Cat vs HO trains

Rusty is a ten year old tomcat and resembles Morris. He is right handed, since that is the paw he uses to bat trains off the tracks. After he delighted in batting off a passenger train, and really enjoyed scattering freight cars all over the layout, I decided to have a "wall to wall" conference with him. I yelled, ranted and raved and he simply smiled and continued with his dirty work. After the third episode of my ranting and raving, he finally got the message. Took the old boy a while to understand me, even though he was answering me back as I yelled at him. He can yell too. Now he simply sits there and enjoys the trains passing by. I also learned, the hard way, not to have the trains go by too fast. Fast trains are too much of an urge for him to resist. So I am always safe with freight trains, and have to watch my speed with the sleek passenger trains.

Back in the early 70's RMC did a series of 1 frame cartoons highlighting the perils of mixing cats and model railroads, I vividly remember one extremely funny one. Two cats sitting on the edge on the layout one is all bandages up and on a crutch saying to the other one " And there I was, asleep in the tunnel never dreaming that he had scratchbuilt a working rotary snowplow..." BTW I have 4 cats and a double track in my living room which is 15x24. When I built it I had 1 very old feeble cat. The four think it is their perch and heaven help me if I run an expensive locomotive. An 8 foot drop to the floor is a little too much to think about..

Mike Fleming
President Emeritus, Memphis Society of Model Railroaders

In the early 70's, I knew some guys with a club in Western Conn. There was a cat that used to sleep in the tunnel, if the cat wouldn't come out, they ran a lone engine through to SCAT the CAT.

There was someone here years ago living in the Western USA. Some of you may remember, he thought he had a problem with a cat peeing on the tracks, causing corrosion. We advised him to forget about cleaning it, and redo the stretch which was in a laundry room. The problem persisted and he then noticed MOUSE DROPPINGS between the rails. Then, the cat was blamed not for being a pig, but not doing it's job of pest control.

I had a cat that used to wait for the Obs to come around a turn and then BANG, send it flying.

Don ya love CATS??

D/

As I intimated, Rusty understands English. I speak to him, in gentle tones, and he understands me, often answering me. I have been told my my Vet friends that this is not unusual . Cats seem to behave as 8 or 9 year old children. With proper communication skills they will understand you. Depending on their personalities as individuals, they will, or will not, listen to you.

I believe that in some of my posts here, I have outlined the fact that my cats have a habit of sleeping on top of a river that runs through my layout. It is pretty funny to see Spunks (the main perpetrator) laying in the middle of the layout!
Let's just say that I vacuum my layout pretty often. (everything is sealed down to the layout.)

i have a cat, harry. he as appropriately named, he has a lot of fur. he's a fat lazy cat now, weighing about 20 pounds, but it used to be worse. when he was a kitten, and in shape, he would jump up onto the railroad table every night and wreak havoc. i started closing the door every night so he couldn't get in, and eventually i didn't have to close it anymore. now he's too fat to be able to jump that high, so it's not a problem anymore.

I like cats, but I can never finish a whole one by myself.

-otto-

Sorry Otto, but we are NOT talking about Sophie Katz.

Just reminded myself, Sophie likes to be called Kitty.

Had a girlfriend once that got a kitten that liked to have batting practice on the layout with cars and engines....I wired an AC plug to the power pack leads to the track........and waited for one paw on each rail ...... made a quick in and out application of the plug to the wall socket......... I never knew a cat could jump straight up 6 feet into the air to the room ceiling.....Looked like there were springs in it's feet. From that point on the kitty would walk a 10 foot circle around any part of the layout.....and it only took one lesson.

Well now, train..., I don't think I would go as far as to throw 120 VAC across a Puddytat. First I would make sure that when the kitten, or cat, did its thing, it did it with retracted claws. If good old Rusty ever went after my trains with open claws, exposing really sharp nails, it would have been WWIII. He would have been reduced to having only two lives left. Claws with exposed nails and HO gauge trains, totally ILLEGAL.

i've been hit with 120, and it's not fun. i wouldn't put it through a kitty!

trainwayne1 wrote:Had a girlfriend once that got a kitten that liked to have batting practice on the layout with cars and engines....I wired an AC plug to the power pack leads to the track........and waited for one paw on each rail ...... made a quick in and out application of the plug to the wall socket......... I never knew a cat could jump straight up 6 feet into the air to the room ceiling.....Looked like there were springs in it's feet. From that point on the kitty would walk a 10 foot circle around any part of the layout.....and it only took one lesson.

That is absolutely cruel and unwarranted. How about we give you a shot of 120vAC? I also love your "quick" application to the wall socket... do you think your reflexes are faster than electrons travel through a wire? Let's keep this thread away from animal cruelty, shall we?

-otto-

trainwayne1 wrote:Had a girlfriend once that got a kitten that liked to have batting practice on the layout with cars and engines....I wired an AC plug to the power pack leads to the track........and waited for one paw on each rail ...... made a quick in and out application of the plug to the wall socket......... I never knew a cat could jump straight up 6 feet into the air to the room ceiling.....Looked like there were springs in it's feet. From that point on the kitty would walk a 10 foot circle around any part of the layout.....and it only took one lesson.

I wish you could rate posts like you can rate comments on you tube. This one gets {SPAM} and {thumbs down}. The farthest I shall go is putting up a 2' tall removable Plexiglas shield around my layout.

I have a good picture for you
http://www.toysfromtom.co.uk/shop/Sil-- ... keyhol.jpg !!!


P.S. otto, what did you mean by "I couldn't finish one?"...OH GOD!

Felines, the "other", other white meat?

pennsy wrote:As I intimated, Rusty understands English. I speak to him, in gentle tones, and he understands me, often answering me. I have been told my my Vet friends that this is not unusual . Cats seem to behave as 8 or 9 year old children. With proper communication skills they will understand you. Depending on their personalities as individuals, they will, or will not, listen to you.

OK Pennsy, now here's what your cat REALLY heard!

"RUSTY! BLAH, BLAH, BLAH, BLAH, BLAH! RUSTY! BLAH, BLAH, BLAH BLAH!"

After a party once, we tried to help our cat fly by making a little harness and tying all the helium balloons to it. We came close, but no dice. Question; how many helium balloons does it take to float a cat? I wanted to give her a Goodyear Blimp view of the layout.

D/