John Kellet, Z Central Station Owner posted this yesterday. The Woodland Scenics building was destroyed by fire yesterday. They are the towns largest employer. I do hope they will be able to recover from the fire. Such a fire would be devastating for many model railroad companies. http://www.connectmidmissouri.com/news/story.aspx?id=704154#.TwY5ys0gyKo Rob
This could be the end of the company. We were contacted about 2 years ago to see if we wanted to buy Woodland Scenics, but declined. The owner was approaching retirement age and was looking for new leadership as well as a payout. I have no inside information, but it would be logical for them to consider the Insurance payment as their ticket out, and simply sell the "Woodland Scenics" brand to another company.
Some video here: http://www.ky3.com/news/ky3-story-woodlandscenics-010511,0,444951.story Says they will be back to work today in other parts of the plant. Also the owner says he plans to re-build.
It is always sad to see someone suffer a calamity, and this time all model railroaders of every scale can personally relate to this loss. A fine company with excellent products. I hope the insurance coverage will be adequate to rebuild. A lot of folks depended upon WS for employment, not to mention us who enjoy their product line.
Maybe not quite as bad as reported! A REPOST from the PD_NMRA Yahoo Group: [SIZE=-1]My friend, Dan Peterson, owner of "The Platinum Spike" in Cohasset, MA shared this email from Woodland Scenics:[/SIZE] [SIZE=-1]Ross Kudlick[/SIZE] [SIZE=-1]QUOTE[/SIZE] [SIZE=-1]Dear all,[/SIZE] [SIZE=-1]As you may have heard we have experienced a fire here at Woodland Scenics and there is good news and bad news. The good news is that no one was hurt during the fire or evacuation process. The bad news is that it took out a couple of our manufacturing buildings. However, and fortunately, there is more good news than bad.[/SIZE] [SIZE=-1]We encompass multiple buildings that are spread out all over the town of Linn Creek. We only lost two of those buildings and those two contained just a small portion of our manufacturing facilities. Our shipping department, warehouse and corporate offices were spared any damage, as were most of our manufacturing buildings, so it is business as usual.[/SIZE] [SIZE=-1]Thanks for all your concerns.[/SIZE] [SIZE=-1]Respectfully,[/SIZE] [SIZE=-1]Gale Cousins Director of Sales & Customer Service [/SIZE]Woodland Scenics END QUOTE
