Well sorry if the title of my post is a bit off the norm but I couldn’t be more disgusted. I had and I specify the word had a 40’x24’ layout. Now don’t get me wrong it wasn’t of the caliber of a Howard Zane or a John Allen by any stretch of the imagination but I took a lot of pride in what myself and 4 or 5 dedicated friends had helped to create. So let me get to the issue at hand.
Last week we had a furnace blowback which for those of you who are not familiar with happened when basically the furnace burps out a huge cloud of sot and black oily smoke throughout the entire heating system and completely ruins everything it touches. So I get the call last week from my wife and I rush home to find my local fire department with every single piece of fire fighting apparatuses they own in front of my house or in my yard. They got their smoke ejectors going full speed and looked like an old coal burning locomotive was pulling a long grade.
So after calming down a bit I go into the house to survey the damage. At first glace I thought not too bad it could have been worse. Still a god-awful mess to deal with but thank god no one was hurt and my house was still standing. It wasn’t till about an hour or so later it hit me like a ton of bricks (MY TRAINS!) I walked down to the basement to find my entire layout covered in soot. So instant weather you might think but mix the soot with a nice blend of fuel oil and you have one horrendous mess. I have basically written the entire set up off as trash. So now I have the insurance company to deal with and they say no problem we’ll pay to have them cleaned, repaired or replaced. Here’s the kicker, they want anything they deem as a total loss for salvage. What is there an honest Charlie’s used model train salvage yard some place?
Screw the money there is a huge emotional attachment as many of you can understand with my trains. Last fathers day my 4 year old son gave me a Proto Heritage 2000 0-6-0. The look on his little fa
Im sorry to hear of this loss. I can understand what it must be like having grown up near a oil furnance… (Whadda monstor) in my time.
I have been called as part of my work to drive insurance salvage wrecked vehicles in Auction here in Arkansas. These vehicles have been through wrecks and despite loss of life, damage or destruction are still driveable. Those are the ones I have to move to the auction block computer malfunctions, smashed glass, sharp steel and all.
I told my employer that I will not engage in that particular part of the industry anymore. It is unnatural to me. I dont mind wrestling junkers or near salvage from time to time but the accident insurance ones are the absolute saddest of all.
If it was me, I would write it all off as loss and call a dumpster truck to drop a box in the yard.
You might save a few items that were in boxes or packed well but to think of an insurance company wanting to sell oil soaked train stuff is past the oomphalumpa way for me.
As far as fires… I would not even power the layout up at all. One good short long enough probably will light that stuff. And there will be a serious problem that might cost your life or others. I may be a bit overboard as usual but that is how I see it.
What they will do ( at least for the company that my wife works for ), is auction it off, in " AS IS " condition.
My wife works in the insurance industry, and I see this sort of thing, before - indeed the wife and I have made bids on salvage items before - $25 for a 39 inch color TV - didn’t work, but, at that price we were willing to risk it.
OTOH, when the same company wrote off my 3 yr old Lap Top computer last year ( after my kids acadentialy jumped on it ), they told me to toss it in the trash, as anything on it was already out dated - as it would have cost more to find a replacement motherboard than to buy a entire new Lap Top - so they were not worried about it since there was no salvage value what so ever.
I thought oil firing furnaces went away with the mini skirt? We had one in the early 60’s and then converted over to heated water. My own homes have been forced air.
We use lots of furnace oil fuel in Canada…tonnes and tons.
I am sorry for all the damage and upheaval this is costing you. I suppose that, once it is getting to be mostly an unpleasant chapter in your past, you can look forward to trying something new/better for your layout. I hope the locomotives can be cleaned a bit, at least the special ones.
Why? That is they way they built it. Most homes I know of in the central Atlantic area had oil. One advantage was to buy the stuff mid summer where the prices are at it’s lowest and store until winter. That way it’s bought and paid for in the coldest months requiring only electricity to run the oil pump motor, thermostat and the igniter.
Even wood in some areas.
Here in the south it’s mostly Natural Gas. There are 5 pipelines to Arkansas that carry the stuff and a small boomtime of drilling in my area for shale gas. Some folks use wood either bought or cut from thier own lands. Some folks have all electric for everything and boy are they sorry. At $300-$500 per month billing.
If memory serves, the early 50’s were the boom in housing after the war years and those that had oil lived in luxury versus the coal homes. Coal was pretty durn good by then but oil was king.
Overseas in England, one family home I visited once used coal or peat to heat everything believe it or not. I dont know how they got thier hot water and didnt ask.
I would think that you could wash most of the oil and soot off. A mild degreaser or soap would go along way. I would pick the sentimental items to clean and throw the rest. I think the trick is whether the insurance company pays you a depreciated value or replacement value. If it’s depreciated, then I would try to clean as much as possible. There were folks here earlier this year that had flood damage to there train rooms. If you could find out how they’re equipment ended up after cleaning, you may have an idea of what to expect.
