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Model Forum / General / Railroads / November 2009On-Line Train Stores
It seems that I am always searching for hard-to-find, HO scale train cars and engines. Items that slipped by me completely [or items that I failed to purchase at the time they were available], and now they are no longer being made. To this point, I would greatly appreciate any links to on-line websites that you could offer to help me in my ongoing pursuit of such items. I find that some of the smaller, lesser known train stores will sometimes have a hidden gem on a shelf in their store. Many Thanks! Matt On 11/14/2009 10:31 AM mc_brennan@yahoo.com spake thus: > It seems that I am always searching for hard-to-find, HO scale train > cars and engines. Items that slipped by me completely [or items that I [quoted text clipped - 5 lines] > items. I find that some of the smaller, lesser known train stores will > sometimes have a hidden gem on a shelf in their store. Well, one pretty obvious place: that little online auction site that some people sell stuff on, what's it called? Oh, yeah, eBay.  SignatureWho needs a junta or a dictatorship when you have a Congress blowing Wall Street, using the media as a condom? - harvested from Usenet >On 11/14/2009 10:31 AM mc_brennan@yahoo.com spake thus: > [quoted text clipped - 10 lines] >Well, one pretty obvious place: that little online auction site that >some people sell stuff on, what's it called? Oh, yeah, eBay. I have to second this motion... THE reason I set up an Ebay account was because I went on and did a search for Southern Railway woodchip hoppers that were out of production. I found one in brand new condition,and set up an account...placed some bids on it and eventually won it. Since then I've also found a number of other out of production locos and freight cars in Southern and other roads. I've won the bids on many of them, and actually got some great prices in many instances. Some people on Ebay do "buy it now" auctions, where you don't have to go through the bidding process...if you are willing to pay their buy it now price it's instantly yours. Often the prices are well in line, sometimes people ask ridiculously high prices...but some people are willing to pay for rare items. I've paid more than original sticker price for a couple of locomotives I really had to have, but overall I've gotten some pretty good deals. I also used Ebay when I later decided to get back into music production...got some pretty good deals on a number of music items as well. You'd be surprised what else you can find on Ebay. I've found rare toys, perfumes for the wife, and other things too. I used to be skeptical about trying Ebay until I did, but now I love it. On Nov 14, 1:31 pm, mc_bren...@yahoo.com wrote: > It seems that I am always searching for hard-to-find, HO scale train > cars and engines. Items that slipped by me completely [or items that I [quoted text clipped - 8 lines] > Many Thanks! > Matt Use Google search. Never tell what you can find. I do that a lot and find stuff hidden away, though much of the time I do see the items on ebay in those search results. Sometimes the search results gives you a ebay link but when you click on the link, nothing. The link is old and the item gone. Sometimes you can click on Completed listings and find what the prices are for on the item of interest. River City Railroad still has kits that I buy. http://www.rivercityrailroad.com/ r >It seems that I am always searching for hard-to-find, HO scale train >cars and engines. Items that slipped by me completely [or items that I [quoted text clipped - 5 lines] >items. I find that some of the smaller, lesser known train stores will >sometimes have a hidden gem on a shelf in their store. not sure which online vendors you are using, but the three I've had the best luck with are: MB Klein www.modeltrainstuff.com Toy Train Heaven www.toytrainheaven.com Discount Trains Online www.discounttrainsonline.com DO NOT order from INTERNET TRAINS. They are not customer friendly. I placed an order for several freight cars from them. They never sent me an order confirmation or shipping confirmation like other online vendors usually do. I gave them a week and a half, and still no package. I emailed them, and waited another week, no response, no package, no nothing. I tried emailing again a couple times...no response. I check my card account, and it'd been billed for part of the charges of the order. I thought perhaps something was on backorder and maybe they were holding the order until the balance arrived, so I emailed a