$31,000.00 The Go Fund Me page will shut down 12:00 PM, Monday , Sept 21, 2020. 5 more days to hammer more $$$$$ in there !
The official release: On the 8th of September, 2020, a wildfire swept through the southern end of the Rouge River Valley in Oregon. This unprecedented event had an immediate impact on several thousand people and hundreds of businesses as both residences and commercial structures were consumed by the flames. What was not directly involved in the fires suffered from smoke, ash and loss of utilities. To the tight knit community of model railroaders, this was brought close to home as the production facility of Micro-Trains Line in Talent, Oregon was near the path of the flames. While the MTL facility was spared directed involvement, door, smoke and ash plus the loss of utilities will impact MTL for a period of time. However, 6 of the employees of MTL were not as fortunate and their places of residence were deemed to be complete losses due to the wild fire. Even while the scope and breadth of the impacts to the MTL employees were being evaluated, dedicated N Scale Enthusiast Member Ken Yohe from Lynnwood, WA decided to take action. A internet fundraising effort using the Gofundme.com platform leveraging social media, N Scale Newsgroups, individuals, hobby stores and the N Scale Enthusiast quickly evolved within 24 hours. The goal started and remained a way to provide some relief to those MTL employees whose lives were so impacted by the fire. The breadth and range of contributors, both in number and donation exceeded all expectations. A true cross section of model railroaders, other model railroad manfacturors , hobby distributors, and MTL product fans all participated. As many know, we have pressed on with this in hopes of reaching as many people as possible. A number of goal ceilings were established and surpassed But as we all know, everything good has to come to an end. E With the agreement of all the principals involved it has been decided to close the donation door at 12:00 PM, Monday , Sept 21, 2020. The displaced employees from Micro Trains are so grateful for the overwhelming amount of people out there that have opened up their hearts and participated in the campaign. If you are of a mind to donate and help these 6 families who have lost everything, now is the time! George
We have on and off phone and internet service, so if you are trying to contact us we are doing what we can to make work arounds. I'm touched by the amount of support we've gotten from everyone. We are all still in shock, you see it in everyone's faces here and because the road just to the East of the factory was the boundary of the burn we are reminded of what happened all day long. We have a great little community here and as I told someone last night, the local support is aggressive and ever present. You can't go for a walk without someone rolling up on you on a bike and giving you water and as much physical comfort you can give social distancing. It's overwhelming. We are going to get through this...
Lowell Smith is selling a special run car with a large portion of the sales going directly to the MTL Employee Relief Fund. Click here to buy now!
A W E S O M E !!! I believe I also read that people can still donate...but directly through Micro Trains.
Talent 2020 Fire Update October 1st, 2020 To all who donated to the Micro-Trains’ Employee Fire Relief Fund, THANK YOU! The fire that ripped through our community back on September 8th was devastating. Your donations were a tremendous help and blessing to our six employees and their families, who lost their homes in the fire. As a company, Micro-Trains is extremely grateful for this outpouring of support from the model railroading community, which gave just over $40,000 to these families. Please accept our most sincere appreciation for your generous support to our employees following this very unfortunate event. We also want to thank you for your understanding with some delays that have been a result of the plant being shut down for a week due to the fire. We are doing all we can to get our scheduled products out as soon as possible. Sincerely, The Entire Micro-Trains Crew (Source)
The air trapped in this month's releases could be collectors items too, along with the naturally yellowed paintschemes as the smoke settles on this months releases. I'm happy to hear they are up and running.
These were most likely already finished and ready to go before the fire, it was just a matter of getting the product on a truck. Thankfully the product wasn't lost in the fires. Micro Trains has become one of my favorite brands of rolling stock, and I would hate to lose them. We may see a delay in the October or November releases due to the setbacks though. To Microtrains I hope you are able to help get your people back into shape and get everyone back on their feet again. We are pulling for you!
Mars, NEOWISE and another random car... or one of the other planets! My Mars and NEOWISE should be here on Saturday. I wonder if they are going to do the Ceres, or Asteroid belt, or hopefully Pluto even. I like this series and I am getting all in it.
If anyone is interested in the planet series there are a few cars now up for pre-order! I'm putting my order in now!!