Insured it is, nothing new, most used equipment, everything scratchbuilt, have a total replacement value of $46.55 CDN. that should just about cover the value in case of a loss.
Craig North Carolina
Another useful item to have that I didn't think to mention is a list of all your personal and family contacts, addresses and phone numbers.
I now use RRTrains software to keep track of my inventory but as stated where is it all kept on my PC of course. That was one issue I had during the Big Mess as we've come to call it. I had a spread sheet with most of my rolling stock and all of my locomotives but my computer was friend or at least I thought it was. It seems as though the UPS even with a dead battery did it's job as far as surge protection and only my monitor took a hit. So I was fortunate enough to be able to access my data. I now make two back up CD's and keep them located in a fireproof safe one in the house and one in my shop located on my property. I also do the same with household items as well. Now it's a standard practice that I take a digital pic of the new item I purchase and scan the receipt all kept in the inventory of RRTrains. I believe it was sugested to me by someone here.
I may be overly cautious or proactive may be a better term as I now have a whole house surge protector wired into my electrical panel to prevent anything like that from ever happening again and it was tested a few months after I had it installed. One day we came home and found the house dark. We thought the power went out in the neighborhood but my neighbor said no power was ok but he did notice the lights got really dim and then very bright about an hour or so ago. I went to the service panel and the surge protector was beeping and a red LED was flashing indicating it needed to be reset. Well worth the money I payed. They have other models that don't require you having to reset them.
After several hours of deliberating over weather or not the original layout was worth saving or not we decided to scrap it and retained as much as we could.But how do you put a price tag on the hours you have building and weather structures and painting and weathering your rolling stock. Yes we saved or restored every piece of equipment on the railroad but every single thing needed to be wiped clean and most of the rolling stock had to be re weathered. What saved me loosing most if not all of my DCC equipment is I have this habit of unplugging the command station so being as it wasn't online it and any of the locomotives etc. didn't take the hit. It's debatable weather or not the surge would have only taken out the command station and not harmed any decoders or throttles but I wasn't about to argue with the adjuster when he picked up the hand throttle and kept pushing buttons saying oh well this thing is dead how much does it cost? He didn't even ask what it did or how it worked so I guess maybe his ignorance worked to my benefit some what. I know most of us don't have the gigantic basement empires like the ones seen in the Allen Keller videos or on the pages of MR but what was truly staggering was how much I had actually spent over the few years I had been back in the hobby.
It's one of those unfortunate things that happens in life but is a little easier to swallow if your better prepared. I just wouldn't want to see anyone have to go through what I had to with my insurance company.
DrilinejwhittenMy wife and I have a proactive data recovery profile-- we have a package of scanned materials that we include on CD's (DVD's really) along with family photos and we send them out to the rest of the family. The data is stored on a set of hidden tracks that aren't normally read by the DVD player, though if someone does spot it, its bundled and encrypted. You are an exception to the rule. I bet 99% of us including myself do not do what you do.
jwhittenMy wife and I have a proactive data recovery profile-- we have a package of scanned materials that we include on CD's (DVD's really) along with family photos and we send them out to the rest of the family. The data is stored on a set of hidden tracks that aren't normally read by the DVD player, though if someone does spot it, its bundled and encrypted.
You are an exception to the rule. I bet 99% of us including myself do not do what you do.
Its easy to do. In fact it just takes a few hours-- we set it up over a weekend. We pulled out all our important papers and various documents and things that would be useful to know if lost (you can fill-in w/ stuff that might be important to you) and ran them through the scanner (ours has a document feeder so its easy to just stick the whole thing in and walk away for awhile). The scanned documents accumulated in our 'scanned' folder. After we finished scanning everything we wanted we zipped it up with a password, and then run it through some encryption software we have that does a better job. (Hint, if you want, you can run the secure package through as many times as you want, each time adding an extra layer of encryption). We also include an unencrypted version of the software with the bundle (just not the pass phrases) and put those on the emergency DVD's (the "photo" disks) and send them out. If we add/change anything, we just include it on the next photo disk release.
What to include in your secure package?
The documents that you select will likely be different from the ones we selected, but here are some ideas to help figure out what you might want to include...
If your house burnt down, flooded-out, hit by a tornado and then had a nuclear bomb dropped on it... and you barely got out alive and now you're standing there shivering in your underwear and a bedsheet... what would you need to reconstitute your identity and your "documented" life? What other stuff might you want?
Stuff to include in the Encrypted Portion:
-- Obviously the MOST important item, your NMRA card!
-- Driver's Licenses
-- Passports
-- Birth Certificates
-- Marriage Licenses
-- Copies of Deeds, Titles, other "Real Property" Information, Contracts, etc.
