For those of us who are Florida natives, this tropical storm Elsa is a wus. The temperature in Central Florida is 75 degrees and is supposed to reach the low 80s by noon. It is raining - sort of a drizzle - and there is no wind. I suspect things will get more interesting further north but for us, it is just a rainy day in the summer.
I ran across some videos of model railroad train wrecks. I think Tom and I have experienced every one of these at one time or another on the Atlantic & Southern. Now that I think about it, most wrecks are the fault of operator error and not structural defects. Of course, there are exceptions, mostly bad track work, which is not a problem on the A&S.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=cGRGYXtLyWs
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Iq0ulQ9D_mA
Yes, we have experienced some of those problems. However, there are several issues within the videos.
1. The locos still have the McCrappy couplers.
2. The grades are definitely to steep.
3. The track work sucks.
As Ms. Devito said in My cousin Vinny, " Wait, there's more".
4. The trains are going to fast on the curves.
5. The radius is to sharp for the long passenger cars.
6. Look how many derailments occurred at the 90 degree crossing. Yet, the track work was never fixed.
I could go on but I'm exhausted from watching the videos.
Tom ;D
Hi Judge & Tom,
I agree 99% of all derailments are human error. This pic shows what can happen when a visitor looks under the curtain behind the layout without permission. ::)
Thanx Thom...
Looks to me like the problem with the cross-over was low-hanging glad hands on the couplers. HO scale funniest home videos.