Trespasser causes derailment on my layout

I was peforming some switching manuevers the other night and backing the local up when I had a derailment with one of my 34 ft. hoppers. I pulled the train forward when I had derailment with the hopper in front of it. I set the cars back on the track and decided I'd better inspect it to find out what the problem was. I'd thought I had nearly perfected the track to prevent such problems.

Straight out of a 1950's sci-fi movie, this trespasser was identified as the culprit. He was attracted to the flourescent light overhead. Just another reason why I wish I had my layout upstairs or at least in the basement instead of the garage.

BTW, that one photo really shows how bad I am at replacing broken stirrups.

 

Ha! Yep, I sure do. He was one of those brown beetles that you find on the back porch when you leave the light on. I have to be careful and keep the overhead door closed at night when it's warm like it has been, or I get these things and moths, which are not to scale.

 

I am not a bugologist but what I can see of the bug in your pictures it looks like what we call June Bugs here in Kansas.
Bob Wintle
Parsons, Ks.

 

Believe it or not, I had a similar problem on my 12" gauge a couple of weeks back. I went to pull out a boxcar and tankcar from the old carbarn when the rear truck of the tankcar hit the ballast. Turned out that a 'possum had made a bed under the tankcar, so when I tried to pull the cars out, the critter got rolled up under the truck and knocked it off the rails. The derailment wasn't fatal to the 'possum, but unfortunately it died of lead poisening before the wrecking crew was able to free it . No damage to the tankcar, but the animal did leave a lot of smelly "Calling Cards" in the carbarn that I need to clean out. I haven't had that much excitement with wildlife on the N&F since a bobcat played chicken with me and #86...

- James

 

That's funny, James. I've never had problems with mammals attacking my layout, except for our own cat when we lived in Steelville. At least you don't have to worry about a one ounce bug wrecking your train. And Bob reminds me of how city-fied I've become since I moved closer to St. Louis. Yep, we'd call that a june bug in Wesco or Steelville!

One thing that really is a problem about getting pests like this inside is all the other critters that they attract. For whatever reason, I seem to have a problem with black widows in my yard. Before I moved to Union, I had probably only seen black widows once or twice. Since we've lived here, I kill at least three or four every summer. My wife left a pair of tennis shoes by the walk-through door in the garage last summer, and I just happened to glance down and see a black widow crawling on top of them. I took care of him (or her), but that really gave me the creeps. It's too bad, because I like having the garage door open when I work on the layout.

 

Basements are great but not perfect protection from trespassers. About two years ago I had a mouse invasion and they hit a lot of my layout. From chewed up Grandt Line oil drums to dumped live coal loads, they definitely had a party on my layout. Not to mention the mouse poop at each attack site. My layout is 55" off of the floor (only one leg, the rest is attached to the walls) but they somehow got up there.

My exterminator set up some poison stations around the basement that took care of the problem. The poison is in little granola like squares and it dehydrates the little critters so they leave to search for water or they dehyrate to the point that they die. They dehydrate so much that they don't have an odor when they die so if they die in your house, you really don't know it.

As railroad owners we always need to be aware of trespassers. Most can't read so that means even more vigilance on our part.|-|

 

I think I dislike spiders more than snakes -but it's a close race. Black Widows a big problem around here. They love to "hide" inside shoes and gloves and I have heard many stories of people bitten when they stick their foot or hand in. NEVER EVER leave shoes laying around. I keep a few of the plastic grocery bags handy and when I take off my work shoes in the garage - I stuff a couple bags in them as well as gloves too! The spiders do not like the plastic and will not try and go inside them.

 

I have to say that is one ugly "trespasser". That would scare any switchman or brakeman who might walk up on it in the yard. Have you checked for any alien transportation craft that might be sitting on your property somewhere? Perish the thought, but there may be more "aliens" lurking in the shadows.

 

Actually, one of the German companies makes a flying saucer scene in HO. That'd be alright for open house at Halloween, but it's not really my cup of tea any other time. Precisely why ET wasn't welcome on my layout.

 

I hope we don't have any PETA members on this site, but Toonces and I clashed several times while I was trying to maintain a layout at our home in Steelville. Buildings would get knocked down, trees chewed on, you name it. So I enlisted the help of my father, a combat veteran of the War Between the Neighbor's Dogs and the Garden. Dad lent me his electric fence charger. Very low voltage, ran off of a couple of D batteries. We stretched up a wire around the edge of the 4x8 layout that could be easily taken down while I operated trains. It was just my wife and I at the time, no children, so we didn't have to worry about anyone else getting into it. Kitty agreed to an armistice and we've become friends again.

 

Both of my carbarns are pole building type structures, so any animal from possum sized on down can squeak under the doors. Obviously, mice are a problem, so when a female cat showed up living in the Northview Carbarn I thought it was a good thing... at first. Pros: no more mice, mice droppings, and missing bell strings. Cons: muddy red clay kitty footprints all over the trains, kittens born in a gondola, and once all the mice were gone, the cats (momma and the kittens) developed a taste for froglegs. It was pretty unsettling pulling a train out of a carbarn, only to find a frog torso on the seat ! Needless to say, nowdays I just put up with the occasional mouse taking up residence. Oh yeah, I have snakes trespass on the railroad too, and more than once I've found them in two pieces on the railroad track! I don't purposely run over them, but the trains don't stop on a dime. It's kind of like they tell you in the motorcycle safety class, there are two kinds of animals: squishable and non-squishable!

- James

 

There are only two kinds of snakes that I like: Those behind glass and those in two pieces.

 

While I started this thread just to show a kind of odd and unusual occurrence on a layout for entertainment value, there is probably a lesson to be learned. It seems to be a good idea now, at least for me, to start inspecting my layout for critters, especially spiders, before I begin operating. I've heard that every home east of the Rockies has a Brown Recluse spider in it. I don't know if that's true or not, but given that I've killed Black Widows in my garage before, I'd bet that I've got a Recluse or two hanging around as well. And I've heard that those things prefer dark spaces and wood for an enviroment, so a corner underneath the layout would probably be an ideal place to find one. I'm totally taking a guess here, but they probably wouldn't like a foam based layout as much. Sherrel's advice for the plastic bags in shoes is a great idea.

I also agree with Sherrel about rather confronting a snake as opposed to a poisonous spider. If I confront a black snake in the yard, I'll probably let it go. A Copperhead will be introduced to Mr. Mossberg. I personally don't have a problem with them, they have their place in nature, but I wouldn't want my son encountering one while playing. You have to get up close and personal when it comes to spiders, and they're much more skilled at hiding. On the other hand, if you have a large scale operation like James or a garden layout, I can see where both would be a problem.

 

A few plastic lids containing Boric Acid will help "de-critter" any person-space. It dehydrates the heck out of them.