i’ll start. Long time ago, before Sandy, I was home alone, running an MTH PS one diesel on my CBL. Because of frequent wifey complaints about the sound, the volume was turned down very low. The house phone rang, and when I went to look for the cordless handheld, it wasn’t in the charging cradle. What a surprise, someone in my family had used the phone and hadn’t returned it to its cradle😳😳😳 I ran upstairs to answer, and was greeted by a less than happy daughter, whom I’d forgotten to pick up at the airport. She was rushing to a dinner date, and we agreed she’d take a taxi halfway, and I’d get her the rest of the way home. Mission accomplished. We came home, I forgot I had left the train on, and my wife noticed it when she went downstairs to do laundry, approximately 30 hours later.
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Sound like 30 hours may be a record. I've only left mine unattended for 5-10 mins.
Ron
About 30 seconds!
MELGAR
Thirty hours is most likely a record. At the G&O we run trains during shows. As soon as we become distracted talking to a visitor, etc., a train that has been circling the display for an hour or more without issues always seems to derail or otherwise crash. Trains just know when you aren't paying attention to them just like puppies. NH Joe
Attachments
Nope, far from a record. Back in the old days on the AOL boards, there used to be a rodeo cowboy who was a big toy train guy. He had a floor layout and one night he was having a couple of beers, laying down watching his trains go round and round and then he fell asleep. When he woke, he had use the bathroom and got up and did so. He then realized he was flying out of town for a rodeo and had to be at the airport very quickly or he’d miss his flight. The shortened version is he was out of town on the rodeo circuit for approximately TWO WEEKS before he came home to find his trains were still going around his floor layout.
I'm not sure how this one counts but after a late night repair I put an engine on my son's "carpet central" and fell asleep in the recliner. Woke up every couple of hours to check on it to confirm the repair good. Overall about 8 hours of runtime on that one.
I certainly can't do that. Right now the Panhandle is a point-to-point layout with a sheer drop off to the floor.
Even so, the idea of letting a train run unattended on anything but a small loop gives me the willies. Waaaay too much can go wrong.
That's just asking for trouble.
George
Wow! 30 hours is impressive. The longest I did was a few Christmases ago when we had an army of guests over and I let the 256 MTH Repro go under the Christmas tree for about 8 hours. I oiled/lubed her up afterwards and she still runs great.
Yea- fifteen minutes at most.....
Now - ask me how many times I've left the layout power on overnight....... Actually not too often but it has happened.
30 hours is impressive Mark.
Bob
Never! Even if I had to use the bathroom, I stopped all the trains prior to leaving the room.
Never! good way to lose a very expensive engine.
I'm glad Mark didn't leave the smoke unit on. That would have been a crispy smoke unit.