On Thursday my family had a bit of bad luck. My sister lost her house in a fire. Everyone made it out ok and she has good insurance. After the phone call I got a dreadful feeling. I remembered after my divorce my sister let me keep half my train collection at her house. While driving over there thinking the worst, I never made a list of what I have. I lucked out. She moved them into the sun porch because I said I was coming to get them awhile ago. The old military trunk I stored them in kept them dry from the Fireman's hose. I did loose the set my Pop just picked up at a auction. It was a Lionel Box Set with a 2029 engine, 6014 boxcar, 6511 flatcar, 6112 gondola, 6076 hopper, 6315 tanker and 6167 caboose. It was with the shipping box and all. As I walked into what remained of her house first thing I saw was the transformer laying on the front steps. My heart sunk. The rest of the set was thrown around the sun porch. I was able to salvage the engine and cars but the boxes were toast. All my Pop kept saying was how are the trains. " They hell with trains Pop are you alright?" "I'm fine" he says, go find the boxes. As I pulled the trunk out my Brother-in-law walks over and says " Did they make it?" They were more worried about my trains than I was. Moral of the story is I need to record all my trains.
I'm glad everyone is ok.
I take pics of every train I have and I put them on a couple of different web hosting sites like photo bucket so I can access it from anywhere if I need to incase like you had or robbery, vandles, ect. I also have most of the things in the house on sites like that also so heaven forbid should something happens I have records. I do need to update some of my pics ( remove what I don't have anymore and add new items) which I will be doing very soon as I usually keep it kinda acurate.
Glad all are okay thou.
Life's hard, even harder if your stupid John Wayne
http://rtssite.shutterfly.com/
Keep it in perspective, please. I mean no disrepect when I tell you that if you didn't lose your sister and her family then you've lost nothing. And if you realize that already then I'm sorry if I gave any offense.
None taken. The last thing on my mind was the trains. Looking back on it we laugh on how when I got there the were concerned for my trains. Only wish I could say the same for my Harley. Anyone know how to get a melted bike cover off?
Glad to hear that everyone's OK!
Trains, trains, wonderful trains. The more you get, the more you toot!
Sounds like everybody was ok, which is always the most important aspect.
As far as the trains go, keeping track of what one has is certainly helpful.If you are thinking about a potential insurance claim, be aware that many insurance companies would consider Toy/Model trains to be valuable items or collectables that are not covered by a standard policy. The insurance companies often require valuable items riders.Typically the valuable items riders on homeowners or renters policies are expensive.There are collectable items policies offered to the public by a few insurance companies.The TCA also has a relationship with one specific company.
I am not in the insurance business.
Philaknight,
Glad everyone is okay,
I keep am Excell spreadsheet with the inventory of all of my trains and accessories. It is 545 lines long at the present time and growing. Below are the headers I use. It is on my hard drive and on 2 jump drives. One at home and one in the lock box at the bank. I also have it broken down by sets, type and so on. It scares me when I see how much money is there and my layout is pale compaired to most. We lost our house in 1990 to a Tornado but most of my trains were boxed and survived but it was a lesson for sure on knowing what you have so if in that terrible event you can at least recoup some of the lost expense.
Item
Part Number
Circa
2011 value + - Or P price
Type / Make
Condition
Tested
TCA Grade
Indicator (This shows who will get it if I should pass on.)
Joined 1-21-2011 TCA 13-68614
Kev, From The North Bluff Above Marseilles IL.
Happy to hear no one was hurt and likewise sorry for the life upset this causes,
I seem to recall a young fellow on this forum years ago who claimed his house, or a relative's house burned down and he recounted the story of crawling into a window of the burning building to retrieve some trains, as opposed to crawling in to save the three or four family members who perished in the fire. I think this was eventually figured out to be a poorly contrived story to prey on the generosity of some forum members.
I had that happen once...27 years ago. We had just removed the railroad, all trains stored in the attic. Lost some of the later MPC stuff...just warped and twisted from the heat. Boxes.....never save boxes. All the engines....the thing that saved them was that night I used all the weasel pee (WD-40) I had, soaked the engines from the bottom, wrapped in new newspaper, and stored them for insurance appraisal.
5 months later, dug them out, and the innards were fine. All the water, heat, might be a good idea to spray the innards and wheels to be sure no condensation issues ensue,
BTDT,
Thank God nobody was hurt. This is a lesson to us all.
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