couple times about the status of the order, and again no response. When it'd gotten to the point that I'd been waiting for the order for more than a month and a half, I checked my card account again and the balance had been charged on it about a week prior. I emailed them a couple more times and gave them several days to respond. Finally after I sent one last email threatening to reverse the charges if I didn't get the order by the following Friday....they finally sent me a response ON THAT FRIDAY saying that the order was being shipped. No sorry about the delay, no explanation for anything. About 3-4 days later I got the full order, and it was what I ordered, and all was good, except for the experience. Needless to say I will not order from Internet Trains again. Now to say something positive about someone else...I placed an order with Toy Train Heaven, in fact it was the first of several orders I've had with them. After a couple weeks and I hadn't gotten the order, I checked my card account, and it had NOT been charged yet. I emailed them and they quickly responded and apologized because the order had gotten misplaced. They waived the shipping charges and sent the items to me in about 3 days. Now that's how business should be handled. > not sure which online vendors you are using, but the three I've had > the best luck with are: [quoted text clipped - 4 lines] > > Discount Trains Online www.discounttrainsonline.com These are great. I have them bookmarked. Thank You! > DO NOT order from INTERNET TRAINS. > They are not customer friendly. [quoted text clipped - 25 lines] > and all was good, except for the experience. Needless to say I will > not order from Internet Trains again. I agree totally with your assessment of Internet Trains. I am having a similar experience right now. I placed my order on October 24. My credit card was charged the following week. The order has still not shipped. No explanation, no reply to inquiries. I even tried calling them. I got a girl that "sounded" VERY young. At any rate, she disconnected me three times and never did tell me what was holding up the shipment. My wife ran a business for many years. She believes that even though they advertise a stock of thousands of items with shipment in 3 to 6 days, they don't order most of their merchandise until the customer places the order and they make the credit card charge. That way they not only don't have to finance a large stock, they operate on the customers money. As you said, "Needless to say I will not order from Internet Trains again." On the positive side, M.B. Klein(Model Train Stuff) has been excellent. Only one small glitch. On one order, someone dropped the ball an forgot to email me the "notice of shipment". I got the box and then received the email the next day along with an apology. On Nov 14, 11:31 am, mc_bren...@yahoo.com wrote: > It seems that I am always searching for hard-to-find, HO scale train > cars and engines. Items that slipped by me completely [or items that I > failed to purchase at the time they were available], and now they are > no longer being made. Hay Matt Can't give ya a web site for these folks .... Talk to Leroy or Sharon at PF&S north of Pasco, WA. They have a *bunch* of model railroad stuff. PF&S Railway Supply, Inc. 560 Ione Road Pasco, WA 99301 509.266.4384 prantletrains at hotmail com for questions. Check out pix of a small portion of the store - http://www.soundrail.com/ATCS/users/Glade/glade.html todh Thanks everyone !!! I have have balked and side stepped eBay for no good reason - I guess it is time that I give it a fair chance. Your support for eBay is not the first I have received [for other types of items as well]. I have always favored the smaller train stores if only because it felt nice to support their business. However, as you have pointed out, finding those hard-to-locate items is often a long, exhausting, and fruitless effort when you e-mail blitz a number of train shop links via the Walthers "find it" link. On 11/14/2009 6:12 PM mc_brennan@yahoo.com spake thus: > I have have balked and side stepped eBay for no good reason - I guess > it is time that I give it a fair chance. Your support for eBay is not [quoted text clipped - 4 lines] > effort when you e-mail blitz a number of train shop links via the > Walthers "find it" link. Don't get me wrong; there's a lot to hate about eBay. For one thing, whether by design or not, they've contributed to the decline and demise of many "bricks and mortar" businesses, like local hobby shops. My preference has always been to shop at a good hobby store *when possibble*. Unfortunately, for