TrainBoard Special Run Announcement

It will be a one-time shot for this car. Maybe a second road number someday if people clamour for another.

Charlie

 

IMPORTANT UPDATE

UPDATE​

Folks, here's an update: I have run into an unexpected problem that will slow down the shipping for a couple of days and here's the story; First, let me say that this is my fault, although it was unintentional. When we started this project, I started a new PayPal account in order to keep the financial end of the SpecialRuns.com project separate from the regular TrainBoard funds. Most of the money that we collect from subscriptions and advertising stays in PayPal and that is linked to a savings account at my local bank where I have a TrainBoard account set up for payments that we receive by check. Some of our advertisers and some subscribers do not use PayPal and they send checks. When that happens, I deposit them into the bank and that account and PayPal are linked so I can move money back and forth as needed to pay the bills.

When I started the SpecialRuns.com PayPal account to receive payments for the special run orders, in order to confirm the account, I attempted to link that account to the same bank account as TrainBoard. This would let the funds remain separate but allow me to withdraw funds from the SpecialRuns.com account when the time to do that came.

Fast forward to now. The cars have been delivered and it is time to ship. The way that we ship is that we print shipping labels in PayPal. For those that have never done this, what happens is that the labels can be printed from within PayPal, and you are paying for the postage when you print the label. It deducts the money from the account to pay for the postage every time it prints a label.

Yesterday I shipped three cars (as can be seen in the counts at the top of the page) and after printing three labels I noticed something. The PayPal account now shows as non-verified. Believe it or not, you can call PayPal on the phone and talk to a real person, and without spending three hours on hold. It turns out that because I linked two different PayPal accounts to the same bank account, that is a big problem. Why? I don't know. The lady on the phone could not explain why it was a problem but after talking to her supervisor said, "you can't do that." Has anyone else here seen anything like this before?

In any event, when you are non-verified in PayPal, you can't spend much of the money (including paying for postage).

Anyway, that left one other way to confirm the PayPal account. You can apply for a credit card through PayPal (I already have their debit card) and that will confirm the account if you are approved. Guess what. I was declined! My credit rating is over 800 but in 2005 I made a personal decision not to use credit cards and I closed all credit card accounts and cut up the credit cards I had. Believe me, I have been much happier since and I use a debit card now for my personal purchases. The only reason I can think of that I would be declined is because I don't already have any credit cards. I certainly am not a person with debt problems or outstanding bills.

So, where is this story going and how can I get my special run car? When I get off work today at 2:00 Eastern time, I am going down to my bank where I will open an account for SpecialRuns.com and use that account to verify the PayPal account and start shipping. That will take about 72 hours I guess. I can still ship a few in the meantime as I have not quite hit the spending limit in the account (which still contains all of the money from the orders as we promised when this project started). I don't know how many labels I can print. It gives me a warning everytime I print one that I am at my "spending level" even though all I have spent is the money to print three labels! Yes, I am confused at this point but it will all work out.

I apologize for this delay. I know that you folks are eager to get what you ordered and they will be on the way, many of them this week I hope. Look at it this way; I thought that we would not see the cars from Micro-Trains until late March so their arrival almost one month ahead of schedule means that you still get your car(s) early. I will be working on this to get this going as soon as possible. My living room right now is a pile of boxes waiting to be shipped and my wife requests, uhh no, demands that I get the job done.

I would just write out shipping labels by hand but you get tracking numbers for each one by using the PayPal system and that is very important to me since there are only 300 cars.

Thanks very much for your patience and understanding.

What about the free cars? The free car drawing has been done, and as suggested, I used the random number generator. Sad but true, I did not win a car myself which means your chances are good. I don't have the list of winners on the computer that I am on now but I plan on posting that today so please stay tuned and I will try to get that on in a few hours here.

Here's a little tidbit as well, we are brewing another special run.

Charlie

 

WINNERS
​

Ok folks, here are the winners of the 10 cars that were given away. Before posting the names I want to say a couple of words about this: One of our TrainBoard members stated to me that he gets so much enjoyment from the site that he wanted to give something back in the way of a donation and he suggested this. Early on in the project, before we even announced the road name of the car, he asked if he could purchase 10 cars (well over $300) and donate them to be given away however we deemed appropriate. He asked that we not announce his name at all. I think this is an impressive show of generosity and whether or not you were a winner, a big thank you is in order to our donor.

Now, how I did this was a little different than I announced. The suggestion about the random number generator was a good one and I played with it before-hand using numbers between 1 and 1000 to see results and they did appear to be all over the place so it looked like a good idea.

I started with the first order received and numbered it 1. I went through by date and numbered them on a spreadsheet (downloaded from PayPal). If someone ordered two cars, they might have been number 34 and 35. If someone ordered 5 cars (some folks did) they might have been numbers 56, 57, 58, 59, 60 and 61. You got one chance for each car you bought. I was the only person exempted from the drawing. Members, staff memberrs, and non-members were all eligible since no one was involved in doing the drawing but me and a non-TrainBoard person.

Bear in mind that from looking at the names in PayPal, I know who very few of these folks are. Obviously, I recognize the names of staff members and folks who are regulars here. But, looking at a name like "Herbert Smith-Jones-Jackson" does not tell me what member I am looking at. I say this only to indicate that the drawing was fair.

I set the random number generator up and entered the number of orders as the maximim number and had a co-worker (a Maine goober who thinks that people that play with model trains are fruitcakes) hit the button and give me ten numbers. He had no idea why he was doing this.

These are the results in the order they were drawn. To protect privacy, I will give a last name and location only.

1. Sice of Australia
2. Musick of Illinois
3. Hill of Ohio
4. Stahl of Maine
5. Murchek of Germany
6. Albers of Texas
7. Carnell of South Carolina
8. Hahn of Colorado
9. Runty of Illinois
10. Robins of Oregon

Congratulations folks!

Charlie

 

Yeah, I think it was you.

 

ANOTHER UPDATE:
​

The banking problems I described in the post above are well on their way to being resolved. I spent the afternoon working on that and I think all is good and will be functioning in 48 to 72 hours. I will try to ship some orders on Thursday.

Thank you very much for your patience.

Charlie

 

Congrats to the lucky 10 and another Thank You to the excellent TB member that donated them. I guess I will be ordering another one since my name wasnt one of the lucky ones.

 

Your right Mike.....I will get two more! LOL

 

Wow. Wish I was that lucky!

 

Yikes. No fun there.

 

Ted,

We will be advising International customers of shipping charges which can be paid by PayPal. I will figure out what that is going to cost on a case-by-case basis and since I will have to fill out customs declarations, I will try to do a bunch of them at one time.

Charlie