Sad story. But I deserved it.

Frank,

I feel your pain. It can only get better from here, right?  It happens to us all at one time or another. Love the layout...

Andy

Whenever guests come over to see the layout a guy named Murphy is the fireman.....

After you work out the kinks (in your knees, back, etc.) you will be able to have a few laughs about how this so often seems to happen. You may feel a bit embarrassed but your guests are no doubt in awe of your amazing layout and they will remember the highlights not the little engine that couldn't with Murphy in the cab.

Even static the layout is a work of art!

Oh boy, can I relate to your pain.   I can run trains for weeks without a mishap but just let 1 person drop by to see them and all heck breaks out.  Collisions, derailments, trains droping to the floor, circuit breakers breaking., things that should smoke do not and things that should not smoke start smoking.

I am thinking of putting a video screen outside the room.  I will record the trains running with no one there but myself so all will go well.  Visitors will no longer be allowed inside the room to see trains actually running.  They will press a big red button by the video screen and the video of running trains will go on. End of problem.

Ed

Wow Frank!!   I laughed hard in simpatico  as I read your story.  I've done a very similar walking the tightrope dance on my own layout....

with guests watching.

In spite of how  many successful test runs I have made through tunnels and around hard to get at areas on my layout, the trains always derail in those area whenever guests come to the layout.... and almost without fail. 

Good to know I'm not the only one as Ed and Trainfun have also had these experiences as well.

Btw - Frank I purchased some knee pads like drywall mechanics wear.  They make kneeling down on the layout much more comfortable

Good luck everyone with your layout as holiday quests come to see the trains run!

I am as yet too young to experience your physical pain, but I can attest to the mental pain. While I was running the O gauge layout at our club for our open house a few weeks ago, it was suggested by one of our older club members that I let the little kids operate some of the trains. From the start, it was stressful. The kids, for the most part, were content to crank up the speed to maximum, heedless to my attempted warnings and oblivious to the fact that the Legacy engines they were operating cost upwards of $400, and weren't mine to break, and that I hadn't oiled my MTH Mikado before the kids arrived. Thankfully, we only had one major derailment, when the coupler on an Amfleet popped open, unnoticed by me or the young operator. The train traveled in a loop before smashing into the uncoupled Bowser Roadrailers. Thankfully, nothing broke that wasn't already broken, but it took me 10 minutes to fix. I also feel bad for the operator, because I think after they left, his mother probably berated him. 

I agree that Murphy's Law strikes at the most inopportune of times. 

Frank, your layout is sensational. But one of the first things you learn when running trains is that when visitors come, trouble will happen. No matter how flawless they run before they arrive. It's happened to all of us. Just be one with it, accept it, learn to love it and drink it in. It's all normal. 

When I hosted our Northern Central Hirailers group last month, the trains ran perfectly. After everyone left I had to find out why something didn't go wrong!  That's how infectious the gremlins can become. 

Murphy rules, guarenteed!

Miketg

Frank M:

For what it's worth, you made a lot of us laugh this morning.

I feel your pain but just remember: Tragedy + Time = Comedy.

Thanks for your "tome".  You did good.

Steven J. Serenska

I use to wonder if it was just me?

Been there,done that,

Makes the fun better, Bottom line,your layout is SUPER!

Enjoy !,,,, 

Brent

The only sure remedy for this kind of a scenario is a planned wreck with derailments......

Absolutely FABULOUS layout, by the way! 

While immersed in the conversations with my guests we ultimately get lost in, my beloved Atlas O SW9 decided that it would not stop at the end of the siding, bumping post notwithstanding, and took a dive to the tiled floor. 143 pieces later, I scooped up what was left. Amazingly, the crippled switcher still had life and now lives in the home of MikeCT who expertly cobbled together the jigsaw puzzle of what it became.

I can't relate. All I can say is I wish I had a layout as nice as yours so I could show it off to friends and have derailments while doing so. 

You do have a class one layout Frank. You can have it running like a fine Swiss clock when alone but the minute the door opens and be it one guest or many guests the layout takes on a different defiant look, a mind of its own. It has you wondering what is happening. A good route to take is instead of apologizing for the Gremlins popping up you add that you have taken the layout to the next level of running like a real railroad with break downs, derailments and broken couplers...........Paul

Loved this thread!  Especially the comment about "I used to think it was only me."  In addition, I have learned that I will only run 1 train when I'm by myself.