-- Financial Records, Bank Account Numbers, Credit Card Numbers, Mortgage Account Numbers, Secondary Accounts
-- Information about Children, Birth Records, Shots, Dr Visit reports, etc., School records if you have them
-- Your own School Records (if you have them), Certifications, Records of Achievement or Accomplishment
-- Copies of Intellectual Property if you have any: Stories, poems, books, articles, photographs, videos, patents, inventions, etc-- anything you have that is your own and valuable
-- Scans or Photos of valuable household items (i.e. "Personal Inventory"): Model Trains, Your Layout, Home, Cars, Paintings, Decorations, "Silver" or "Gold", Furniture, Electronics, Hobbies, Anything large or expensive, etc.
Note #1: If any of your major ("Real" or expensive) items have model #'s and serial #'s, its a good idea to jot them down into a text file and store that also.
Note #2: These photos don't necessarily have to be enormous (in "bytes") or perfect, they are only there to establish a record in case you need/want to make an insurance claim, or for identification if stolen
-- You might also want to include "plans" (your layout, for instance), notes, papers, etc-- anything that you might like to have later.
Other stuff you might want to include in the NON-encrypted portion:
-- Family Photos
-- Videos
-- Letters, Poems, Stories, etc.
-- Children's Drawings
-- Scans of personal artworks, etc.
-- An *un-encrypted* copy of any software required to un-encrypt and reconstitute the "Secure Bundle"
-- (optional) Notes regarding the vintage, OS version, software release, and any installation or usage notes about how the information is packaged, how you install the software, what year / Operating System version, etc. you used to bundle it all up.
Note: You probably do *not* want to include a "document inventory" or any "hints" as to how to un-encrypt or de-code any of the secured items, other than generic procedural aspects. Keep the pass phrase(s) and password(s) to yourself! Alternately, if you have a family attorney (and *trust* him/her) you can put that information into a sealed envelope and give it to him for safe-keeping and possibly instructions for its use in the events of certain situations-- death, severe incapacitation, etc.
Of course you can also include whatever else you want-- its your disk. Just think of all the stuff you have that you could "reconstitute" from a scan or a photo (or video, or whatever medium) such that you would *have* it, albeit not in its original form. It would be a terrible thing to lose your family photos, for instance. And while you may never get the original back, it would at least be comforting to have a scan or photo of the original.
Modern DVD's hold a lot-- typically 4GB but the latest ones are 8GB and will soon be even larger.
If you're *only* looking for secure backup, another option is to get a large external USB hard drive-- cost $75-150 bucks. They plug in via your USB port and act just like another disk in your computer. You can just *copy* stuff over to the drive (although it will be a little slower than your regular hard drive because of the USB interface). And if you ever need it back, just plug it in and retrieve it.
Keep it somewhere safe-- off-site such as in your safe-deposit box or with a trusted relative or friend.
You could do the same thing with a USB "thumb" drive, or a "Compact Flash" card. They come in sizes up to 16-32 or even 64 gigs now days. Or if you have money to burn, get a "solid state" drive.
The only thing I would really say to any of those options is this-- consider and beware the interface your storage medium uses. Is it mainstream or exotic? The more mainstream and "ordinary" it is, the more likely it will be still available a year or two (or more) from now if you need it. Of course you should be keeping up with this and re-doing your data from time-to-time to keep it up-to-date. But as the poster above suggested, most people don't even do it *once* much less make a habit of it. So its probably best to consider it a long-term "Time Capsule" of your personal information. You never know when (or even *if*) you'll ever need it or use it. And who knows what they'll be using for storage then. I always keep around an old computer that contains whatever interface is needed to recover the information. If that computer goes or I decide to change the medium, I either add it to the old computer, or else toss it and get a new "old" computer.
Its cheap insurance, costs practically nothing, its easy to do, it takes less time to do probably than to clean your track, and once its done, you'll always have it to fall back on. And if you send out photos to your family, they'll probably enjoy it-- you don't have to tell them about the "extra" stuff.
I took a rider on my home owners several years ago to cover the railroad. The agent has access to my computer files through my website and every six months he gets an updated memory stick with photos, data bases, price lists, etc. Have had one claim so far for some water damage, no problems with recovery.
Bob
NMRA Insurance can help with this.
http://www.nmra.org/national/insurance/insurance.html
Roger Hensley= ECI Railroad - http://madisonrails.railfan.net/eci/eci_new.html == Railroads of Madison County - http://madisonrails.railfan.net/ =
Medina1128 I pay a little extra each month for a "collectibles" rider. I store all of my inventory in a program called RRTrains. You can even file pictures with it. When I make an addition to my inventory, I burn the data file onto a CD. Make sure you include the folder(s) where the pictures are stored.RRTrains
I pay a little extra each month for a "collectibles" rider. I store all of my inventory in a program called RRTrains. You can even file pictures with it. When I make an addition to my inventory, I burn the data file onto a CD. Make sure you include the folder(s) where the pictures are stored.
