"Along the Blue" #19 | 3 Comments - Click Here :

    With summer in full swing, its been nearly impossible to work on anything railroad related. Come this fall, I hope to start making some real progress again. The kind of progress you'll see photographic evidence of!
I once had some On3 locomotives guilty of doing the following:

Summit County Journal; Jun 19, 1915
C. & S. Engine Has Severe Accident
    A pin on one of the drive wheels of the engine pulling the passenger train over from Leadville worked out when the train was a couple miles below town Tuesday morning and let the drive rod down, causing quite a smashup. The engine did not leave the track however and no one was injured.
    A freight train was at Dickey and the engine from that was pressed into service and pushed the passenger train with the wrecked engine into the Breckenridge yards, then pulled it on out an hour or so late.
    Had the accident happened on a down grade at the top of a high cliff, instead of on a stiff up-grade where the engine was quickly stopped, it might have been quite a serious wreck.

"Along the Blue" #18 | 2 Comments - Click Here :

    For those "scale"operators who think it is OK to just put the caboose back on the track after it derails; you might consider checking the health of your miniature conductor and crew members who were riding in it. This may add a little time to your switching maneuvers:

Summit County Journal; Sep 17, 1921
Conductor Ward Hurt In Accident At Curtain
    Conductor Alfred Ward met with a very painful accident when the caboose of his train left the track on the west switch at Curtain Tuesday morning. The train was rather heavy, consisting of a couple of cars of coal, a couple of merchandise and several loads of ore from Kokomo. The grade of the track is rather steep at this point, and when the caboose left the track it was impossible to stop the train at once.
    Conductor Ward was riding in the cupola at the time the car left the main line, and the jar caused him to fall to the floor, where he struck a stove. He was bounced around pretty much, and received a dislocated shoulder, a broken arm, and fractured one or two ribs.
    He was taken to Breckenridge at once, and in the absence of Dr. Condon, Dr. George Smith, of Dillon, was called in attendance. At first it was thought that Mr. Ward had also received internal injuries, but a more thorough examination after he had been removed to Leadville Wednesday proved that he was unhurt internally.