That sucks but as for the layout don't feel too discouraged.. Some of us put years into one and before they are completed, get a better idea and take a pry bar to them.. Then again, they do make it to running stage..
Hope it all works out for you.. I'm kind of surprised to hear that you insurance will cover the layout. Contents like that usually require a rider on the policy.
What the !!!!??? Over.
Sorry to hear about your falling sky event - just glad you weren't under it.
If you don't want to deal with the sociological nutcases in the Squirrel State, just stop a few hundred miles north, up I-15. No state income tax, a LOT fewer attempts to tell you how to live your life and a lot less likelihood that the sky will fall or the ground will rise up and smite you. Plus, this is still an expanding economy, housing prices have come down (from unbelievable to preposterous) and the area is FUN!
If you get the idea that I like living in Las Vegas, you got it in one - and I had the choice of moving ANYWHERE.
(I hope your train of box cars honoring your cultural heroes was still a future project, not a done deal that is now un-done.)
Chuck (modeling Central Japan in September, 1964)
Sheeesh, what's next,huh?!? Jess, your skills have improved leaps and bounds, don't give up! Maybe chalk this up to a "learning experience"?Your NEXT layout( who hasn't said THAT!)will be even better.
Good luck and keep us posted, we're hopin' for ya!
TERRY
Terry in NW Wisconsin
Queenbogey715 is my Youtube channel
On the other hand, how many of us modellers who've been around a while hasn't said to himself, "My next layout will be better." And, well it should be. While you may have lost the physical layout and some of its parts, you still have the skills you learned while you were building it. No one, neither man nor nature, can take those away from you now. As you start your next railroad, all that knowledge will be with you.
Wherever you end up, run a B&M boxcar every now and then, OK?
It takes an iron man to play with a toy iron horse.
Jess-
What an absolute DOWNER, especially when you're pretty much just getting started. I'm really sorry to hear about that, my friend.
However, there might be a bright side to it after all--you're talking about moving to the San Diego area, which out here in California is noted for its relatively mild temperatures, and we have--YES!-- "California Basements" out here, known to the rest of the world as 2-car garages. And for the most part, nobody in California parks their car in the garage, so if you get a house with one, you've got pretty much an Empire just waiting to be filled with track! And as far as earthquakes--well, if you've seen those funny cow commercials about California cheese, you know that we just consider them to be 'foot massages' out here. Besides, I don't think that San Diego is that Tectonically active, anyway.
If you are contemplating the move, right now might be a good time to think and plan about what you would like to do to improve the original design. Believe me, I don't think there's a person on this forum who hasn't at one time or another done some adjustment to their MR, from add-on or improving to tearing down and starting all over from scratch. My own "California Basement" Yuba River Sub is in its third incarnation, and I'm about to tear into it again, come Summer Break. It seems to be the nature of the hobby.
Again, I'm really sorry to hear about what happened. You sure have MY sympathy!
Tom
Tom View my layout photos! http://s299.photobucket.com/albums/mm310/TWhite-014/Rio%20Grande%20Yuba%20River%20Sub One can NEVER have too many Articulateds!
Jess:
I am so sorry to hear of your catastrophe! I can't say I have suffered a setback to my MRRing like the one you describe...But a few set backs in life seem to be the order.
Don't give up! Keep the spirits! Start over and do it better this go-round using the skills that you have honed.
A few years back I wrote a piece for a friend that was experiencing "hell here on earth". I won't take up space here on the forum with all of it but the last few lines read:
The Journey is a Fight, it's Fought Alone, it's Fought as a Team. The Journey is Starting Over, and Over, it's Never Over.....The Journey, is the Reward!
Jess-So sorry to hear about the roof collapse. One spring blizzard in Tennessee a number of years ago we had 14 trees in the yard fall, damaging two trucks and one sports car, collapsing the swimming pool, and even one hitting the house--though that did little damage. No power for a week.
Another time we came home from visiting a hospitalized relative out of state to find pipes had frozen; the basement was 1 ft deep in water!
