Bill Brown (master model railroader) who is a member of the Central New York Modelers here in Syracuse,N.Y (www.cnymod.com) tragically lost his home to fire yesterday afternoon…it is a total loss. The family is safe and no one got hurt…please keep them in your thoughts and prayers. Bill’s layout The Larc was featured in MR in August 2006 and even was on the cover. He is a well accomplished modeler with skills unlike anything I have ever seen. Only a few things were salvaged from the house so far and the layout seems to be completely gone…I will keep everyone posted…Tim
That is tragic news indeed. I was associated with cnymod in the early days, designing and helping build the original corner modules. I didn’t remain very long with the group because I wasn’t keeping up with their standards so I don’t remember ever meeting Bill. (I live in Liverpool as well)
My condolences to Bill and his family.
That is awful. I can not imagine the memories that have been lost that no amount of insurance can replace. Please pass on our good wishes and prayers.
This is terrible. Wish him all the best. At least no one was hurt.
alexP
Any idea what started it?
If any good can come from these events, it is learning how to make sure they don’t happen again.
Wow, that’s a bit of bad news for anyone. I suffered a fire less than a year ago. The whole first floor of my house needed to be gutted, because even where the fire didn’t damage it, the smoke did. The only bright spots were that the layout in the basement was virtually untouched by the fire and I had good insurance.
My heart goes out to anyone who lost more than I did. I’m only just now preparing to move back into my restored home.
I sure will keep him and his family in my prayers, what a nightmare, I once lost everything in a fire but I was not into Mrr-ing at the time thank the Gods and I can imagine on a smaller scale how he is feeling, I had a ceiling collaps and destroy my first attempts at building my layout, I was about 75% done when it happened.
As long as no one perrished in the blaze then all other “stuff” can be replaced over time.
The one thing I did notice about myself after our apartment building burned down was that I didn’t have any stuff to move or worry about and in a strange way it liberated me and taught me that material things no longer held a grip on me, ever since that day I’ve never allowed myself to put much importance on material things this way they have no hold over me.
I spent much time reflecting on my life after such a ordeal and we were all lucky to have gotten out of that 6 family apartment building in the city.
I shall send out some strong Indian prayers to him and his loved ones.
Well, at least he shouldn’t have any trouble proving how much his layout cost, he could just show the insurance people the MR article.
My condolences to him and his family.
I’m sorry to hear about Bill’s loss, but as was reported in the original post, none of his family was injured.
I have renter’s insurance and use a program call RRTrains; it’s free and it allows me to keep an inventory of ALL my railroad equipment, right down to the speed controls and structures. It also allows you to store photos of the equipment. I emailed the backup copy of the inventory and the pictures to myself on AOL and saved the files online. That way, even if my computer is destroyed, I still have a copy of everything for insurance purposes. Collectibles coverage cost a little more than base insurance, but it gives a little more piece of mind.
That’s horriable, I couldn’t imagine that. Trying to think of the brightside (if there is one), a new one will be able to get constructed even better then the last.
When I saw the title of the post, I thought it was about something really tragic…
I guess some look at the word and get a different meaning.
http://www.nytimes.com/2008/05/06/world/asia/06myanmar.html?ref=asia
I wonder how many of the 10’s of thousands effected by this “tragedy” have insurance?