Mother Nature 1 .....Jeff 0

[jhoff310]

with saturated ground, rivers,creeks and streams overflowing their banks, a foot of snow on the ground and heavy rain overnight Mother Nature dealt me a mean blow. I got home from work today all geared up to work on the layout only to find 4" of water in my basement. It wasn't so much the water that bothered me it was the fact that I had just purched a partial collection of train stuff from a local senior citizen, I had put the box of goodies on the floor in my train room. Yeah, you guess it the box is soaked all the way thru, the box contained some older atlas and kato locos there was even a P2k in there.[:(!] I never got to see them run on my layout.

Jeff

[rrinker]

Let the locos dry out, lubricate them, and they should at least RUN fine.

--Randy

[Virginian]

Unpack them and clean and dry them out ASAP. They are probably fine. If they were decently packed, it's doubtful any of that fine mud got to them. Water won't hurt anything for a short time. Fresh water anyway. I dropped my radio overboard fishing years ago. Retrieved it, removed the batteries, and set it open in the sun to dry. By 4PM it worked fine.

[jhoff310]

I gave it a whirl, I don't know how long they were in the water I didnt check the train room this morning. I'll let them dry out and let you guys know what I come up with
jeff

[Anonymous]

sorry to hear that, i really am. if that happened to me I WOULD DIE! Atlas, Kato, and P2K, ouch!

[Anonymous]

The other day I had some engines in a box taking them to the club. I also had a pretty big bottle of labelle oil. Just so happens i had forgot to put the cap on[banghead]. Luckily i got the engines home, gutted them, cleaned them out and re-oiled them before any real damage was done. Im just glad i had my 2 Genesis SD70MACs in thier own boxes[*^_^*]

[rrinker]

Good thing it was the plastic compatible stuff, eh? [}:)] [:D]

[Anonymous]

They should be fine - it's not as if they spent long in the water. Bodyshells can be cleaned with warm soapy water if they've picked up any silt or mud - in fact all components can be (have done this with an LGB boxcar I picked up used - looked like it had been run in a quarry or somewhere similar, dismantled it, washed the components, reassembled it - and I now have a nearly-new condition boxcar) A quick stripdown, clean, and dry out should make them as good as new - just remember to re-lube when you put them back together (grease in the trucks and a drop of oil on bearings). Hope this is of help!

[tomwatkins]

I'm sorry this happened. It's a truly nasty sight to come home to. The ideas for quickly drying out,cleaning and relubing should do the trick and the locos should be fine.
Good Luck,
Tom Watkins

[Anonymous]

Been there Done that

I run the AC and the heater to get the moisture out of the air and then clean and lube. The boxes may even be salvaged along with the water marks.

Have a good day
Bob