Lifelike has experienced several fires in their warehouses recently and an except from the news report listed below. The web page story is at the bottom of the page.
i hope this does not cause major problems with products that are in the works and coming to market.
On April 2, a two-alarm fire broke out in an adjacent building used by the company in the Brooklyn neighborhood. Investigators have yet to determine a cause.
And in January, a five-alarm fire erupted in another Life-Like Products warehouse, located in Baltimore’s Druid Hill neighborhood, that took firefighters three hours to bring under control. The fire was blamed on an electrical problem, but authorities said it’s likely that investigators will review that fire due to the other two fires this month, Miller said.
Still, it’s too early to make conclusions.
“These things have to go through the process, it’s not good to jump to conclusions,” Gardner said.
Company officials did not return calls from 11 News for comment. The company has numerous facilities located throughout the nation, and in 1990, a fire destroyed a facility an Arkansas, Miller reported.
We talked with Life-like, and the fire did not affect the model railroad facility, only one of the warehouses for another of their product lines.
Terry
I was worried about My FA2/F2B then I got them in the mail not ten minutes later. The train facility didn’t burn, but I think they got infected with a bunch of smoke.[:)]
Good news that the model railroad products section wasn’t affected.
However, GSetter brings up a hard slamming issue. Even if the model railroad products were not affected, it is reasonalbe to assume that insurance premiums may rise.
Not being snooty, but I am surprised that LL is located in an urban area where insurance and property taxes are generally high. Apparently their profit margin is sufficient that they can afford it.
I counter by saying the profit margin of a Local Hobby Shop is much tighter than a manufactor. If you created the products that everyone wants, it should be easy to stay in business.
Lifelike is the largest supplier of foam coolers and the like in the US and that accounts for many times the sales volume of the train stuff. The train stuff is small potatoes compared to the foam. The foam business has this problem inherently because of the flammability and is akin to any industrial fire such as at a refinery or a paint factory. It is only because of the foam business that you are even able to buy trains from Lifelike.