Best mail order model train site?

Yes. Who ever fits the above description at the time I order. No fixed loyalty, it's all about price.

-- Cheers Roger T.

of the Great Eastern Railway

For N-scale, I use the following two onlines shops the most:

Brooklyn Locomotive Works at

consistently has the lowest US prices.

Rainbow Ten at

has all the Japanese releases that rarely, make it to the US.

My favorites are: Trainworld, Caboose Hobbies, Toy Train Heaven, and for Canadian prototypes, Lockspur. I find that you tend to get the best service if you frequent the same people repeatedly.

Den

Flying Scotsman Hobbies. Honest, dependable and answers all queries.

I purchase from Australia and everything arrives safe and sound.

Jim,

I have delt with 'Pete' many times and the service is usually very fast. One problem you might run into is that if you are 'pre-ordering' very late in the game, you may not get the product. Let me explain. A lot of the distributors get advance orders from dealers. Many dealer do not pick up the orders hen the model finally arrives. The distributor sort of add's some extra 'cushion' and acepts more orders from dealers because he 'knows' there will be some dealers who cancel out. Guess what? A really popular model or paint scheme may wind up with more orders than the manufacturer actually produced(Kato is a good example). Your 'late' pre-order may have been in that arena(did you order the JNR 2-8-0?) Also, I have never paid up front for any of my Atlas/Kato/Life-Like engines that I have ordered.

BLW, TexNrails, and Rio Grande Hobbies seem to all be good for N scale mail order.

Jim Bernier

Jim McLaughl>

"When you need to go on-line and shop for your model trains and supplies where do you go? Who has the best prices and the best service?"

I've found that Trainworld usually has the best prices on the basic stuff, staples like P2K Athearn Bachmann etc. The owner isn't a train person and he keeps away from non-RTR stuff, Athearn and structure kits being the exception to this. They're also one of my local hobby shops and sell at the same prices as they mail order. If you're making a large order they'll average out as the best order price.

Toy Train Heaven is a little more expensive but has some specialty items available.

I've also used Standard Hobby Supply and Model Railway Post Office.

If your going to buy one or two items your best bet is to find who has them the cheapest at that particular point in time.

I can tell you who to stay away from. Red Caboose in Manhattan. 110% of MSRP. Owned by a rude sarcastic unhelpful jerk who'll try to sell you Marklin because "Proto, Kato and Atlas are just cheap trash made in Asia."

Eric

I use Al at Eastern Classic. Not 'online' but email and phone calls.

1-201-967-0161 or snipped-for-privacy@aol.com.

Best service and prices in the industry.

No online service where you deal with a computer can compare to dealing with a HUMAN who knows and wants your business.

Jim wrote: Very odd way to run a business.

----------------------------------------------- I have been doing business with BLW since 1991 and places over 200 orders with Peter Postel and he's always been very helpful and honest. Great service and fair prices.

Bill Bill's Railroad Empire N Scale Model Railroad:

History of N Scale: Links to over 500 helpful sites:

Huh? Trash? Excuse me? That must be why they've all gone out of business. NOT!

Marklin: Overpriced European stuff. A Swiss colleague said he can get the stuff in Switzerland at almost half the price (before the dollar declined recently), and a greater variety than what's on the west side of the pond.

Boy, the crap some people dish out to try to make a better sale.

Jay Modeling the North Shore & North Western C&NW/CNS&M in 1940-1955 E-mail is now open snipped-for-privacy@aol.com

Reminds me, where has Al been all the while? He used to post his fabulous sales here on r.m.r. pretty regularly some time ago.

Bob boudreau Canada

Absolutely - Peter is great!

I'm in New Zealand.

Micro Ace has a very large selection of Japanese prototype N-scale trains. A very, very small percentage of their selection every makes it to the US markets. I have only seen one of their models at a US online dealer, and very few on ebay. What does show up in the US comes in via the "grey market' importers, probably Mokei.

Pete won't know which MicroAce models, if any, he will be able to get until they are offered to him by an importer. He can't preorder a model he has no way of knowing that he can get. Would you prefer he take your reservation and a year later tell you he couldn't get it, thereby causing you to miss out on getting it at another dealer that did have it?

Pete deserves a ton of credit for being honest with you.

By the way, which dealer did you preorder it from?

Al is the best. I've been doing business with him for about 6-7 years, long before he started doing business online. I met him at a few different model RR shows, and I began buying, and later, also selling items to him. Al is a stand-up guy. He goes well out of his way to take care of his customers, there is none better out there then Al De Lia. And, aside from being a great source of model RR supplies, Al has become a great friend. Jeff

He is alive and well. He does email now versus RMR. (RMR has drifted off into OT rants and bashes mostly, Model Railroading is a sidelight).

If you are not on it get on his email list. I just got a box of Atlas stuff at great prices. Some older GP40s I could not find anywhere. A call to Al and two weeks later, there they were.

Also some Proto eng> >