most folks, this just isn't an option. So you're pretty much at the mercy of a) on-line merchants or b) eBay. I will say that when I was buying and selling on eBay (mostly photographic equipment), I had mostly good experiences. I even dealt with a lot of foreign sellers (in Russia and Ukraine) and almost never got burned (same with buyers when I was selling stuff). SignatureWho needs a junta or a dictatorship when you have a Congress blowing Wall Street, using the media as a condom? - harvested from Usenet > Don't get me wrong; there's a lot to hate about eBay. For one thing, > whether by design or not, they've contributed to the decline and demise > of many "bricks and mortar" businesses, like local hobby shops. Many ebay model railroad dealers are also "bricks and mortar" businesses, like local hobby shops. The ebay work has made their "bricks and mortar" businesses more sustainable because they thus have a wider catchment. > On 11/14/2009 6:12 PM mc_brennan@yahoo.com spake thus: > [quoted text clipped - 10 lines] > whether by design or not, they've contributed to the decline and demise of > many "bricks and mortar" businesses, like local hobby shops. Local hobby shops have done far more to cause their decline than e-bay ever could. The good ones survived and the bad ones - most of them - sunk. Half dozen bull sh.tters hanging around the cash register and no help to be found is not where I want to spend my money. Then there was the place where the owner sat in the back smoking cigars and telling all who would listen how bad this or that manufacturer was - another place that drove customers away. All said, it is not a hobby that attracts the socially inclined, nor those with good business sense. In the Portland Oregon area there are two good shops: Mainline Trains in Forest Grove and The Hobby Smith in NE Portland. Both are devoted to trains, have good management, and post reasonable prices. Tammies in Beaverton caters to almost everything and has a cracker jack staff of bull sh.tters. Vic's Hobby Supply in NE Portland caters mainly to trains in a sort of inept way, there is stuff in there that hasn't moved in 30 years and the biggest worry with the staff is whether or not they have a pulse. The others are not even worth mentioning. On 11/14/2009 10:23 PM LDosser spake thus: >> On 11/14/2009 6:12 PM mc_brennan@yahoo.com spake thus: >> [quoted text clipped - 19 lines] > All said, it is not a hobby that attracts the socially inclined, nor those > with good business sense. While I'll have to take your anecdotal evidence of hobby-shop malfeasance at your word, it's just that; anecdotal evidence. Where do you get off extrapolating from that (probably) one experience you had to cover the dozens--no, probably hundreds--of hobby shops that have gone tits-up across the U.S.? My own anecdotal evidence totally contradicts yours. I've seen several well-run, well-stocked hobby shops go out of business with absolutely no evidence that the owners were shining on customers the way you describe. o San Antonio Hobbies in Mountain View o Trains, Planes and Automobiles in Redwood City can't think of any other specific ones at the moment, but the landscape is littered with their corpses. Sure, there must be some stores that were run by jackasses. But to claim that that is the reason for this mass extinction that we're witnessing is kind of ridiculous. SignatureWho needs a junta or a dictatorship when you have a Congress blowing Wall Street, using the media as a condom? - harvested from Usenet > My own anecdotal evidence totally contradicts yours. I've seen several > well-run, well-stocked hobby shops go out of business with absolutely no [quoted text clipped - 5 lines] > can't think of any other specific ones at the moment, but the landscape > is littered with their corpses. And how many of these (if any) made any reasonable effort to change with the times, eg by going onto ebay themselves - or did they just think they could survive by resting on their laurels? And how do you know they were killed by ebay rather than other factors? On 11/14/2009 10:59 PM a_a_a spake thus: >> My own anecdotal evidence totally contradicts yours. I've seen several >> well-run, well-stocked hobby shops go out of business with absolutely no [quoted text clipped - 10 lines] > they could survive by resting on their laurels? And how do you know they > were killed by ebay rather than other factors? Well, since you seem to be such a perfect spokesperson, or apologist, or whatever, for the Glorious Free Entreprise System, the answer is: I don't know. I really don't know. But