I remember mine, it was the week after christmas 1960. I had a friend that had a nice table top layout so I went over to try out my new gp-7 Lionel Wabash engine. The engine ran fine. I rode over to his house on my Schwinn Traveler bicycle that had a wire basket on the front. On the way back home I hit a bump in the road and the train engine in the Lionel box fell to the pavemant. The front wheel truck assembly was broken. My dad at the time sent it back to Lionel in New York (Remember when they were there?) It came back good as new but I never got over that sick feeling.

Hurricane Charley ruined some of my train equipment in 2004. I had a temporary layout in the garage with two trains on it (inexpensive starter sets, but still nice nontheless) and some scenery. The night before the hit, I remember saying "maybe I should put this stuff away", but then I said "nah, what are the chances?" Well, as Florida residents know, Charley took a blind turn right into Port Charlotte / Punta Gorda and intensified to a category 4. After 22 minutes of my neighborhood getting run over by an invisible freight train, I checked the garage to find that the layout had been flipped over and soaked by blown-in garage doors. The insurance covered it, but I'll always kick myself for not putting the stuff away the night before.

I have recurring nightmares of the Christmas I asked for Lionel trains and got Tyco.

Farmer Bill:

Would that mean you were naughty that year??

I have flashbacks of trains that I sold that I should have kept.

"Coast by Starlight" 8 hours late on my son's first train ride. After many hours of crying my son finally found quiet solace playing with my shoes.

I have a lot of train flashbacks, but I can't think of any BAD train moments. So far, all train moments have been good or better.

Andy

I thought naughty children got coal. But then, Farmer Bill could burn it to make some scrapple piping hot. MMMMM! MMMMM!

I'm dating myself but I remember watching Captain Kangaroo running a 2-level Lionel layout on his TV show. A 736 came roaring around a curve on the upper level, flew off, and crashed onto the lower level. "Oh," exclaimed the Captain. "We have a wreck!"

I have to second the one about selling trains i never should have. Boy oh boy did i screw up that one badly. Well live and learn, hope i am smarter in the future.
But i wouldn't bet the farm on it. LOL LOL LOL

Bill

Not since Woodstock.

Coming home to find all my first Lionel(MPC) sets soaked by a failed water heater.

Forgetting which way a switch was turned while my then 2 yr old son was running my trains....watched my childhood engine do a swan dive off a 38" inch cliff which is my layout onto the concrete basement floor...lol


--Greg

The only train nightmare I've ever experienced was almost a half-century ago. It involved carrying a full set of uncased trap drums (no double-bass, thank goodness!) by taxi to Grand Central Station, through the station and onto the Stamford local to New Rochelle after the band's van broke down.

Pete

My only bad flashbacks are the childhood memories of the days when the Christmas layouts had to come down, and the trains had to get put away for another 10 months.

Andy

quote:

My only bad flashbacks are the childhood memories of the days when the Christmas layouts had to come down, and the trains had to get put away for another 10 months.

Andy

Thanks for bringing mine back to the surface!

Along with the memory of that "electric train smell" as they ran around the tree!

--Greg

The only bad flashback I have had was when I was a teen and was told by my mother that I was "too old to have toy trains". Very shortly after that statement my parents gave away all my wonderful trains to a relative. Thankfully I have gotten back all my old favorites and then some. That was the best therapy for a bad flashbacks like that.

My flashback is to around 1947 when I was on a train from Boone, IA to Chicago. I dropped a large canister of marbles on the floor of the coach and spent hours crawling under all of the passenger seats trying to retrieve them.

It's kind of strange and spooky, sometimes I could look or more likely stare at an old catalog or a PW piece and I have an instant feeling that I was looking at it when I was very young. I don't try to do it too often, because I feel that the feeling may go away, but knowing that it can happen is very pleasing.
Hope that wasn't too heavy.

Back in the 70's the kid down the street brought his cheapie MPC engine to race against my Dad's #238E. Somehow we got the rods tangled which led to the connecting rod on the #238E shearing off the wheel. To make it "better" (I was eight)I twisted and turned the rods off the other side so that they would match.

In the mid 80's while at CBS-FM I made the pilgrimage down to 23rd Street to have Lou yell at me for ruining a perfectly good engine. Of course, he had a brand-new, still in the wrapper #238 motor and rod assembly to put in!

Jon

Yes indeed. It was in my crappy basement layout when I lived in Providence, RI. I did not space my two main lines properly. I just purchased the new Lionel Southern Pacific Daylight GS-2, 6-18007 With the new RailSounds on track one. On track two my Post War Lionel GG1, 2332. As they approached the first turn, bang, oh no. You guessed it. Two beautiful trains off the tracks, spread out all over the layout.

The damage was minimal to both Locomotives, some chipped paint. However, while this happened back in 1993 or so, I am still in therapy.

Many thanks,

Billy C

This message has been edited. Last edited by: William Cunningham,

quote:

Do you have bad train flashbacks in your life?

Yep.

