I have had a few.....so I have some "rules" now:
-no expensive cabooses. My trains actually run in a circle (surprise?) and I have had coupler failures on two different occasions. (These are NOT Kadee couplers. The name of these couplers begins with an "A"). When a coupler fails, the train runs into its own caboose. (Cabooses do not like this treatment......)
AND
One coupler knuckle failure left the debris between the rails, and the speaker magnet of an AC4400 picked it up and failed the speaker.
-I park my Dreyfuss Hudson out of harm's way. And as a precaution, there is a square of blue painters tape over the front coupler cover, just in case.....
I used to start up the train or trains and then let myself be distracted by something on the work bench. Now I try to pay more attention to what I am doing. Another precaution is that, when I am using turnouts or making simple switching moves, I ALWAYS realign the switches.
