Pretty sure I am the only one this has happened too? So after month's of not doing anything on my layout during the Summer, and with Fall & Winter coming it's model railroad time again for me. So as I don't glue anything down, removed everything off the layout except track and got the small vacuum out and gave the base and track a good cleaning for dust etc... So clean the track again after vacuuming it off good, and time to test a Kato ES44DC, and everything is going nicely until...it got to the turn out that if set wrong sends the locomotive into flight, unless the second base is connected, which it was NOT. Have any idea where I am going here? So I am looking at it running on the track, happy it is running well, so I turn my head away. I hear a sound, look on the track and go, what was that. Um, a missing locomotive maybe? There is one running on the inner track, what happened to the one on the outer track? It's on the floor and the noise I heard was it hitting the second folding table I had up, and then luckily falling onto the SOFT carpet. So I said a few nice words, grab it, put it back on the track to test and nothing. No power, no lights, nothing. So I do what anyone that grew up with Tube televisions and I tapped it lightly. It always fixed the Tube tv's Take the shell off, and realize the plastic piece that snaps on where the tanks or something goes is loose, and put it back on the track. It's a miracle I say, just a miracle. Works like a champ and nothing broken that I can see. I just knew I had broken it for good. Guess that's my one luck I get. Don't want to try it again either. Good thing it has ONLY happen to me and not anyone else here?
That's about the point where I would go for a good, stiff drink. Right after I pull out the self-defibrillator...
Well LUCKY YOU!! That's your one save for the week. Now go move that trackage, from being so close to the edge. Wait till you have the "saved forever--one of a kind--mint condition--gold plated--2-8-8-4" hit a turnout, or just jump the track, go over the side, hit the floor and EXPLODE. After you get your heart restarted and you calm down. You will find that's it a good idea to set back that trackwork back from the edge. Been there--done that! Lesson learned.
To prevent flights you can hammer two nails on both sides of the rail and use a rubber band when the line goes to “train heaven”, you can mask the nails, but the rubber not. However it works fine to prevent flights and you can take the rubber away when not needed.
Yeah, I'm always living on the edge, literally, and my divergence actually hangs over the side of the base. Next time I take the L base down, I am going to put the straight piece in place of the switch. But my layout is always on the edge. I need some of that fascia stuff I'm just lazy and going to pay for it at some point. Funny how it always picks a brand new ( well newer ) item, or one of a kind expensive one, then an old locomotive or rolling stock. It's like it knows.
That's what I liked about garden railroading. If it ran off the tracks it was much the same as in real life. Call the rescue crew and maintenance crew. And don't forget the beer.
The NYO&W had a Flying Diesel Corps as a result of vandals setting a switch for a lineside coal trestle. The train bounded down the spur, up the trestle and flew off the other end landing squarely as seen here. The trailing cars didn't fare well. One was full of Hershey's chocolates and the local kids stripped it clean.
I can show you here, even if the picture is not close by, the result of an older "flight" by what was in 1985 my most treasured locomotive. An (almost) brand new model of the latest italian railways locomotive made by Rivarossi and costing a couple of pints of blood (actually more than a few savings, a generous donation by my uncle, and a full reprimand by my parents when I came back home) or three times the LIMA equivalent. you can see on the cabin's top left edge (right on the picture), the scratches due to the train taking a 40cm radius curve at what was a scale 300+ kph. No, it did not fall straight, it went over the edge taking with her a couple of "less trasured" and more sturdy LIMA coaches. If you just are thinking, Yes I was racing the train with my friends.... to see who got the fastest locomotive. It was not only the scratches, also the coupling and at least one of the buffers got destroyed in the process (it landed straight on the left buffer) and that is why you see the snowplow and not the coupler. One of the trolleys also got bent but I was able to replace it together with the buffers (not the coupling). It took me quite a while, and quite some money to get it back to service: one of my first depot maintenance on model trains; but after some 37 years of service, and a recent conversion to DCC, she still earns her keep proudly pulling (or pushing) varnish on the tracks. No, my friend, you were not the only one, just the latest.
I had my fun back when I was a kid with my virtually indestructible Lionel 685, (It was definitely fast enough to roll over on curves. Still got it, BTW.) but left that kind of fun behind a long time ago. (Duh, go figure.) I like the idea of thin plywood fences around hidden track and plexiglas around the edges of the layout. Personally, I'm just not at all enthused about visits from Captain Crunch.