Life can be that way. I think God sometimes chuckles when we make our own plans. But generally I think these kinds of experiences work for the best.
Glad no one was hurt, and glad insurance will help. Glad you had some of the stuff in the bedroom. Hang in there--I always look forward to your posts and photos of your work. We'll be anxious to see what the "new" layout looks like when you get it underway. I'm on my 5th layout, and I probably get more enjoyment from the planning, construction, and building than anything else...thats one of the reasons I'm beginning to expand my current layout.
I sorry to hear it. Any chance that parts could be salvaged? A forest fire remain, maybe a demolition site? Maybe enough walls survuived to be merged into a new building? Something that can recycle at least a small portion?
Best of luck with the insurance piples. Glad to hear you weren't roofed
-Morgan
that's a *** shame . sorry to hear about so much hard work gone in a flash .
move somewhere warm (my favorite is arizona ... no snow , no fires , no tornadoes , hurricanes or earthquakes . i'm sure they have some problems but i never noticed them when i lived there . and it's not too var from san diego) and start over . trying to repair the mess will just remind you how good it was before .
That sure bites, Jess. What an unpleasant nightmare at that awful hour and to have your layout ruined must have been that much worse.
As the others are suggesting, now might be a good time to just sit in thinking mode, dream a bit, make a note in a notebood about some of the things you'd like to change or do better, maybe some lessons learned, and use all that when you know you'll be able to build and enjoy a good layout for some time. We all spend a lot of time on our layouts, sometimes years, but we do want to eventually run some trains. At some point we want to have the use of it, and it doesn't sound like you'll do that in a house you are going to put on the market sometime soon.
Jesse,
Look for the silver lining, my friend. In disaster there is always opportunity. Don't worry about the trains for awhile, they'll be there when you're finished tending to other business.
Lee
Route of the Alpha Jets www.wmrywesternlines.net
I too am very sorry to here about you ordeal. There is potential disaster everywhere whether its snow, fire, earthquake, flood, mudslide, or hurricane & tornado. It's just a matter of picking your poison.
I live in Southern CA and although we get a lot of beautiful sunny days, I can't wait to get out of here when I retire in a couple of years. I originally wanted to go back to the Pittsburgh area where almost all of my family lives, but we where concerned about the snow and iced roads. I looked at moving to OK where I will be centralized, but the wife is worried about tornados. Then I thought about somewhere between OK & PA, but we heard about floods. I don't know don't know if there is a perfect place, if there is I wish someone would tell me.
I do think you should continue on with what you think is right for you.
I'm truely sorry to hear about your lost, Jess. I know that it is heart breaking to have something that you have worked so hard on, get destroyed like that.
If anyone else out there has as hard of a time, trying to convince the wife to let you start over, or even change a few things on the layout as I do. Now she has no excuses. I know that this doesn't make light of the situation, but look at it this way, no one was hurt, and the "things" that were damaged can always be replaced. A few tears might be shed but you can always rebuild something bigger and better.
I can also say that I almost know how you feel in a way. Before I got into the hobby, I lived in northern New York for a couple of years. During the Ice Storm of '98, We went 3 weeks without power and I had to pick/shovel ice off the roof so that it wouldn't cave in. I fell off that roof 4 times that winter. I know that doesn't make things any better, but thought that it might put a small smile on your face if only for a minute.
Again I'm sorry for your lost and hope all gets better.......
Jess,Sorry to hear of Your troubles,Good luck in Your future endeavors.I say rebuild!!! Adapt and overcome! One thing I really hate here in new Hampshire is the snow and the cold and this year has been the worst.Lucky for Me I rent and haven't had problems with roof collapses.I have seen quite a few collapse'd buildings this year in Southern New Hampshire.Mostly barns tho.
Ron,Londonderry N.H.
Sorry for you loss, it's always tough since you are the only one who knows how much work you put into it, people not into MRRing don't have a clue how much heart and soul it takes to accomplish what you have done. I have looked forward to your postings as it looked like you were well on your way to a WELL DETAILED layout and your weathering looked GREAT! Glad that nobody was hurt in the collapse.