if you think that all these hundreds of hobby-shop owners have been hoist on their own petard, because, as our anecdotal-evidentiary commentator asserts, they were smoking cigars in the back room when they should have been attending to their customers in the front, well, I really have no answer. Except to ask you, perhaps, for a bit of evidence to support your assertions. Maybe it's congenital, eh? Hobby shop owners suffer from a genetic defect that makes them poor capitalist competitors? SignatureWho needs a junta or a dictatorship when you have a Congress blowing Wall Street, using the media as a condom? - harvested from Usenet >> And how many of these (if any) made any reasonable effort to change >> with the times, eg by going onto ebay themselves - or did they just [quoted text clipped - 6 lines] > > I really don't know. But if you think that all these hundreds where is your evidence for these hundreds? you named two. > of hobby-shop owners have been hoist on their own petard, because, as our > anecdotal-evidentiary commentator asserts, they were smoking cigars in > the back room when they should have been attending to their customers in > the front, well, I really have no answer. I suggested no such thing, even though it may well be true, at least metaphorically. However I did imply that ones that had failed may have been unwilling to adapt to the simple fact that the world moves on even if they do not. > Except to ask you, perhaps, > for a bit of evidence to support your assertions. Very few have failed here in Australia, where they HAVE typically been willing to adapt. There has been no sign of anything worse than normal "natural attrition" (eg one guy died of cancer - do you blame ebay for that?), but there have been numerous new players coming INTO the marketplace as producers. > Maybe it's congenital, eh? Hobby shop owners suffer from a genetic > defect that makes them poor capitalist competitors? Mr Procter will probably suggest that their genetic defect was being American, but I suggest that it is environmental rather than genetic. >>> And how many of these (if any) made any reasonable effort to change with >>> the times, eg by going onto ebay themselves - or did they just think [quoted text clipped - 33 lines] > Mr Procter will probably suggest that their genetic defect was being > American, but I suggest that it is environmental rather than genetic. I suspect both. Train shop owners tend to be interested in trains. Observation of two or three - nay hundreds - of these folks interested in trains (in the USA primarily) tells me they are not highly sociable creatures and thus do not do well at marketing and sales. > >>> And how many of these (if any) made any reasonable effort to change with > >>> the times, eg by going onto ebay themselves - or did they just think [quoted text clipped - 40 lines] > > - Show quoted text - Here is some anecdotal evidence for the lack of salesmanship among train shop owners. I went into a small train shop in Sunnyvale, CA looking for a part for a Lionel locomotive. The crusty old proprietor asked me if I was one of his regular customers. When I said no, he said that he only sold parts to his regular customers. Now that is salesmanship! On Nov 15, 3:11�am, "LDosser" <L...@invalid.invalid> wrote: > "a_a_a" <a...@a.a.net> wrote in message > [quoted text clipped - 55 lines] > > - Show quoted text - Here is some anecdotal evidence for the lack of salesmanship among train shop owners. I went into a small train shop in Sunnyvale, CA looking for a part for a Lionel locomotive. The crusty old proprietor asked me if I was one of his regular customers. When I said no, he said that he only sold parts to his regular customers. Now that is salesmanship! ----------------------------------------------------------------------------------- WOW! I can't top that one ... >Here is some anecdotal evidence for the lack of salesmanship among train shop owners. I went into a small train shop in Sunnyvale, CA looking for a part for a Lionel locomotive. The crusty old proprietor asked me if I was one of his regular customers. When I said no, he said that he only sold parts to his regular customers. >Now that is salesmanship! First of all, If he would have been a good salesmen he wouldn't have had to ask if you were a regular, 2nd he would have sold you the part knowing you would come to him in the future. On the other hand I think there are plenty good examples aswell. My reason for going to an online shop is somewhat different, besides living in the Netherlands and therefore not having a large amount of choice there