The other night a guy asked me: "Can you run more than 1 train on this big layout?"  I told him that I could.  Then I told him about this guy named Murphy!

Just let me turn my back on any one of these trains and all of a sudden: it stops running, it jumps the tracks, it miraculously throws a switch, it falls over onto its, side, it...you fill in the blanks.

When I first installed DCS, with my friend Gregg Burks, I "practiced" a lot wanting to run at least two trains.  There was almost always drama.  My rule is 1 train per person and that person is actually with and watching the train.  On the Glacier Line, a single main with passing sidings, you can easily crash into other trains--as in real life--if you are not paying attention.

Murphy Rules! 

The basic problem is that we try to multi-task when we have guests, and sure enough we forget something on the layout.  I probably simulate real railroad head on collisions at least 4 or 5 times per year.  Just like the prototypes I forget to check the position of the switches at passing tracks, and sure enough a main line train takes the siding and bumps into a waiting train.  Fortunately I run my trains at relatively slow speeds and have suffered no damage, but I look a bit stupid to my guests when they see it happen.

lewrail

I've kind'a learned that while I can run two trains on a loop all day long without rear end accidents, it just doesn't work well with a guest present!

Frank M.:

Sorry for the off-topic question, but what is the source of those green curtains you have around the base of the layout?  They look great.

Thanks.

Steven J. Serenska

Alan,

Your solution is simply brilliant!   Other than the owner, who doesn't just love to see a model train wreck?    Visitors will be talking about the great Christmas wreck of  '16 for years to come.

Ed

I had one "guest run" that went well. We got so involved in viewing and talking about the scenics, that when we got back downstairs, I realized that I forgot to turn on the trains.

Great layout and sorry for your troubles.   I always look at the amazing layouts posted on this forum and magazine and wonder how people get access to tunnels, under mountains, and other hard to reach places.

During the relocation/reconstruction of our layout I purposely avoided hidden or hard to reach places.

Still can't solve Murphy's law where normally reliable locos go dead or uncoupling and derailments happen with greater frequency.

Thanks for sharing your story.

My display layout always had someone watching it when disasters happened. A coupler usually let go parking part of the consist over the crossing so that something was broadsided. Kids loved it!

It just goes to show, that even a beautiful, well planed and executed layout like yours is packed with unexpected adventure.

As for those beloved couplers all of mien are secured closed with black tie wraps.

I learned a long time ago that they are not to be trusted at any show. Sort of like having a bad singer at a wedding, they just can't be trusted. 

Great thread Frank !!! 

Anytime I have people over I always run a single train on a each main line not to have trouble, BUT no matter what something always goes wacky when people are present. LOL 

Thanks, Alex 

Serenska posted:

Frank M.:
Sorry for the off-topic question, but what is the source of those green curtains you have around the base of the layout?  They look great.Thanks.Steven J. Serenska

Each of these replies has been very enjoyable to receive (and I am surprised by the number of them, indeed!), and I'm going to start my replies to all of you with this first one with information for Steven J. Serenska, since my response may be of help to him:

I ordered those green, ready-made tab drapes (84") from Country Curtains, several years ago, and had them cut down to two 42" lengths by a local seamstress. The tabbed sections went onto tension rods, for easy removal when I had to go layout-diving (See photo, here, #2). The bottom halves of the cut-down tab-curtains were staple-gunned underneath and onto the 3/4"plywood platform itself (See this top photo) with some wood trim added here and there...BTW, that bowed piece of white plastic trim accommodates where the cellar-to-garage door swings open....

... Where I did not want access by curious hands and eyes, I used 3/4"plywood as skirting, among the otherwise curtained sections - visible, somewhat, in this bottom photo, which is of what one sees first upon descending the stairs into the trainroom of the basement.

FrankM

F\rank,

It was bittersweet to read your thread. Your layout is a feast for the eyes, no matter what Murphy and the other hooligans attempt to do with it.

Great to see these images of your layout again. You are a very gracious host and a joy to be around, so take that Murphy!

Ed Boyle

This thread is funny to me.  Why?  I demo my companies software, both in person and via WebEx.  You can test and practice the demo 10 times and no issues.  Get in front of the customer and boom...  We laughingly refer to the demo Gods.  Kind of the same as Murphy.  