RRTrains
But where do you keep your CD?
Many people have great inventory habits but a lousy data loss profile. If something happens to your "space" (house, garage, whatever) where you keep your CD, you're screwed. In addition to making a CD, you should also make at least one spare copy and keep it located somewhere else, most preferably off-site. And this is where "online storage" can come in handy. If you don't have a ready place located "elsewhere", you can use "free web space" or else one of those online storage places-- many of them are also free-- I think google gives out space too-- to put the files from your CD. Zip them up and encrypt them if you think its necessary.
My wife and I have a proactive data recovery profile-- we have a package of scanned materials that we include on CD's (DVD's really) along with family photos and we send them out to the rest of the family. The data is stored on a set of hidden tracks that aren't normally read by the DVD player, though if someone does spot it, its bundled and encrypted. So in the event of a catastrophic event all we need to do is retrieve one of the photo disks and we can recover our important documents. Meanwhile the family gets regular photo updates and they're happy about that part-- so its win-win
Marlon
See pictures of the Clinton-Golden Valley RR
Point taken, an excellent reminder.
I feel your pain although the incident wasn't MRR related. Some adjusters seem to have a dollar amount already in their heads before they analyze the entire damage.
You are right about one thing, though, insurance is something we definitely take for granted until something happens and then we're glad we have it.
I hope you were able to repair/replace most of your collection.
Will
This topic s probably one of if not the most over looked thing when it comes to model railroading at least it was for me. A post a few weeks ago reminded me of a really bad series of events that took place for me in Oct. of 2006. What had happened was a complete bizarre turn of events. Not long after she had turned the furnace on we had experienced a power spike throughout the neighborhood that took out the electronic control box on my oil burner causing it to overheat and crack the firebox filling my house with a oily black soot. The damage on the main floor of the house was relatively mild smoke damage wise but my brand new TV took a hit along with just about everything else that was plugged into an outlet.
Well the bulk of the damage was in the basement and yes you guessed it of course thats where the train layout was located. Well if any of you have ever had to deal with insurance companies as a result of fire damage or theft or anything else of that nature you know what a complete nightmare it can be but when it comes to model railroading lets just say at least my insurance company didn't have a clue.
I got oh well they are just toys comment from the adjuster we'll give you a couple of hundred dollars for the damage. I wanted to grab this idiot by the neck and choke the life out of him. Now understand I didn't have a layout of the magnitude of Howard Zane's or any other notable large home layout but it was plenty big for me and plenty of expensive. So I opened the top draw of my filing cabinet and pulled out my trusty Walthers catalog and started pointing to those "just toys" in the pages. $500 plus dollars for sound equipped BLI locomotives an other assorted high dollar items that I didn't want to be reminded of how much I spent, a few hundred more like 600 plus pieces of rolling stock and on and on you get the picture. Just take an overview look of your layout and start adding up stuff in your head. So on top of all the other stuff in the house I have to show receipts for I have to dig up every single invoice and credit card slip for every mrr purchase I had made over the years. Yeah I always get those when I buy stuff from local rain shows etc. don't you. Ah but what about the clean up of what could be salvaged.They offered me a generous $14.00/hour to clean all the rolling stock and buildings etc. Oh how generous
Yes a lot of the stuff just had this oily goo covering it but I had to find a way of cleaning it without destroying it. This pinhead adjuster even pointed to a weathered locomotive sitting on a siding and said yeah that one looks in really bad shape. (idiot) So after months of compiling as many bills as I could get my hands on and a good amount donated by friends and club members and my more then willing to cooperate LHS I had finally gotten a check for the losse of my layout. On top of all of this the cleaning company they hired a nationwide chain who drives ugly green trucks and call themselves some kid of pros had bag upon bag of stuff to be thrown out that didn't need to be even touched. The broke stuff and we found stuff missing for months, needless to say I threw their sorry butts to the curb and hired a local company to do the work. So a few friends from the club came by that weekend to help me clean up and tear down the layout. One of the guys happened to be a retired insurance agent and asked me if I had a rider on my policy to cover my trains. I said whats a rider.........lol Well as he explained it and I'm sure many of you know a sort of separate policy with in your home owners policy that covers things like collections, antiques etc. He told me he had his layout covered for X amount of dollars as he has a seperate rider covering his trains.
I know insurance is the last thing any of us ever want to spend money on but if I had done what my friend did All of the BS I had to go through would have been avoided. Thanks to my friend I now have one on my home owners covering my trains and another one covering my guns, yup you guessed it thats another place they will nickle and dime you on. So for nothing more then your piece of mind are your trains covered in the event you have the same kind of crappy luck as I do.