In my freight car lowering thread I was photographing some things in the Winslow yard (I normally use my C55 track in Flag as a backdrop) and that meant I cleared all the yard tracks for once. In the back corner, by the fuel racks, is the Winslow derrick and companion boom tender (Bachmann and a heavy passenger car kitbash). I never move them, they are pretty much scenery, even though its runnable. I noticed there was some kind of wierd white powder on the side of the crane.... huh, looked like a dullcote overspray or chalk dust.... looked closer, What tha...? Its spiderwebs. OK, looked a little closer.... there's something white packed between the bottom of the crane cab and the top of the crane platform flatcar, looks like cotton, huh, more spiderwebs..... Pulled the crane car off and picked it up. Oh, crap. This isn't a web, this is a damn nest, densly packed, with an entrance hole right behind the center turntable. Get the tweezers, we'll see what's in here. Poked the tweezer points in there....BAM, they get bit and then a retreat by the occupant. Hello, we now have a live spider living in the Bachmann crane as big as can fit in there! More quick poking and prodding ends the battle quickly, start pulling out spider parts. Takes quite a cleanup, actually. I wondered why the Winslow fuel rack had spiderwebs, its' right beside the crane. I suppose this is a good thing when the wrecking crane turns into a habitat or a terrarium. Well, I've never had THAT happen before, everything else gets moved at least annually to notify any hitchhikers that you can't live here. Railroad is not abandoned, move on. Sorry I don't have shots of this battle, it would have made a great video......
Wolf Spiders are the worst. They know how to stay within the scenery areas so you cant get to them. I had one in the small car shop off the turntable. Lifted the building and he scurried across the turntable and into the engine shop. Lifted the engine shop and he ran onto the fuel island...cant get to him there to many small details to get messed up. I get a bamboo skewer. He sees my fight plan. He scurries into Lucky Penny Yard amongst all the cars parked in there. Cant stab him between the cars for fear of derailling all the cars in the yard. Finally chased him enough he jumped into the yard office area with all the chainlink fence and cars. I almost had him ! He runs behind the buildings in Georgetown. I pick up a building and he is on the backside and climbed to the roof with a "BOO Scared ya' attitude. I dropped the building. He climbs up the rock wall behind Georgetown...across 2 manlines...up the hill with the water tower on it. Some more careful probing in the treed area. He finally emerges and scampers down behind the scenery that is about an inch off the wall so the curtains clear. He successfully negotiated 20 feet of layout...without a scratch !!! I know he 'will be back' just as Arnold said. It was like watching "Arachnophobia" while playing "Call of Duty Black Ops"
If zombies can be a CoD bonus level, then why not a huge 50's horror movie style giant spider? Sent from my XT1585 using Tapatalk
Since my layout is in a large shed in a rural setting, spiders are the norm. There are always webs, dead drained bugs wrapped in webbing laying on the scenery after being dropped by the spiders from the webs high up above. Fun to send an train trough a tunnel or cut and the engine is trailing webs. Trees having webbing draped between them does kind of look cool in a macabre horror story sort of way.
With my pride of of felines not much makes it's way into the house and survives long. Normally know when they have a critter cornered because three will be observing while one bats it back into play. Occasionally one does manage to escape and my favorite weapon is a spray bottle with alcohol. Usually slows them right down enough to easily nail them with something. Dagone wolf spiders can jump good so the alcohol makes them ball up for a bit allowing me a chance to wack them. The alcohol does no damage and evaporates quick and the adjustable spray lets me dead eye nail one on the ceiling before it drops down and is staring me in the eye. Two things I hate greatly, spiders and snakes.
I was trying to imagine George's battle with a wolf spider from the perspecive of an N scale resident of George's layout. Scale it up by a factor of 160 and mail it to Hollywood. On a serious note, has anybody tried putting those glue traps for insects in their hidden areas? I use them for mole cricket infestations, and they work great (as long as I don't goof and stick my hand on one). Steve
I was downstairs yesterday plotting wire length and light fixtures, outlets, etc. when one of those darn cellar spiders dropped onto my shoulder. I'll take one wolf spider that promises to annihilate all the cellar spiders and keep it as a pet. Sent from my XT1585 using Tapatalk
I don't think he meant that kind of alcohol. Or maybe he did Sip, pour on spider, sip pour on spider, down shot, pour on spider, down more. What Spider??
I know I've posted this in other threads, but I have had many run-ins with Wolf spiders. I have hit them with one of my Kato E8s twice and had to clean out pieces and slime from the lead truck. And those were medium-sized spiders !!! I get them large enough to derail a LL GP20, and move on. Don't know why they are so abundant, or how they get so BIG !!! I have brought them to a local nature museum and the people are shocked. They have asked what country I found them in !!! I have measured them at 2 1/2 '' from the tip of one leg to the other.
Not train related, but Sunday in church during the sermon a very small spider descended from the ceiling about a foot in front of my face. I'm sure the folks behind me and the pastor were wondering who I was waving at and why. Though my wife couldn't stop snickering for a couple of minutes.
Spiders and snakes will make people do things they don't want to. Nope just plain old 70% non drinkable. Never waste a sip of the ole recipe from the woods of SW VA on a danged spider. I do keep a bottle of diluted bleach at the kitchen sink for general disinfectant and stubborn stains. Works wonders on trespassing spiders too. Not recommended for use around the layout though because of the bad effects of chlorine on metal and some dyed scenic materials. Also grow them very large in my garden. Fortunately the big ones seem to be to large to sneak in where the smaller ones do. By the fall of the year they have been well fed, quite large, and looking for a nice warm spot to winter over. Just another reason I don't favor tunnels much on layouts.
Ballast dilutant (either alcohol or the diluted soap) in a spray bottle is the weapon of choice for me to incapacitate, until I can round up the tweezers. This was a first for me to find a live one actually living in the equipment. Had a mouse in the HO basement layout living in hard-shell tunnel once. My equipment inspector employee had reason to go to Hawaii and brought back shots of cane spiders living in things. Those things are seriously huge. Those are 12" to the foot spiders, not N scale spiders.
The spiders may be getting big indoors because they are eating well there, just like many of us. Take a look at their trash; they could be chowing down on silverfish and other critters who would mangle your scenery. A vacuum cleaner will kill the bigger ones (no, don't throw the machine at the spider ...) I'll try to evict them (respect for fellow carnivores) if they're catchable (some are REALLY fast). But if it's winter, they'll just come back inside.
Early November = Silverfish. Late November = Spiders, i.e. no more Silverfish. As long as Spiders respect our area, we respect there's. However racing across our bare feet in front of the toilet at 2AM crosses that line.... Spider quickly rewarded with first class travel to Spider Heaven.... Come February all temporary residents leave and normality returns to the Old Folks Home.
