Okay, I decided to go upscale from N to HO, due to declining eyesight. That meant starting from scratch with a small layout. I methodically began acquiring the necessities. I bought a switch engine from Hobbyshop A, which is an hour away from me. When I got it home, I found that the rear lights didn't work, the dome light stopped working after an hour, and the engine ran at half-speed in reverse compared to forward. I called Hobbyshop A; they suggested I talk to the manufacturer. The manufacturer was surprised (nothing ever goes wrong with this model), but very helpful; they suggested some simple checks, and then gave me three choices: (1) take it back to Hobbyshop A, (2) send in the circuit board for replacement and hope that the board was the cause of all the problems, or (3) send back the whole engine and wait three months. I decided on option #1. Meanwhile, I'd found a bunch of second-hand turnouts at Hobbyshop B, for sale at half price, as-is. I bought all I needed for my layout. Once I got them home and took a really good look at them, I decided their first owner was a four-year-old with a hammer and a hacksaw. Multiple broken ties, at least one deep notch in the rail... not pretty. One of them had rail joiners soldered on and then sliced off, and one rail (one rail!) filed down from Code 83 to Code 70 height on one end; totally useless. I needed some new switches. Back at Hobbyshop A, the owner willingly gave me store credit for the engine. He did his best to sell me a replacement, but the replacement kept jumping the rails on his test track. No, thanks. I spent the credit on structures and rolling stock. Somehow I forgot about the turnouts. Now it's time for me to go on-line to find my BN switch engine, which is a discontinued model. I dod some googling and found that Hobbyshop C had one in stock, along with some other wonderful things, so I placed an order. I didn't order the turnouts because their site said they didn't have them. The confirming e-mail said they'd put the stuff in the mail within 3 days. 2 days later, I got a call from Hobbyshop C. That engine that their site said was in stock? It isn't. Okay, then how about the turnouts? The rep checked and said they actually do have them. Great, I said; I'll take three. Turnout problem solved. Now I'm back to needing an engine. It took half an hour of googling to find another shop with my engine in stock. To avoid problems like the ones I had with Hobbyshop C, I called Hobbyshop D on the phone, gave my name, and said I wanted to place an order. "Will you be picking this up?" the owner asked. I suggested that, with him in Minnesota and me in Massachusetts, that might not work. "Oh, you're not the same Mike Fischer who called me an hour ago?" What are the chances of that? Okay, we straightened that out. Now, about that BN switcher? "Sorry, we don't have it." But your site says you do. "Oh, you mean BN? I was looking at BNSF; I didn't think you wanted that old stuff." Sigh; yes, that's exactly what I want. Success at last! The next day, I got another call from Hobbyshop C. You know those turnouts that our site says we don't have, but our rep said we do have? Well, guess what? Fine, I said, cross them off my order and send the rest. Everything arrived three or four days later, and it all works nicely; I had a train running that night. I still need some turnouts, but I'll probably just go back to Hobbyshop A next time I'm in the area, and pay full retail for them. If he has them.
Been there and done that. Buying online and over the phone always seems to go wrong some how. For me it is either drive 100+ one way to the LHS and back or deal with the above mentioned problems. MODEL RAILROADING IS FUN, mos to the time. Gary
For internet orders/phone, seeing what's in stock etc, modelrailroadstuff.com is always my first stop. The best website that is kept up to date (when you buy something the quantity gets removed from the "in stock" immediately), so I'm pretty confident that if they say it's in stock, it is.
