Whats the dumb thing you have done on your layout?

Taking it down...

I forgot I left my beer too close to the tracks. Took those little layout dwellers all day to clean up the spill.

Another time when I was testing the pulling power on a grade I was making to the upper level I forgot to replace a bridge who's piers I had adjusted and into the abyss my engine went.

These types of stories are too funny.

-Greg

Cutting a hole in the 2x6 extension I built for a floor-to-layout canyon. Now the hole makes it really hard to rearrange my layout to allow for more switching and interchange opportunities. 

Selling my childhood layout.

c.sam posted:

Taking it down...

 

 

Same here...

Left pliers on the track after a project, fortunately both Mth breaker and fuse blew when I turned on the power, first and last time that has happened.

I put two switches in a spot that is nearly inaccessible without crawling on the layout and moving a couple of buildings.  There are 15 switches on the layout.  Guess which ones have caused all of the problems.

Tom

seaboardm2 posted:

I had a long freight I stopped set some cars on a siding.Then went on my way the BAM!!I forgot to go back and pick up the rest of the train.Then there was the time using a lionel cab 1.I could not get the locomotive to move.I forgot to turn the mth z4000 power on.Then there was the time I have a kline freedom train locomotive.I could not get the smoke unit to work.Took it to the little choo choo only to find out the smoke unit was turned off.Yes there are times you just have to set back and laugh at your self.

Please use spaces between sentences.  It's not just proper English, but that makes it easier to read.

Thanks,

Alan

C. Sam, same thing here. Had to take my 17x8 layout down after 20 years, packed up all my trains as we are moving to a newer house in a month. But still have the club layout to run choo choos.

In a previous HO layout, I tunneled a double-track main and yard exit through the wall in my basement office (2 separate holes).  I then tunneled the double main through the wall into the utility closet and out through the the steps to the first floor, both at the far end of the basement from my office.  This was accomplished with excellence in a rented townhouse without seeking the owner's approval.

Naturally, we had to move out unexpectedly, due to life circumstances and (of course) shortly after the track plan was completed.  Subsequently, this left me with the rather unpleasant challenge of explaining these modifications to the landlords, who were less than enthused at my professional-level engineering and handiwork.  Their opinion was not swayed even after making a case for the required economical transport of coal and stone from the mines and quarries (respectively) to the power generation plant and MOW department, (also respectively) at the other end of the system.

I still rent, and have since employed track plans that avoid mountains and similarly-characterized obstructions, thus eliminating the possibility of ensuing awkward discussions with my current landlords.

I added a second tier with structures without wiring it up for power first.  I am a genius, "Super Genius" (Wylie Coyote).

Built it before I really knew what I was doing.

I would have to say the thing I have done would be considered dumb is not drill enough holes for wiring to run through, before I put the plywood on So when ever I do wiring I have to try to run through holes already drilled, which causes a lot of wires to run through one hole, or spend the time crouching underneath drilling holes. I tend do the former.

Basil posted:

Built it before I really knew what I was doing.

Thing is . . .  You can't know what you're doing until you get a layout or two under your belt.  Every layout is a learning experience.  Getting a brilliant layout on your first try would be more luck than anything else.

Pete

Running fast on the treadmill and trying to control the trains at the same time.  I've sent a few into hyper-drive.

I didn't paint the room blue and put up backdrop before the benchwork was built.

Leaving switches in the wrong positions, causes a wreck every time! Then operating a crossover switch when there was a train about half way through it! Ended up with half the train on two different tracks. That really bad part of this one is I have done it more than once! Of course I usually do this while my grandson is here and he loves it. He has yet to do anything wrong, no derailments, wrong switches, nothing. He would make a good engineer, he's very careful.

Not designing in a staging yard.. 3 or 4 tracks.. now i'm debating redoing the whole layout because of this! WHAT A DUMMIE!!!

Not dong a neat and organized wiring job on Version 1.0.   Thankfully that has been replaced by clean wiring and organization.  I can't tell you how much easier it is having that.

Ed

#Clean Wiring hashtag Pride and Joy!

Yeah, rushing the wiring so everything would work before Company arrived...

Jon  

Texas Pete posted:

Basil posted:

Built it before I really knew what I was doing.

Thing is . . .  You can't know what you're doing until you get a layout or two under your belt.  Every layout is a learning experience.  Getting a brilliant layout on your first try would be more luck than anything else.

Pete

Thanks for the encouragement Pete!  While I continue working on my current layout, I do dream of my next one.

Without dumb mistakes, it wouldn't be my layout. My track planning skills are seriously lacking, so I run into all sorts of challenges with that. 

 Possibly the dumbest, but I escaped without damage, occurred when I was test running a new-to-me locomotive. I set it down on the wrong danged track, and sure enough, my Polar Express FT set came barreling out of the tunnel in the opposite direction. BOOM! Head on collision. How nothing broke I'll never know.

Texas Pete posted:

Basil posted:

Built it before I really knew what I was doing.

Thing is . . .  You can't know what you're doing until you get a layout or two under your belt.  Every layout is a learning experience.  Getting a brilliant layout on your first try would be more luck than anything else.

Pete

This is absolutely correct!! I built the layout I have now with that in mind as sort of an experiment to see what it was like to actually have permanent layout. It was also built with the idea of expanding after I learned more. Problem is it has been 3 years now and I am still not sure how I want to expand things. Running into the age old problems of not enough space or money or both to make things as I would really like. Compromises are still needing to be made!! 

To everyone: I forgot one big mistake in my post above, which I made during my initial layout build. The wiring is neat and I color coded and tagged the wires but I failed to make a wiring diagram. I thought I would just draw one up after completing the wiring. After I got things running I thought I would run trains for a few days to make sure everything was working properly. It is just amazing how much an old brain can forget in only a couple of weeks!! Needless to say, the diagram never got made. Having things marked helps, but it is not the same as a wiring diagram. Next time it will be made as I go along, or even better before starting!!