is the problem that the 2 shops that carry some US themed stock , have so little its hardly worth driving an hour for so I only go there when I have to be in that city anyway. When I tell them thats the reason I shop on the internet, they tell me its impossible for them to have more in stock and that I can order anything I want from them. But that makes no sence because the I can just aswell order from the internet, it will take just as long and it will be much cheaper. I'm willing to pay a little more but not if it won't be of any advantage to me. Also I have found that in a strange way the shops that I do most business with online will give you the same amount of customer friendship as any other shop. WigWag for instance , I get the feeling I am in their Brick and Mortar shop, they send an email wishing you Merry Christmas , even though they are up to their necks in work they answer all your questions. Same goes for Larry from Egatco on E-bay, more reliable then any shop I know. Greetz Jan __________ Informatie van ESET Smart Security, versie van database viruskenmerken 4611 (20091116) __________ Het bericht is gecontroleerd door ESET Smart Security. http://www.eset.com On Mon, 16 Nov 2009 18:40:04 +0100, "Jan \( Bouli \) Van Gerwen" <jan@leavethisawayjanbouli.com> wrote: >>Here is some anecdotal evidence for the lack of salesmanship among >train shop owners. [quoted text clipped - 3 lines] >of his regular customers. When I said no, he said that he only sold >parts to his regular customers. Uncle Freddy? > On 11/14/2009 10:23 PM LDosser spake thus: > [quoted text clipped - 41 lines] > that that is the reason for this mass extinction that we're witnessing is > kind of ridiculous. To claim that it isn't in the face of double your anecdotal evidence is kind of ridiculous. On Sat, 14 Nov 2009 10:31:23 -0800, mc_brennan wrote: > To this point, I would greatly appreciate any links to on-line websites > that you could offer to help me in my ongoing pursuit of such items. http://www.tomstrains.com/ SignatureIntelligence is an experiment that failed - G. B. Shaw > On Sat, 14 Nov 2009 10:31:23 -0800, mc_brennan wrote: > >> To this point, I would greatly appreciate any links to on-line websites >> that you could offer to help me in my ongoing pursuit of such items. > > http://www.tomstrains.com/ Do they have more than 4 items hidden away somewhere on the site? >> On Sat, 14 Nov 2009 10:31:23 -0800, mc_brennan wrote: >> [quoted text clipped - 5 lines] > > Do they have more than 4 items hidden away somewhere on the site? Nope - it's called the Walthers catalog (with prices discounted). Just email them the stock numbers and names of the items. SignatureIntelligence is an experiment that failed - G. B. Shaw > It seems that I am always searching for hard-to-find, HO scale train > cars and engines. Items that slipped by me completely [or items that I [quoted text clipped - 5 lines] > items. I find that some of the smaller, lesser known train stores will > sometimes have a hidden gem on a shelf in their store. If you have nay interest at all in craftsman kits - such as Campbell, Downtown Deco, Bar Mills, Blair and others - or detail parts, I have not found a better site online than Valley Model Trains: http://valleymodeltrains.com/catalog/ On advantage they have over MANY other sites is that they chow how many of an item is currently in stock, so assuming the information is reasonably updated you won't be surprised by "backordered" events. They also seem to discount by at least 10% on nearly all items in the store. I'll admit that I have not yet ordered anything from them, being out of work since Feb., but plan to once I'm back on my feet. If I still have a home with a layout space to build in that is. SignatureRick Jones Remove the Extra Dot to e-mail me Never miss a good chance to shut up. http://www.wig-wag-trains.com/ They are not the fastest, but they give the best prices and personal contact. I do believe they are really the best in N-scale. If I want something right away and am willing to pay a bit more for postage and handling ( I live in the Netherlands ) I go to MB Klein http://www.modeltrainstuff.com Greetz Jan > It seems that I am always searching for hard-to-find, HO scale train > cars and engines. Items that slipped by me completely [or items that I [quoted text clipped - 15 lines] > > http://www.eset.com __________ Informatie van ESET Smart Security, versie van database viruskenmerken 4610 (20091115) __________ Het bericht is gecontroleerd door ESET Smart Security. http://www.eset.com |
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