One was when I came around a curve at 49mph on train #75 and saw #74 sitting on the main at the Wyarno siding switch about 1/4 mile ahead! Luckily they had the switch open and my SD45s didn't derail when we took the 10 mph switch at 35.

Then there was the guy who was sitting between the rails when I came around a curve at 60 mph at 3am on train #195. At the last second he looked up at us. I looked away.

Another time there was .... well you get the picture.

I still have railroading nightmares. How come I never dream of the fun days railroading?

quote:

I did not space my two main lines properly.... As they approached the first turn, bang, oh no. You guessed it. Two beautiful trains off the tracks, spread out all over the layout.

Those few dings just made them more realistic. Some modelers go to great lengths to weather their trains but I never see them ding dents and scrapes into them like most of the real ones have.

The inadequate track spacing is realistic too. About 8 years ago we had two trains carrying Boeing 737 airliner fuselages sideswipe each other on a curve at a siding. It seems that over the years the surfacing crews (tampers) had gradually moved the two tracks closer together at that curve than the specs called for. It took a while but finally two trains with extreme high-wides (Boeing 737s) met on that curve. BANG! That was an expensive one.
Boeings
More Boeings.
Even more 737s.

Wyhog

Watching Gomez destroy trains!!!!

Wyhog: Your real life experience is eye-opening. I can only guess at what the insurance payout was for the damage on those (Boeing 737s) fuselages? To now know that proper spacing of track is not limited to toy train guys like me, but in the real world of railroading is a prime example of human fallibility.

Many thanks for your post.*

Billy C

*Your railroading nightmares are understandable.

Chicago to Los Angeles on the El Capitan in the late 1960's.

Warning: Stupid childhood trick: Do not ever do this.

In the early 1960s, when I was about 8 or 9, my buddies and I would enjoy going down to the B&O tracks and watch trains. Then my friends thought it would be fun to play chicken with the train. This involved standing on the tracks and see who would leave the tracks last when a train was coming. I remember the strange feeling of being so terrified as the train approached me that I could not use my legs. I finally leaned to one side and "fell" away from the tracks, just in time. This experience shook me up real bad. I can remember how close the engine was to my legs as I lay there in the ballast watching the freight pass by.

I will never forget that day and I never did stupid things around train tracks again after that.

mom sold my Lionel Scout I played with as a kid

I remember as a little kid waking up in the family car that was on a road paralleling the railroad tracks. (late 50's) I saw a brief, fleeting view of a huge steam engine going lickity-split down the tracks. Even to this day, 55 years later, I wish I could have seen more of it. It is the only live (non tourist) steamer I have ever seen. Just too darn quick.

Of course. Why else would I be buying toy trains now? at my age?

Sorry, my previous post here was about a 'good' flashback.
A bad one: I remember running my Santa Fe passenger set and the Xmas tree fell over, decorated with 'real' tinsel, the tinsel fell across the tracks and caused sparks, short, etc. I think that was the last time we put the tree that close to the trains. (my apt did have slightly slanted floors, so some kind of vibration must have done something to the tree))

Watching Gomez Adams getting too close to the ZW on his layout.

quote:

pilgrimage down to 23rd Street to have Lou yell at me for ruining a perfectly good engine. Of course, he had a brand-new, still in the wrapper #238

"Priceless Experience"

Yea.......

1st grade...Christmas..Gotta a Marx electric train.
Still have the original engine & NYC caboose. Later located the tender and LV green hopper. never remember the original transformer, just using my Dad's Marklin transformer.

So....One day I made a tunnel out of some 1X6's...OK....I stacked two upright & put one on top for a tunnel. It was great fun with the lights out, seeing that headlight going around & through the tunnel on the basement floor.

The next afternoon, my Sister, who was just beginning to walk, was in the basement with my Mom & I as she was doing the wash. I was running the train and had parked it in the tunnel to ask Mom a question. Sis walded over for a closer inspection and lost her balance...placing her bottom on the tunnel, A direct hit!

Have yet to ID the other cars in the original consist.

Wes

quote:

Originally posted by ReadingFan:
I'm dating myself but I remember watching Captain Kangaroo running a 2-level Lionel layout on his TV show. A 736 came roaring around a curve on the upper level, flew off, and crashed onto the lower level. "Oh," exclaimed the Captain. "We have a wreck!"

WOW!! I remember that!

I remember that also on Capt. Kangaroo & Mr. Green Jeans. I looked for that Lionel train segment every year at Christmas time. Doe's anyone remember chippy the chipmonk from Happy the clown? It was a train he used to give the kids rides on. I never got to ride it.

Gene

Was almost hit by a real train! It was 1978, and at the time I was a teenager living in Tallmadge, Ohio, a suburb of Akron. Instead of doing sports and watching girls, I opted to trespass, (I mean watching trains) by the old Erie line than ran through this Northern Ohio town.

One day I was standing on the tracks, when around a curve and out of nowhere comes this high balling freight strait at me! There was just enough time to jump in the brush and take a deep breath! Had I'd been a few steps slower, I probably wouldn't be here today.