I can understand the insurance company wanting the items that are total losses if for no other reason than to discourage fraud by those who would take the money for a total loss and then repair the item. I don’t have any advice for cleaning the locos. If it were my layout, I would be more concerned about all the sweat equity I had put into it. It wouldn’t bother me to replace the locos and rolling stock but I put a lot of time into building the structure kits and the scenery and how do I get compensated for that. I would guess one would have to get a special coverage to cover the cost of having someone come in and rebuild your layout.
If I spent 100 hours building my layout town on the 12 foot long section dedicated to it… I cannot expect to make a penny for the time. I would expect the enjoyment and pursuit of happiness to be beneficial in stress reduction and perhaps enjoying good health and staying away from the hospital or vices.
If it was a layout that was purchased and built for you? Well there should be a few firms in the insurance business that insure model railroading stuff. Didnt MR run a ad for a small insurance company offering coverage in 1000, 5000, 10000+ dollar levels?
If anything happened to my railroad and ,… let’s say it got burned up in a big old fire. The house plus contents will be paid for and rebuilt. What is left from that money will start us all over again provided that everything is properly handled.
Personally, I dont mind rebuilding from nothing all over again. Ive done it several times already in this life.
First, take a deep breath and walk away. Do not assess it fully until you’ve cleared your mind to where you can focus logically. During that time, go yourself to one of the myriad of restoration services and educate yourself on the products that will clean the items you want to save without damaging the plastic and electrical components.
By the time you have this information, you will be settled in your mind as to what you can and should salvage. Anything that you can go down to the store and replace today should be the first items to be handed off to the insurance company - get new. That would include all track / turnouts / out-of-the-box structures / controllers / etc.
With all that stuff out of the way, it’s time to look at the out of production / scratch-built / sentimental items. Some of these items could be replaced with similar new items - referring to the out-of-production engines and freight cars. Any engines with decoders in them that you are willing to give up should save the decoders themselves as they have probably been protected within the shell.
At this point, you’ll have the irreplaceable items left. These can all be cleaned using the knowledge you acquired earlier from the professionals. I would highly recommend taking some of your insurance money and invest in an ultra-sonic cleaner. These will do a lot of the work for you and can get into even the smallest places that you just can’t get to by hand - especially great for steam engines. Bridges and structure will have to be done by hand, it’s tedious, but it can be done.
Don’t write it off yet. You’d be surprised how good those cleaning companies are. A friend had a bad kitchen fire. Covered EVERYTHING in his home in black plastic soot. His insurance company had Serve Pro come in and clean it up. I was amazed at the job they did. Talk to the cleaning crew yourself and see what they recommend. Maybe you could run the things through the dish washer on the top rack?? Worst case-Do it by hand in the sink. It’s not an impossable task. It just sucks real bad! Sorry to hear about that!
I would not wish that on anyone
but just remember that fuel oil is basicly kerosine
so you need a degreaser of type, but not a solvert, dish detergent might work, after all they used that to clean animals in a fuel spills,
but just a crazy thought try WD40 It works on permanent markers! (sharpie) trust me I tried it
Its basic composition is just fish oil, just a train of thought sorry no pun intended
let us know
As it has been said before, there is a high concentration of homes that use oil heat in the Northeast US. I’ve lived in New England for over 25 years now (originally from the Midwest where Natural Gas heat is/was prevalent), and I had never even heard of oil heat until I moved out here. I can only conclude that it’s a well entrenched industry that has always enjoyed deep connections with the local building industry.
But that’s changing. In the grand scheme of things, oil heat is only used in 7 percent of American households. That’s down from 9 percent a decade ago (these figures come from a recent AP article). Natural Gas is moving in with a vengeance, and it’s being helped by the fact that oil heat is currently twice as expensive as Natural Gas. Needless to say, those who can are converting.
I’m thankful to be hooked into Natural Gas at my home.
Actually fuel oil is no.2 deisel,same fuel trctors and any deisel engine uses. I bet the top shelf in the dishwasher would work good. An alternative would be to use JOY and hot water and wash by hand almost everything ,even the brass and blow it out good after washing. I think even decoders will take some moisture if dried out well. Try one or two of each item and find out what worked the best. start with the cheap stuff and work with the method that works best.
That is entirely common insurance company practice.
Why don’t you have the things with emontional attachment or which are irreplacable cleaned, and let them scrap the rest. In some ways it could be a blessing in disguise. I wish I could get rid of a few things I wish I hadn’t purchased (Genesis 4-6-6-4) for cash and replace them with things that would work for fit my scheme better.