amidst the moviehouse, and screamed that Wayne was a bad man for destroying that train. Your modeling brought all that back to me in a flash. Thanks.

I did the same thing when they crashed the train in Disney's Anastasia when I was three or four!

Had a train with the Williams KAT and MoPac engines, the 2245 C TS dummy (1954 B unit), and 6 15" AL Texas Special cars. The light 2245 stringlined. The two 180 bricks kicked out FAST!

Only when I share a track with John Devlin!!!!

quote:

Honest to goodness, this is from my layout.

I mean Warren Buffet's layout

There is probably a mirror image of this somewhere

I believe the train wreck scene posted by AFML is part of Dr. Bill Bramlage's new layout in Cincinnati. Dr. Bramlage has made an accurate re-creation of an old train wreck in which a passenger car teetered on the edge of a collapsed trestle. In the background is a whimsical trailer park built on a hillside.

Andy

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