@H1000 posted:When you buy an item at a show and begin to think about a half hour later, "I might already have one of these?"
Once again.....I fail to see the problem here!! 
@Just Havin' Fun posted:When you see something at a train show that you want or need only to pass on it because you think it's too much money. Then, you walk around the show and think about it. You go back, only to find the item had just been sold!
Or worse, buying it, and then while walking the aisles, finding the exact same thing on another table for a hundred dollars less. 
@Dave_C posted:Stripping the head of a small hex head screw using the wrong sized nut driver. Adding a working scale Kadee to doublehead two Lionel B&A Berks. . They usually feature a small Phillips screw. These had hex screws maybe for a better appearance. Very shallow head and I had a Whia metric driver that seemed to fit. Rounded the head instantly. Figured out that it was 1/8 not whatever mm I picked up. Simple fix was to just convert the other one to the trailing engine and deal with it another time.
After about a year later. I took the pilot off and drilled down into the screw. Brought some very small Snap On 1/4 drive Torx bits home from work. They make great easy outs. Came out easy enough and replaced it with a Philips head.
Hey!….that’s my trick!!….I’ve been teaching people that very trick for 30 some odd years now!!…..it has to be a snap on bit, cause they’re harder than darn it!!….best easy out on the planet!!
Pat
When you've just completed a highly detailed multi-story building and your idiot in-law picks it up to get a closer look,... not realizing all those pretty illuminated signs have wiring that go under the base.
-Mike in NC,
When I reached for my pint bottle of weathering goop (India ink & alcohol) and gave it a vigorous shaking, not realizing that I had only laid the cap on top without screwing it down.
@cngw posted:Once again.....I fail to see the problem here!!
My wife would disagree!! She can cause the sickening feeling real easy! 😂
Five or so years ago I was at a nice little TCA swap meet. I had just gotten there. I set up my table of treasures (if only others felt that way about them) and went for the first recon trip around the hall. I walked past a table where the guy always had good prices. I'm not much of a tinplate guy, but I don't hate it, and I saw these 3 Lionel stamped metal blue/silver passenger cars, knuckle couplers, like the ones that came with some of the small Dreyfuss 221 Lionel steamers. I have a couple of 221's. I glanced at the price and walked on. Then, 25 feet later, it soaked in that the price was $15, and for all three. Very good condition; excellent, even. Fifteen bucks.
I turned around and scurried back - gone. Of course. The buyer was probably right behind me when I passed them, willing me to "walk on, walk on....". Which I did. I blew that 30-second window.
We need a topic like "My Most Memorable Train Show Failure". This is mine.
@jhz563 posted:When you buy a interesting set of cars at a show or shop, thinking you can find the loco and extra cars elsewhere real easy...
Did that twice. Took a year to find the mate for one engine. Still trying on the other. Never again... I hope.
Also: Spending your quarterly hobby budget on the #3 most wanted train item on your list and then finding #1 or #2 now available for a low price.
buy a piece of rolling stock at a show. Get it home, unbox it, and the trucks crumble in your hands.
Never again will I do that without unboxing it first and checking it for zinc pest or any abnormality.
@jim sutter posted:You are sitting at a outside table at York, eating a funnel cake. Then a large gust of wind, picks up your paper plate, filled with powered sugar and carry's it across the table and landing on a elderly gentleman dressed in a dark blue suit.
Ding ding ding. We have a winner. Just close the thread now.
Sitting alone in a restaurant right now and literally LOL so hard that everyone got quiet and stared at me.
Thanks for making me laugh @jim Sutter.
Ron
@MartyE posted:When the new "matching" car doesn't match the rest of the paint on the previous issued cars.
Mean when the new version of an engine they had done perfectly before is now released with the wrong sounds, colors, and incorrect stripes yet was perfectly done 4 years prior?
We feel your pain!
When your engine starts smoking…but it doesn’t have a smoke unit.
...when instead of asking, "How many trains do you have?" your wife learns to ask, "How many engines do you have?" and "How many cars do you have?"
@CSXJOE posted:When your wife finds out how many trains you really own.
In 1985 I bought a large Flyer collection as I am unloading the third truck load into our basement the wife comes out on the deck looks down and says "The trains go or I go." which prompted "So sorry you feel than way sweet heart." from me. The sickening part was having to sell the house with a huge basement and dismantle the layout. j
@JohnActon posted:In 1985 I bought a large Flyer collection as I am unloading the third truck load into our basement the wife comes out on the deck looks down and says "The trains go or I go." which prompted "So sorry you feel than way sweet heart." from me. The sickening part was having to sell the house with a huge basement and dismantle the layout. j
What, you didn't just tell her you were really going to miss her??! 
Not wearing a mask at the October York Meet. Ended up with Covid and gave it to the family. 
@drelo posted:buy a piece of rolling stock at a show. Get it home, unbox it, and the trucks crumble in your hands.
