Our group uses two flat cars, which were made by an inactive member, that have velcro & scotch-brite mounted underneath the flatcar frame. The flatcar carries a little weight on top for positive contact. As far as using alcohol on the tracks,we used to use it but.... we have a guy in the group who is like a bull in a china shop.
At one of our shows, he takes one of his loco's and oils the axles and gears. Mind you no one is paying attention to him. His time slot comes up to run his train and the loco has about 10 passenger cars behind it. After about 20 minutes or so I can see he's frustrated, and he already has a short fuse, so he asks me to help him find out why the loco won't pull the cars. I tell him switch loco's for now( little did I know that he oiled this one also). He tries the other loco and he get's the same results, no movement. It's hard enough to hear in the expo center with all the trains running and people talking, so I figured he's got 2 bad loco's, until I put my hand on the loco and I feel it vibrating. I look to the side of the loco and the wheels are slipping, bad.
Pulled the loco from the track and looked at the wheels, and they were soaked with oil. He might as well have made a salad with all the oil oozing off of the wheels; same with the other loco. My heart sank at this point because there had to be oil all over track 2 and the layout is 40'x50'.
Bring in the track cleaning crews with the alcohol & rags! (This is where it gets good). We spend 15 minutes cleaning the track of it's oil and I tell "Joe" not to use those loco's until he removes the oil from the wheels of both loco's because anyone after you will have the same slipping problem. "Joe" gets a bright idea and wants to speed up the track cleaning process but is out of loco's and decides he wants to borrow a fellow members loco to pull around track 2 with the flat car & scotch-brite. He asks everyone if he can borrow a loco, but they all know how he is with his equipment and they all refuse him. Finally a gullible member gives "Joe" a switcher & he puts it on the track. "Joe" takes the scotch-brite off of the bottom of the flat car, puts the scotch-brite on a table & pours the alcohol(70%) onto the pad, and it's dripping, puts the pad back onto the flatcar, puts the flatcar behind the switcher and powers up the train. The train moves 3 ft. and there is a spark under the flatcar (derail) which causes a fire on the scotch-brite. "Joe" panics, grabs the flatcar as I'm watching all this(and Mt. Vesuvius is about to explode with laughter),pulls the scotch-brite pad off while singeing his fingers, drops the pad and starts stomping on the pad along with the flaming alcohol all over his shoe bottom. The pad is stuck to the bottom of his shoe, he looks up at me with a silly grin , and I lost it;couldn't contain myself anymore along with all the other members. I'll say one thing his fire dance was something to watch!
The poor guy that loaned him the switcher nearly lost it from the fire, plus learned a valuable lesson that day about loaners(nothing serious) Our "Joe"is the new FIRE MARSHALL BILL and we have done away with ALCOHOL.
Steam Forever
John
Co-ordinator of "The Raritan Valley Hi-Railers"
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