Frank, you have a beautiful layout.  Thank you for sharing the photos and starting this thread!

Tony

When I was a kid I had a 8X12 HO layout that my dad built for me. My Aunt was an amateur photographer and would always film (yea...film), them running on Christmas day. I would spend the weeks before Christmas, after school, cleaning maintaining and fine tuning everything. I can probably stop here cause you all know where this will end......

Somewhere in my parents attic are hours of 8mm movies of some of the greatest model train wrecks of all time. Need to dig them out and have a few laughs.

Beautiful layout Frank. Hope your knees have healed by now.

trumptrain posted:

Wow Frank!!   I laughed hard in simpatico  as I read your story.  I've done a very similar walking the tightrope dance on my own layout....

with guests watching....

Ohdearlord, no. That would be far too much of a Full Moon rising over Moon Township, too much for anybody at eye-level to that shot being anywhere near. Ya' can't un-remember such things, ya' know. I'd rather guests remember every one of the trains stopped dead or wrecked among their miniature world than have them see me Godzilla-ing my way among the little neighborhoods. And then to have to crouch down among the tracks with that Full Moon aimed lordknowz where....no. That's just too shocking a moment to allow, let alone be the focus of it all!

I will consider the knee-pad idea, though, but wouldn't that mean I'd actually be planning ahead, and for dubious moments, no less? Doesn't Murphy's Law get a guy even worse for such defenses?

Thanks a lot, trumptrain, for the excellent feedback. I appreciate the conversation, of course. As Engineer-Joe referenced, it's nice to know that I am not alone in my bungling of the layout's operation.

FrankM.

It never ends!    Just the other day I had to go Godzilla!

The Monorail struck the Skyway pylon behind Small World and, being a battery operated model, the loco would have just sat there spinning it's wheels until the batteries ran down!    So, I grabbed my Millennium Crutch (if you've never seen one, it looks like the reaper's scythe) and pushed the pylon back so the train could pass.  Then I turned it off.  But!  It would happen again!  So, I rolled up my jeans to my knees, pulled the Town Square flagpole out and with one foot on Main Street, the other in the the entrance plaza in front of Main Street Station and my crutch somewhere in Fantasyland, I gave the Skyway pylon as much nudging as possible with a dowel!    Disneyland clearances are down to the millimeter but next year there's going to be some changes!    And yes, I had an audience!

Becky

I know I must be a terrible person because I should not be enjoying these disaster stories this much.

Ed

Engineer-Joe posted:

I use to wonder if it was just me?

I know the feeling, after visiting countless numbers of open houses where the trains just stop running for no apparent reason, I used to think it was me! 

Trains, dogs and children all misbehave for audiences. Also, I'm never a bigger klutz than when people are around. I laughed at the story, but it's the kind of laugh from someone who, er, understands all too well!

A couple of Christmases past, I went up to watch a new engine run on the guys' layout, only to poke my head in the door just as the Pennsy T1 decided to take out all three tracks and part of a carnival. It was spectacular, and fortunately not as damaging as we first thought.

I just finished testing my layout for guests that arriving tomorrow.  I ran the Merchants Limited and the special Christmas Speed Witch successfully.  We'll see what happens tomorrow.

NH Joe

"Whenever guests come over to see the layout a guy named Murphy is the fireman....."

If you think Mr Murphy is a pain, you should meet Mrs Murphy.... 

So far, I have had good fortunes showing my railroad to guests. My most significant fear is having trains collide on the single track mainline when guests distract my attention. Typically I run 3 trains  @ 20 smph using DCS to showoff my railroad. It is essential that I stay aware of the locations of all 3 trains which is difficult to do when folks are asking questions. 

Funny and oh so true story Frank. This is a little reminder when designing a layout; are all points of the layout easily accessible? Of course life's a compromise at times. Can't get enough of your layout. Did you mention in a previous post that you are planning to dismantle your layout?  

FrankM,

Nothing to add here, except really enjoyed seeing those pictures especially the fourth one!

And yes I too have case of everything going wrong at most in opportune times, but just like real RR where hoses break, brakes stick, engine prime mover unloads on the hill, drawbars "draw",  etc.

Trains and cats exist to teach us humility.