Getting lost in conversation with friends and spectators while displaying our sectional Capitol Holidays Layout at train shows.  

I don't know if it is Murphy's Law or just me being dumb, but the trains only seem to come uncoupled or derailed when we are not paying attention to them.  My first indication of trouble is usually someone, often a child, saying something like, "Mister, the train came apart!"  On occasion, it is the crash of the locomotive ramming into the caboose that tips me off.  In the picture below, I am the idiot in the hat and beard not paying attention to the layout behind me.

Which brings me to the dumbest thing we did when first constructing the layout 33 years ago.  We had not allowed for any access inside the completed tunnel other than reaching into the two portals!  Needless to say, we were soon sawing into the back sides of the hill to add three hinged access openings.  One of these openings can be seen in the red fascia of the layout behind me.

Older, if not wiser.

Cheers!

Alan

Watch on my wrist across live tracks(18vac)....yep..electrons win

I designed my layout in the late 1990s, before the hobby moved to scale length passenger cars. In designing my six track main terminal I was certain I would never need more than six feet for a train; at the time I was also into branch line mixed trains.

Now I run 10-12 car scale passenger trains... one at a time through the terminal.

Jan

luvindemtrains posted:

I didn't paint the room blue and put up backdrop before the benchwork was built.

You have company in that regard.

willygee posted:

Watch on my wrist across live tracks(18vac)....yep..electrons win

You have my company in that regard, also. I leaned down low, doing detail work, over fully powered tracks without even thinking of the long gold chain around my neck becoming noteworthy as it lay across the rails.

What's the dumb thing you have done on your layout?

To be honest I can't think of any "dumb" things on the actual layout, the layout has worked fine for years maybe you could say starting a Steel Mill project at 74 years old is dumb, but no, that is starting to come together so nothing on the layout, plenty on the workbench and workshop like putting things down and spending the next hour looking for them or leaving a model out in the rain overnight because after painting forgetting to bring it in, that's dumb or when building a crane jib making both sides the same instead of having a right and left side that was very dumb or more frustrating than dumb and the time I just finished a delicate framework on the blast furnace tried it in place knocked it six feet to the floor and after bouncing off the benchwork it landed in many pieces I was speechless for 10 minutes, sorta in a daze looking at the mess that was very, very, dumb.

Yeh, I have done lots of dumb things I don't want to list anymore otherwise I'll give it away and start collecting stamps. Roo.

What, just one?  How much time you got?

Tearing down layouts. Two unfinished--job, had to move. Two due to age and health issues. One small, unfinished but operational sitting there dormant with dust on the rails waiting for me to pick up the remote and press.

Biggest blooper was not connecting my upper loop to my two lower main lines. My original thought was to put accessories on the upper level and use postwar cars with slide shoes, thus no switches. Now that it is almost done, I find I almost never run the old slide shoe cars.

With a 3 track yard there is no way to get a train from the upper loop to the yard.

On a temporary (2 years) layout I used O-27 profile track. K-Line 42" on the outside loop and Marx 34" on the inside loop. That was fine until I added the Marx O-34 deluxe switches. Those switches were unreliable and the trains bounced through them. And I had such high hopes for them too.

One thing I didn’t do on my layout was to really measure the total wheelbase of my 4-6-0s in regard to the turntables I’d bought. It wasn’t until after I’d installed them that I realized I had to move the drawbar back on notch, making those locomotives about a few millimeters longer than really works well on the turntables. I do wish I could have had the wheelbase just 5MM shorter or so. It’d make turning them WAY easier.

One S-curve won’t allow two coaches to go through it. I had no way to know that as I bought my second coach long after I’d completed the track and done the scenery through there. It’s not a big thing as I never intended to normally run two coaches, but it bugs the living heck out of me that I can’t.

Also, I painted the track with spray paint, and totally forgot to mask the turnout points and ties the points move across. Two years later, no matter how much cleaning and sanding I’ve done to those spots, about a quarter of my turnouts still stick a little. Before an op session, I have to go wiggle them back and forth with my fingers to make sure they’ll work when someone uses the pulls to switch cars.

I almost forgot my most upsetting screw up. A few years ago I found a Marx Automatic Gateman at a show. It had never been used, not a mark on it, even still had a tag on it. I thought it was beautiful. After I built my new layout, I installed it and it worked like a charm. I was happy. 

 Sometime a little later, I was wiring in some new buildings towards the center of the layout. Went to stand up, and dragged my hand too low and snapped the gate right off my prized accessory. I could have screamed. Oh wait, I actually did scream. But I didn't cry. I am a man, after all. 

Great Stories Guys, helps us n00bs..... "it's O.K., even the Big Boys have a faux paux now and then"    Salute

I think I've done about every dumb thing you could think of.  I've ignored all the common sense things you should pay attention to when building a layout, lighting, backdrop, inaccessable switches and track, track too close to the edge, no feeder wires, not enough feeder wires, complex S curves in bad spots, 313 bridges placed on mainlines that are too short to allow certain engine's and cars to pass.. Sold a lot of engine's I wish I had kept.  Run trains onto the floor, and then done the same thing over in the same place. Started project after project without finishing the one before...However, the biggest thing I regret hobbywise was selling my second '72 Porsche 911 right before the price boom of the last few years.  Those early cars have exploded 5 to 10X... that is depressing.  I'll never make that mistake again, and will let my wife deal with my existing 911 after I die. It will be her problem then as will the trains.

The dumbest thing I think I have done, is not running trains enough.