Ouch!!!

As I was preparing for an upcoming operations session, I ran one of the local freights back into staging, and didn't stop quickly enough. Momentum ran the train into the end of track, and it partially derailed on track 3 which is hard to reach from the aisle. GRRRRRR.

Oh well, ... I took two cars from the train that was staged on track 2, put them aside and started tending to the derailed cars. ... I hear a rolling sound ... and before I can react, see one of the cars roll to the edge of the table and fall head down onto the floor, landing on the coupler, which goes flying. GRRRRRR².

The molded plastic noses holding the coupler in place are sheared off. Taking a lesson from American-style coupler boxes, I cleaned up the remains, carefully drilled a hole for a screw, and mounted the coupler back to the body. I didn't get the hole perfectly vertical, so the coupler now hangs about 1 mm too low, but this is manageable. So far, so good.

Fixed coupler on the left. Undamaged original assembly is on the right.

Since it was still early, I decided to finally detail the Roco 211 I bought two years ago. The train with that locomotive was staged on the inside tracks of staging so I decided to back it out from it's track. As I was doing that, the last car derailed and fell to the floor. GRRRRRRR³ and then I noticed it was one of the new BRAWA Umbauwagen. GRRRRR⁴

The trucks had come off and the end steps on one side of the car are damaged. Also, one of the pressure springs at the trucks was missing. After searching for the spring fruitlessly, I was so utterly frustrated, that I packed up the modelling supplies, and went to bed early.