Never again will I do that without unboxing it first and checking it for zinc pest or any abnormality.
Along the same lines - unboxing an item that you never opened and finding zinc pest. Or reading about zinc pest on a specific item, remembering that you have one, taking a closer look, and finding that it's falling apart.
Ron045,
I'm glad you got a laugh out of it. That day at York I wasn't laughing. I was sick. The bad thing, was there wasn't anything I could do.
I relate to way too many of these experiences, fortunately, not all. Many must come with the territory (hobby). Could add "ditto" to many postings.
@Steve Tyler posted:What, you didn't just tell her you were really going to miss her??!
Or you telling her, "you sound like my former wife," your wife replying "I didn't know you had a former wife," and you further replying "I didn't."
when you can't afford the trains you want because you're a broke college student with 20 grand in student debt
when you set up the trains you do have and they don't want to cooperate
when you've been trying to build your safe haven for 21 years and you just keep hitting snags because your family is nasty and against your passion to the point where they constantly talk crap about your trains and try to take them away and its even worse when you have autism and trains are your outlet to freedom and peace
when you show your godparents the train you want and they say no thats too expensive or say ask your dad knowing full well he would get mad as fire
Magic Smoke and I'm not talking about it coming out of the stack
when you open up the forum to find yet another thread bashing a manufacturer, trolling for a brouhaha over scale vs. tinplate or old vs. new, or asking which track system is best
You walk into the house after work and your wife says " The UPS driver dropped a package off for you..." as she gives you the "look".
Tom
@dkdkrd posted:... realize the the money you spent on season tickets bought in support of your home team...which, once again, didn't make the playoffs!!...would've been better spent on this hobby, bringing far more enjoyment...and then some!
well at least the trains don't throw interceptions
@Tom Densel posted:You walk into the house after work and your wife says " The UPS driver dropped a package off for you..." as she gives you the "look".
Tom
Or when you know something is on the way and you have to think up of another fib to tell her about what's in the box!
How about when you finally paid off your $ 3K+ preorder and the furnace/boiler blows?
Jim Sutter's funnel cake story takes the cake, IMHO. LOL
For obvious reasons to me now, I wish Lionel's "SMOKE FLUID" bottle and "TRACK CLEAN" bottle did not look and feel so similar. I can assure you that track cleaning fluid does not work in a Lionel smoke unit. Lucky for me, it was just a smoking caboose that I ruined.
@Dave Koehler posted:well at least the trains don't throw interceptions
. . . or fail to kick the football!
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@Tom47 posted:When you've been gone for a week and arrive home and open the door to the smell of wet plaster and water. To find the water pipe in the bedroom ceiling has sprung a pin hole leak and the water is to thirds of the way down the hall headed to the kitchen.
This is why when I leave home for extended periods of time, I turn the water off before I leave.
One never knows what can happen when you are away. Rubber hoses to your washer could fail and flood the entire house in no time flat let alone for several days.
As an example, the family and I went on a winter holiday for a few days to Montréal, Canada (Yeah I know the wrong direction, but I'm from Michigan). During that period of time, while we were away, there was a significant cold snap into the single digits during day and negative values at night.
When we arrived home, and I turned the water on, and I heard water running. It turned out that the water spicket on the outside of the house had frozen back into the house and cracked the supposed freeze/frost free pipe. The leak was in the basement ceiling. Fortunately I was right on it and shut everything down.
Needless to say I would have had a flooded basement with real serious issues to deal with!
I'm noticing a common theme of water in basements and upset spouses. Plus one errant funnel cake that makes you want to change the old saying to... when funnel cakes fly...
@Steve Tyler posted:. . . or fail to kick the football!
true
@Tony_V posted:You buy your son a NIB train he wants for Christmas and put it on your Christmas layout around midnight Christmas Eve. When you power it up it doesn't move..
Tony
And you are up all night and on this forum trying to get help on getting it running, you finally get it fixed at 5am, put your head down on the on the pillow and at 5:10 you hear "Santa's been here!!! Santa's been here!! Mom, Dad! WAKE UP!!!! Santa's been here!!!!" Good Times, Good Times. . .
@ConrailFan posted:And you are up all night and on this forum trying to get help on getting it running, you finally get it fixed at 5am, put your head down on the on the pillow and at 5:10 you hear "Santa's been here!!! Santa's been here!! Mom, Dad! WAKE UP!!!! Santa's been here!!!!" Good Times, Good Times. . .
Coffee, lots of coffee . . . 😵💫🥴👍
@RamblerDon posted:I'm noticing a common theme of water in basements and upset spouses. Plus one errant funnel cake that makes you want to change the old saying to... when funnel cakes fly...
. . . or perhaps, "When the funnel cake hits the (rail)fan"? 🙄
[Sorry/not sorry!]
