Hello All, I'm just curious if anyone's had experience dealing with model trains (HO in this case but I guess it probably applies to anything smaller and some things slightly larger too) that have been through a fire? I'm looking at buying a lot of locos and rolling stock that were fairly heavily smoke damaged in a house fire. The guy selling them says they were all working before the fire and now the locos hum or light up or neither. One looks like it's had some heat damage but the rest look pretty good. Not looking to put much money into this lot so it wouldn't be the end of the world if I end up with a box of parts for some of the steam locos I have that are the same ones! Anyways just curious if anyone has any thoughts to share on this, things to look for etc. Cheers, Dave
I wonder what amount of work would be required to clean them? Fire smoke is full of all sorts of stuff, depending upon what burned. Chemicals, oily, nasty. Maybe the shells would go in something like Dawn dish washing detergent? Motors perhaps cleaned up with what we used to use for TV tuners, from an aerosol spray can.
Zero dollar value. First, if he had insurance, he's been paid for them. Second, I KNOW what it takes to clean them. I had a house fire. 30 years ago. I had Lionel...lots of it. FIRST thing I did was remove the trains from the house, the night of the fire. Then I used two cans of weasel pee (WD-40) and doused the innards heavily from underneath on all locos. Then we wrapped them in new newspaper and transported them for dry storage/inspection. The insurance company, by agreement, paid me 10K for damage, refinishing, and loss of value due to refinishing. When I got done, the engines all worked, but e-units have needed attention since. Plastic diseasemals needed to be repainted...full stop. Smoke and heat gets into plastic...and if painted, you can clean them, if you have already decided you are going to repaint and reletter. Factory lettering will come off in big sections. Paint will also wipe off in places. My all plastic (mid-50's) buildings were cleanable, each building taking about 2-3 days to do. If the engines hum but do not run, or don't even hum, they did NOT preserve the engines immediately after the fire, and the cost to fix them will make it seem like you bought two of each when you look at cost. If he gives them to you, yeah, you're out nothing to try. Anybody who gets insurance reimbursement and then tries to sell them...I have my own opinion of them, and not printable here. Took me 28 years to get to the last building, have photos somewhere. We aren't even getting into plastic brittleness, warped, doors don't work anymore, couplers, wheel insulation..... Free, take it. Cost you more than a buck total, run. Opinion, because I have BT, DT. Dave
I'd go with Boxcab's idea of cleaning using either dish detergent or electronics/tuner cleaners. I've used the latter to clean out gunk from stiff loco mechanisms and it's perfectly safe to use on plastic. And cheap too. Just lube everything up good after you do that. Dish soap on the shells ought to do nicely, and you can go after the tougher guck with tuner cleaner.
I have a question. Have you ever cleaned fire and smoke damaged trains? You may not know what the corrosive nature of that stuff does over time to brushes, bearings, communtators, and windings. Add to that un-displaced water on steel armature shafts, loco and car axles, coupler springs, truck springs, die cast frames, dissimilar metals in contact with each other. You never, ever want to know that. Trust me. House fires and the damage caused are something that will really mess with you. Having spent six years in a hostile salt-water environment and seeing what flooding can do to electronics, windings and shafts/bearing, I knew enough to spray them out with WD-40. If all they do is hum or nothing.....well, new axles, wheels, bearings, motors, wiring, circuit boards..and that's just one loco. Needle point freight car axles....may be so badly pitted they need replacing. Sideframes with dissimilar to axle metals...may end up with new trucks. New couplers. Repaint and reletter cars (of course it depends on how bad...but if the locos are locked, it was bad enough). Calculate what all that costs if you figure any time at all, paints, parts......
This may not be my place to say, but I'm not sure this is going to be a worthwhile investment. I know little about restoration after a fire, but those trains look to be in pretty bad shape. Restoring these locomotives seems to cost a lot; I agree with these other guys. The cars (and some of the locomotives) look to be just Athearn or Tyco that I could get at a train show for a few dollars. I wouldn't have to pay for fire damage. Although these are not really in working order, they may be fun as a detail project or renovation if you are into that. I personally enjoy detailing models. I'm not going to lie, a few of those steam engines would be nice to own, but I don't think it would be worth your money.
If I had the opportunity, I would at least try it and gain experience at the very least, and some extra rolling stock at best. Don't forget the infinite possibilities of in-between. And if it doesn't work, a great opportunity to have some material for modeling wrecks, hulks, scrap and other goodies. Maybe I don't. But any time I'd spend finding out is well spent, in my opinion. Sometimes it's worth it to take a chance. Like a Bachmann H16-44 I found at a swap meet. It was $30. The seller admitted it didn't work. My gut said buy it. I took the risk. I made it work. My gut also told me it was time to eat.
Yes, there are possibilities. But not if you have to pay for it. I spent years cleaning and repainting....and they ran after immediate preservation. Oh, well. I hope you never have to go through that and actually gain first-hand knowledge.
I can't say whether the guy had no insurance, didn't have enough insurance, stuff wasn't properly valued by his insurance, or he got a great settlement and was trying to double-dip, but thanks for mentioning that as it's not something I had even thought of. I never heard back from him and it's been a couple weeks now so I think the deal is dead. In any case, thanks everyone for the replies, some good thoughts and suggestions there. Cheers, Dave
For anyone following along at home, I did finally hear back from the guy almost a month later. He (unsolicited) sent some better pictures, and they're in even worse shape than I initially thought -- some visibly melted plastic and rusted metal parts (yikes!). I told him I'd asked around and the consensus was they were probably never going to run and be a lot of time and effort to clean up, (fairly politely I thought) mentioned the possibility of the insurance part, and that it had been a month since my last message and I'd bought some other things instead. He told me "Don't assume and don't lecture..I did not get a dime from insurance and if I did I could still sell them anyway." so you can make what you will of that! Dave
