Some days it would seem, it's best to not go to the club. A series of mishaps, some not much, but just to add anoyance. We seem to have inherited a member from the other club I belonged to, who was well known for not watching the front end of his train, allied to a liking for long ones. I recall no amount of reminding him, effected a change in behaviour there either. Another was because of the painting going on inside the clubhouse, someone decided to prime a couple of timber railings across a window on the wall between the layout room and the later added, library extension. It's quite narrow there, A sign had been taped to the window's glass. This is also right where the pass through the layout divider reversing track is. I had chosen to do this manouvre, coming through from the other side (the inside track). Normally there is stuff under layout, but today it was clear, so instead of walking all the way around, I crawled under. You can guess where I put my hand to help myself back up again. Oil paint too, not water cleanup.
The worst happening, involved my latest Cat Dozer on MTH flatcar project. When I build trains in the staging yard, I always start with the loco or locos, if consisting. Get them running, consisted and tested first, before attaching rolling stock. While doing that I turn the track power to that rail off to save the noise from idling engines. Got all my flats with loads and a few others on, nothing big this time and turned the power back on and began to roll out. About 5 turnouts to traverse to get onto the main line up the spiral. The 2 engines hesitated a couple of times and then began bucking and jerking as the power was increased to climb the grade. Stopped it and checked the light bulbs under the layout's edge for a short, Yes, there was one. The aforementioned fellow had just put his FRED car on the back of his long train, so checked that first. Nope, not that. Couldn't see anyting else off, so tried to move mine again, same thing. Went back over mine, and dicovered a truck on the newly built car, had derailed on the last turnout. Put it back on and tried again. As it moved the same thing, with the lights flickering, so I picked the car up to inspect it.
Now these cars come with all metal trucks etc, i.e. the only non-metal parts are the wheel insulators, and they are also sprung. Looked at them, all looked OK, could see what looked like the collars of insulators on all 4 wheels, but then I tried to wiggle the trucks, only one was loose, the other was firmly stuck to the truck and was HOT. I always carry a small flashlight so I can check to see if all the locos wheels in a consist are rolling, it's not uncommon for one or two to drop out, because of short circuits.
Backed the train into the yard out of the way and took the offender to the work bench. In the bright light of the flaslight, it was revealed that only one side's wheels had insulators, the collar on the other side was part of the wheel. The reason for the short? The insulators were on opposite sides in the metal side frames. This wouldn't be any trouble with plastic trucks to swap over, but these side frames and wheel sets also have rotating, pressed on plastic bearing caps on the ends of the axles that pass through the side frames and the only way to remove wheels and axles is to take the side frames off, which involves removing the springs that also keep the bolster in place and everything else in place as well.. Fortunately the damage to the car itself (melted boss where the truck pivots) looks repairable with a Kadee washer. The pivot sleeves the truck swings on and the securing screw goes into is also metal, with the thread tapped into it. It actually appears to be a small spring pin of the type used in engineering as a locating and securing dowel. Doesn't at first viewing seem to have come loose. It may be spot welded to a steel piece running within the center of car, between the 2 of them, before being encased in the plastic body. Least that's what I hope.
This is definitely a factory fault in assembly, but the circumstances of any damage to the car from the short circuit is the fault of relying on light bulbs for short protection and not the circuit breaker which would have cut all power to the track. So a warranty claim would be void anyway. Hopefully, considering I just spent the last week's spare time building this car and load it can be salvaged successfully. It also lost a bearing spinner. this being the 3rd.
About the only thing I can ask MTH for is a bucket load of axle caps.
