In building my current layout, I have a "city" at one corner of the layout that hides the main line as it passes through the closet in our rec' room... goes into the "computer" room, and then loops back into the rec' room again. Anyway... I am 'kitbashing' various buildings to fit the scene. I have 4 large structures that will be there. I have 'semi' finished two, and am starting on the third. I have been searching for the right building to kitbash that will fit what I want for the third. I decided on the Walthers "Greatland Sugar Refinery" kit, chopped up and peiced together with a Bar Mills #1 Kit to make a brick/wood mixed structure. As you know.. or may not know.. the Walthers Greatland kit came out in late May and has already sold out. In searching the Walthers data base, I found a hobby store about 100 miles away that had one in stock. I called last week, ordered it.. and it came yesterday. So far... so good....... sort of. I opened the thing and it was slightly damaged. The sidewall has brick extensions that fit onto the stepped, brick endwall. Those extensions were badly bent.. but can be EASILY fixed. No problem. ALSO, the kit did not have the stupid brick smokestack that is "supposed" to be included. Doesnt really matter... that is NOT going to be part of the building I am kitbashing.. it would have gone in my scrapbox anyway. However, even tho' what I got is EXACTLY what I need, I feel I got jipped. The kit was packed nicely enough and was wrapped in what appears to be the original cellophane wrap around the box. This looks more like a snafu from Walthers than the dealer. Should I have sent it back? If I was just building this thing straight up, out of the box as made, I would be fuming. But since the missing parts and damage wont have any effect, it doesnt bother me. Well.. .actually, it does bother me. I am the first to "raise Cane" when I feel I got shafted. But since I now have what I need, I am not inclined to wait weeks, or probably months to get my money back, fight Walthers THROUGH a dealer. Meanwhile, that empty spot sits on my layout. I am keeping it, carving it, cutting it, and building the darned thing. Anyone else have this kind of experience from Walthers stuff???????? -Kitbash [ 19 June 2002, 10:31: Message edited by: Kitbash ]
I have had issues with Walthers stuff in the past, and have always contacted them direct and they have been most helpful...one particular example... About a year ago I built a kit that I got secondhand, unopened for a TTX spine car, and during construction I managed to drop a part completed spine and broke one of the articulation joint/truck mount pieces, not good! These are basically too fragile to repair once broken, and they take all the train forces plus the weight of the metal spine, so they are a critical part to the kit. I contacted them by email, explained that I had broken the part, and offered to pay for a replacement as I had broken it. Walthers sent another one to me by airmail, free of charge, as that kit was out of production they could not supply the part in the correct colour, but I did get the part. I was very impressed with the customer service as I had the part within a couple of days of emailing them, and that's part way round the world! My suggestion would be to email them explaining that you have this kit which has some missing components, list the components or sprue that is missing and see what happens, there's no point in getting annoyed with them yet as you have not given them chance to correct their error. If you were confident your local store had another one, then I would reccomend taking it back to them for exchange, but as they likely won't have I would try Walthers direct. Hope that helps.
I agree, contact the customer service of Walthers. Anytime you have a problem, if you can't resolve it with Hobby Store, for one reason or another then go to the manufacturer. I had a situation a couple of years ago with an Athearn Genesis 2-8-2 Mike. I had bought the model while I was between layouts, so the loco sat in the box for a year. While the loco sat in the box the owner of the hobby shop died and the store closed. Anyway, I put the Mike on the track and the first thing that happened was that the screws holding the side rods came off along with the side rods. I looked over the situation and there was no way to get the rods back on as the wheels were now out of quater. So I emailed Athearn and the quickly responded telling me to ship the loco to them. They took care of everything free of charge.
<font color="336633">Don't mention them! I got one of the Thrall 5 unit Double stack cars and all of them have had the joints broken, I tryed to repair them but everytime I take them out the box I have to repair them again </font>
I got a package of the 40-48 extendable container chassis that were missing the bumper bars. It was really weird cus the whole thing was sealed, and the parts were carefully removed from the spruce. What really got me annoyed was I only use 4 parts from the kit and the bumper bars are one of them. So I emailed Walthers - about one week later I got an email apologizing for the delay responding and that the parts were in the air mail. Got em two days later.