In North Texas where I live, our greatest concern is severe thunderstorms with tornados that can form at any time. As I write this many, many people in this area are trying to clean up from FIVE different tornados that struck Wednesday night. Our thoughts and prayers go with you during this stressful time. Please get moved and start another layout as soon as you can--it's a great stress reliever. Use what you have learned from this layout and carry it on! Keep posting photos and notes, I look forward to them!
Do not adjust your mind. It is reality that is malfuncting.
Its been a tough winter for all of us up here.. sorry that you got caught in the rash of roof collapses. Its some beautiful country up in Ossipee but it doesnt look so pretty when things are going wrong.
Of course, if you were closer to San Diego, you could have got caught up in those fires. No part of the country seems safe from mother nature these days. Guess she doesn't like us mucking up the environment..
Not much consolation but starting over at least gives you a chance to redo some things that maybe were not working out as you hoped..
Chris
de N2MPU Jack
Proud NRA Life Member and supporter of the 2nd. Amendment
God, guns, and rock and roll!
Modeling the NYC/NYNH&H in HO and CPRail/D&H in N
Dr. Frankendiesel aka Scott Running BearSpace Mouse for president!15 year veteran fire fighterCollector of Apple //e'sRunning Bear EnterprisesHistory Channel Club life member.beatus homo qui invenit sapientiam
Well all the work I've done so far on my layout is trash, and I was about 75% there....dang it all.
We have been having one of the worse winters in the North East in a long time, so much snow that we had to give up on snow blowing a lot of paths on the property because I just couldn't keep up but I did what I could with the roofs here and as an EMT I've been to a lot of collapsed roof calls this winter.
I had a roof that I thought was all set in the back of the house where I would store my sections that I built so that they could all be linked together when I built my train table in about a month.
Well, we bought this old house and have busted our bank accounts and butts bringing it from an EX-Biker club in the deep woods to a wonderful place that we could be proud of, one of the problems we have been having here lately is the days being very warm and the nights still dropping down to the freezing mark (I live in the Frozen Hell called New Hampshire), well last night was one of those freezing nights and it turns out that we had a breach between the roof somewhere in the back room and the ceiling and after enough water got trapped between what looks like an old roof and the one we could see from the outside of the house an ice dam formed and it was too much for the ceiling and we were awoken by a Hugh crash last night at 3 AM, I jumped out of bed to find that the entire ceiling had come down (old horse hair plaster soaked with water and ice on top) smashing every bit of work done so far.
I've been up all night clearing the mess away and all is lost, every building, trees, the thin skins I was making with the roads and lawn attached to be added to ply wood later, everything except my locomotives and rolling stock that I kept in our bed room on top of the dressers, I guess I'm lucky I didn't have that in there too but I liked looking at the growing collection of locos and rolling stock before bed each night.
I did call the insurance adjuster and it is covered but they of course can't redo all the work I did over the last 4 months, this morning I sit here exhausted and beaten down by this money pit of a house, and here we were thinking that we were done with all the big remodel jobs around here.
This was the last straw for my wife and for New England, we will be fixing the roof and ceiling and putting this place on the market and were looking into moving closer to family in San Diego, my wife has had enough of New England after being here 14 years , hey I'm not fighting with her either, this *** cold hell is no place for a desert Indian anyway.
As I type this I've decided to start over, this way I can incorporate all the things I wanted to do after seeing the pics of layouts here, I'll chock this all up to Practice I guess, at least the grandchildren were not here when it happened, so I guess I'm lucky in that respect.
Well today is going to be a busy one, I need to wait on the insurance lady, call around for a roofing contractor and call a few realtors and maybe get a little sleep in there some where.
I hope this never happens to any one here, it is devastating to put so much work, effort, planning and cash into seeing your rail road dreams flattened to a pile of soggy plaster crap!
Thanks for letting me share my pain with the only folks who will understand my MRR loss, I'm sure that my insurance lady isn't into trains so I'll get no sympathy there I'm sure.
Well my MRR Brothers and sisters, Happy Rails!
Jess Red Horse of the broken heart tribe!