Wreck Repairs

Some mishaps on a layout are unavoidable.  However, some are worse than others, and over the weekend I had my worst wreck to date. 

I am beginning to experiment with new benchwork to support scenery, and that includes scenery that will be above the staging level on the main line.  I have clamped 1X2 lumber to the existing benchwork in order to measure heights and get a visual generalization of how things may come together.  Everything was clear, and seemed to work well.

At the end of some operating later that evening, however, I leaned a bit too hard on a clamped stringer, and the clamp shifted lower, allowing the stringer to block the forward progress of a double-stacked containter on TV14.  With 4 units up front and 12 cars ahead of the contact point, about 9 cars immediately 'string-lined' the curve.  Two of those hit one of my guard rails, but the rest?  Yup.  They hit the floor.

Thankfully, no locomotives left the rails, and the cars that took the fall were older well cars, but they piled up and sustained damage that made the wreck look pretty real!  Containers at odd angles, shattered truck frames, wheelsets everywhere, cars at different angles on the floor.

After 3 hours of work, I was able to repair all the damaged cars, and last night, all of them returned to service.  An upside to this was that I meant to weather all those cars with my airbrush anyway, and this was a perfect opportunity.  A few photos of those cars will come soon.

Lesson learned:  any clamps that will be in place long-term should be TIGHT!  And, don't adjust or lean on anything clamped when trains are close by.  I learn slowly, but I do learn :-)

Exciting news is that I have procured all the lumber necessary to frame out the last two walls in the basement for the layout, which will enable construction of the short line right-of-way to get started.  This coming weekend, Rick and Jack will both be lending a hand to get the framing in place.  I'll get photos of the progress up next week!