The Gremlins Come Out When Guests Are Watching

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D&J RailRoad

D&J RailRoad

Professor of HO
I have been running the layout off and on over the past several months while working on it and it has run fine. Turn on the power, dial up a loco and run the train for a few laps, turn it off and go back up stairs.
Today, I had my daughter's family and her in-laws over for a cook out. Took them down to see the layout, turned it on dialed up a loco, ran it for about a scale mile, then nothing. The layout shut down, nothing would respond. Tried a full reboot and still nothing. Changed batteries in the hand held controller, still nothing. Tried running with direct plug in, still nothing. Nice layout, must have taken a lot of time to build all this. They all go back up stairs. No sooner than the last person got to the top of the stairs when all the locos fired back up on their own and the train I was running resumed its trip.
So aggravating.
 
I don't know if Capt. Murphy is still around, but his "laws" sure are! Been there and had the gremlins pop up under the same circumstances, with the same reaction from guests. I try to check everything several times before guests are expected, and then run the simplest train, under DC, or one train that has been very reliable under DCC, with sound. Nevertheless, it seems like something will come up.
 
Sorry I have to laugh. It happens to all of us. Every time I have friends over. Something happens. Trains derail where they never derailed before. The decoders start acting funny.

If funny because some friends will try to help me troubleshoot, and sometimes they figure it out before I can.
 


Exactly. Happens a lot to me too. Just like when the car acts up and you take it to the mechanic and then runs perfectly and they think you're making things up.

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The best way to spot the hidden weaknesses of a layout, is to invite a friend* or two over for a demo.:rolleyes:

[* Somebody who has never seen your layout before]
 
Motley said:
Sorry I have to laugh. It happens to all of us. Every time I have friends over. Something happens. Trains derail where they never derailed before. The decoders start acting funny.

If funny because some friends will try to help me troubleshoot, and sometimes they figure it out before I can.
Click to expand...

I have a variation that gets to me everytime...if there is more than one visitor there will always be an equal number of issues crop up....:mad:
 
Model trains are sensitive beings, their feelings are easily hurt, they know when they are being watched by humans that don't have a great love and appreciation. So they react by saying "Stuff you lot."
 
There is an area of my home layout called Murphyburg. That's where most of the gremlins live. I have found that giving them a home keeps most of them away from everything else on the layout. The ones that don't live in that area are bad enough, I shudder to think what my layout would be like if all the gremlins ran amuck.
 
There has to be a fix to keep the Gremlins under control. The motorcycle world uses Gremlin Bells. You can spot the bells on motorcycles, typically at the lowest point of the frame. The lore to this is that the bell has to be given to the owner of the motorcycle as a gift for it to work. If the owner buys one himself, it won't work. The bell is supposed to drive the Gremlins crazy by its constant ringing from the motion of the motorcycle. The Gremlins will actually jump off the motorcycle to escape the noise.

IMG_6090_zps474b8515.png
 
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My guess: one of the guests was standing on the power cord causing it to loosen at the wall outlet. Once they went upstairs the strain was released and the plug reseated itself :-)
 


I don't have power cords laying on the floor.
As I did somemore checking on why this happened, I found the command station would go into shut down mode for no reason. The other two DB150 boosters stayed powered up. I think there may be a turnout in the division yard that shorts out if it isn't thrown all the way.
 
Yeah i agree they do come out and a few weeks ago i was showing a freind my new ( now about 3 months old) sd80mac
And the stupid DC power pack wouldnt work after for about a week it wouldmt work the i try it it works
 
In engineering it's called the "Demonstration Effect". A perfectly developed 'proof of concept" system will suddenly act like it passed through the Bermuda Triangle when a visiting military officer with stars on his shoulders drops in.
 
The formal title, as given it by MR back in the early 1970's in a one page article about the situation, is the "Only When Visitors Come" law.

The article describes a man's model railroad, noted for 3 things. 1. Extensive prototypical operating sessions, 2. Extremely smooth and flawless trackwork, & 3. Absolutely no scenery or structures. Its a true Plywood Pacific!

It seems that one of the regular operators brought a guest one night to an op session. The guest was a member of MR's staff. (IIRC it could have been Lynn Westcott, then editor.) Anyway as the op-session got underway, the layout demonstrated that it had a mind of its own. It uncharacteristically started experiencing several major derailments, several shorts, and wouldn't let the session continue. The MR staffer took some pictures of the owner and his expressions as the scene unfolded, and needless to say, he was quite embarrassed by the whole thing.

The owner couldn't find anything wrong with the track or the electrical system. However the next day, the layout was back to running as reliably as before, and they held another typically smooth op-session the next week. IIRC, the article stated that the MR staffer didn't go back to a session, and the regular operators said there never was another problem with the layout.

I wish I could find the MR, (month, year), it was in. The author described it as kinda funny.
 
Good analogy!:) Even my layout will sometimes develop a mysterious short in one section when someone who's never been there, comes over. Afterwards, I can't locate the short.
 
This is one of Murphy's Laws of Model Railroading, probably number 1. Others I've enountered are:

The instant you master a difficult to apply paint & decal scheme, at least two manufacturers will introduce it in their RTR offerings.

Finish a scratchbuilt structure and it becomes available as a kit.

Concrete has been proven to have a higher tensile strength than brass.

Any dropped part will instantly make its way to either the darkest corner of the room or the deepest of the carpet pile. Sometimes both.

No matter how large your selection of tiny metric or american screws happens to be, you won't have a replacement for the one you lose.
 
No matter how great a product, paint, model, etc., was, it was discontinued last week, and sold out at your LHS yesterday! Any model that was very good, but in kit form, is now r-t-r ONLY, and costs ten times as much as the original.
 
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