I'm glad you and your wife came out of this safely Al. I run an old Marx train under our tree with a Flyer transformer. How's that for mixed media? We only plug the transformer in when we are actually running the train. We also have the transformer sitting on a pie cooling rack to elevate it above the carpeting. Your warning is a good one.
Happy New Year all Jim Martin ________________________________ From: alsflyer <[email protected]> To: [email protected] Sent: Monday, December 31, 2012 1:26:05 AM Subject: {S-Scale List} FIRE!! A Safety Warning Hi Guys, Jean and I just one hour ago had a big scare. I had been running some of my trains around our Christmas tree and left the transformer on while getting a drink. I had just sat down and was watching TV when all of a sudden there was a loud POP! MY cats went running out of the room and my wife yelled FIRE ! I jumped up and ran over toward the tree and saw smoke and fire coming out of the bottom of one of the transformers, the one I had left on. Man, I grabbed the power cord and unplugged it and pulled the transformer off the floor and somehow undid the power wires to the track and ran it out to the garage and placed it on the concrete still smoking hot. I believe that the POP was the short in the transformer and it had blown out the circuit breaker on the power strip and also the main breaker for that power line in the basement. I was really lucky that the carpet was not burnt but it was very hot when I touched it. Luckily, I did NOT have it on the cotton snow so that did not catch fire. Please be careful with your transformers and unplug them if you are not using them. You can never be careful enough. ALSO, I believe it to be in everyones interest to place something under the transformer such as a piece of wood so you do not burn your carpet, linoleum, or wood floor. And never place it on the cotton snow if you are using this at Christmas time. Al Rawdon PS - I am posting this to as many groups as possible as a safety warning.
