This is definitely not good news. Probably be a shortage of materials for a little while until they get things back up and running. Good to hear no one got hurt, since from the article it seems everyone was at work when the fire started.
When I looked just now, one of the other photo sets listed below this story was from a train derailment nearby - on a bridge over a street. So much for bridge guard rails…
–Randy
Well, expect prices to go up!
[soapbox]
That was my first thought as well after seeing no one was hurt.
Sure glad the toxic smoke did not cause more problems and of course the employes are OK. I wonder if the prices will go up, would be an excelent time for other companys to get a bigger share of the market. Will be interesting how things shake out, amd wishing Woodland Scenicds a speedy recovery to get the employees back to work, that worrys me more then anything.
Wow! I sure hope that they can recover, the economy being so bad and all.
After reading all got out to safety, my first thought was “oh, no, now there will be a shortage of supplies for awhile” and “hopefully they will recover/rebuild and not fold out of business”.
[8-|]
Aren’t there any company insurances in the US…?
[(-D]
I’m going to the LHS today. Better stock up.
I hope they get back on their feet soon.
Yes, they hopefully had fire insurance, but it will still take them several months to rebuild and recover their losses.
There’s no indication in the news article about how severe their loss of machinery might have been, and whether they lost manufacturing capacity. If new machines have to be purchased that could set their recovery back even further.
I hope for their sake that they were insured as well. Unfortunately, some smaller companies think this is a good place to cut costs. I hope WS wasn’t one of them.
Anyone have any idea how much of their product was made in MO? A quick scan of some of the stuff I have here shows that the figures are made in China, but the turfs look like they are made in the USA. With that many employees in the location it is hard to believe that they are all warehouse clerks and office staff, there must have been a fair amount of production?
Their web site is unavailable.
I hope they didn’t lose any of the molds for their models. These would be very difficult to replace.
Thats what I was thinking, the molds for the products made at that shop, also any design work, drawings, digital information, etc. Hope they had off-site backups of all that stuff.
Being in the IT buysiness, THIS is where many small companies fall down. They might even have a backup system in place, but the resulting tape/etc never gets moved any further than the network manager’s office. Fine if the server crashes, but not so good when the building burns down.
–Randy
Sad to learn about the fire.
Happy the 150 workers were okay, but now they probably do not have their jobs. That’s not good.
I am very sad to learn about the fire at WS´s MO plant.
All the scenic material I use for my layout is made by WS and I can´t think of a proper substitute for it.
I hope they´ll be back in business soon.
Series of pictures from the fire. I’m glad that no one was hurt and hope that they can fully recover.
http://www.lakenewsonline.com/photos/x1015660979/Fire-destroys-Woodland-Scenics?foto=0
Try Scenic Express.
They have an extensive line of scenery materials, some of which is WS. But they also sell a lot of other lines.
It looks like they plan to re-open today in the undamaged part of their facilities.
http://www.ky3.com/news/ky3-story-woodlandscenics-010511,0,444951.story
Rich