The little Engine that Couldn’t…But Did!

Tales from the Road Series

Let me start off by saying uncategorically, that this story I am about to tell you is my Dad’s fault… and it’s true. 🙂

If you’ve seen any of the RED movies, Retired Extremely Dangerous, you might remember a scene where ‘Marvin’, played by John Malkovich, as the comic relief, gives a gun to Frank Moses’ girlfriend played by Mary-Louise Parker. Frank is highly upset about this and after she accidentally shoots the gun, Frank takes it away and tells Marvin, “NEVER GIVE FIRE TO A KITTY!” i.e. Be careful what you equip someone with. You never know what they are capable of doing with it.

So let’s go back to 1972. These were the good old days. Space 1999, Marlin Perkins and Mutual of Omaha’s Wild Kingdom and the Disney  Hour. I was about 8 years old and we lived in Greensboro. (This would be the house with the darkroom underneath it). My father was an electrical engineer, and as I said in my last post, he could build and do just about anything. I was totally fascinated with this and wanted to learn everything he knew. If it was engines, I was all in. Electronics…  count me at the table and at the front of the class. Tell me how something works and I would run with it.

Dad had explained how electricity works; that the ‘flow’ of electrons moved from one source to a device, and this movement of electrons allowed light bulbs to come on, motors to run, ovens to heat and our battery-operated train to work. Back in our day, we had a small train that you could sit on and ride around on an oval track. We set it up in our den and would go around and around and around playing on the train. It had a seat for a very small child, 8 or so years old, a ‘T’ handle to hold onto, and of course, a very happy smiley face on the front. (This is long before Thomas came on the scene). It had a couple of cars you could pull, and tow your friends around in ovals. It was great fun and…very slow.

I asked Dad one day, how does this work? He pulled open the lid, which was the seat, which I thought of as the ‘hood’, and he showed me a 12 volt battery that powered the electric motor that drove the wheels. This was some ‘serious technology’ to me and I was thrilled to learn how it worked. You could ride the train for about 4 hours and then it would have to charge overnight for another day’s job of hauling kids around. I am sure, for a mother of three kids, well, actually 4 if you included Dad, that this train was such a relief because while we were riding it we weren’t getting into anything foolish like kids have a tendency to do.

So I was riding and watching one day and thinking, long before Tim Allen came up with the catchphrase, ‘more power’…this train needed ‘more power’. In my discussions with Dad he had explained to me that the train, like a car, had a 12-volt battery source but the house, well, that was a different story. It was 120 volts. In my mind, 12 vs. 120? Hands down the house had more ‘power’.

I was watching my brother ride the train and wishing I could make it go faster. I had seen Dad use wire clippers and strippers to put together electrical circuits and it just came to me! I wondered if I could somehow give the little train more power from the house?

I was big into vacuum cleaners also. Yes, call me a mama’s boy, but did you know they run on 120 volts? Yes folks, you heard it right here. They run on a lot more voltage which means… ‘more power’. I saw Mom’s vacuum cleaner in the closet and it hit me…’120 volts’….yea this will work! I just needed to figure out how to get the house power to the train’s battery!  

The message I didn’t learn was the difference between AC power and DC power. Batteries – DC, house – AC… not the same. But no matter to an 8-year-old who thinks he has found a way to make the little train that couldn’t… go faster, I was thrilled with my mentally dangerous epiphany.

I proceed to take Dad’s wire cutters and cut the electrical cord off at the base of the vacuum cleaner, so I would have plenty of length of wire since the train moves in an oval on it’s track. Then, with skill of an 8-year-old electrician, I stripped the wires so I had a clean contact to connect to the battery post. Once done, I asked my brother to hop off for a second so I could make some adjustments. I opened the ‘hood’ and went to work like a ‘real engineer/mechanic’.

I connected the wires to the battery. Dad had told me that the red is usually hot or positive and the ground is black. This was a bit confusing because the vacuum cleaner had three wires that were white, green and black. I wasn’t sure what to do, so I put the black wire on the black battery terminal and one of the other wires on the positive side. I can’t remember what I did with the third wire… maybe it was extra in case something went wrong, you know, a ‘safety’ wire or something.   

My grand plan, which was born out of sheer genius I was sure, was to put my brother back on the train, then go over to the wall socket and let her fly. It would be great! I was sure this was going to be a fantastic adventure and it would solve a couple of issues.

1 – We could go faster.

2 – We didn’t have to charge it overnight anymore.

3 – We could go FASTER!  

No, I never thought about Mom’s vacuum cleaner and how I had killed it like cutting off someone’s life support.

Click… dead.

Nor did I think about the fact that Mom wouldn’t be okay with it. I ASSUMED, given the magnitude of this achievement, that it would be seen as a brilliant move that really made a lot of sense.

I also didn’t think about plugging in an AC house current power source to a small 12 volt DC system.

I was excited.

My brother was excited.

History in the making for sure.

I instructed my brother to sit down on the train and hold on to the ‘T’ handle bars tight.

Without thinking of the absolute stupidity of this whole situation, I walked over to the wall socket and plugged it in.

I don’t remember everything that happened… it’s a little fuzzy.

But…

I remember there being a large electric blue flash that snapped out of the wall socket.

There was a high pitched whip/whining sound.

There was a LOUD pop that came from the train, the wall socket, and Dad’s office which had all of the screw-in glass fuses.

The house went dark.

The train was missing.

My head was buzzing.

Then I heard very clearly from upstairs in passionate high pitched Aria. Let me define this. [ah-ree-ah] A song sung by one person. In Italian, aria means “air,” “style,” “manner.” Arias have been used to highlight an emotional state of mind with passion. Mom’s Area started off with “JEFFERY DAVID KENNON, WHAT DID YOU DO!”

and then it hit.

‘Maybe this wasn’t such a good idea.’

Well, the train did fly… off the tracks, right into the wall, with my brother on it! It flew faster than I could imagine, which was the source of the whip/whining sound. I am sure, IF there were speed records for battery operated trains… we won! Smoke was coming from the ‘hood’ and my brother was WAY not happy.

Mom wasn’t happy.

When Dad got home…

He wasn’t happy.

This wasn’t working out to be what I thought it was going to be. I thought it showed pure genius in my understanding of physics and how electricity works.

Instead, I came close to killing myself, killing my brother, and burning down the house in my attempt to make our train break Warp 1!

Lesson I learned…

NEVER GIVE KITTY FIRE!

Peace on your Journey this week.