Has anyone had any dealing with Fast Tracks. I placed an order with them 19 days ago and I am still waiting for the order. Contacting them, I am repeatedly told the order is ’ Processing". Is this typical for them? I am starting to think I have made a mistake in picking them for my manual turnout machines, ( Bullfrog Units)
Received an e-mail a few hours ago, my order has shipped, also received an email from UPS, I will receive the order on the 15th. Maybe they read these forums. Thanks for all the replies, well at least most of them LOL
I like to add, maybe I should have worded my initial question differently.I have had no problems in communicating with Fast Tracks, they have been great in answering any and all of my inquiries about their products in relation to my layout. I was just concerned about the amount of time the delivery was taking of what I ordered, should I be worried or not. This was the first time I had ever dealt with them. It turns out I had nothing to be worried about. My order is on the way. I’ll let you all know how it turns out.
They make great products. I’ve only ever dealt with them at the Toronto Train Show and they were always eager to please. They are a Canadian company and I’ve never heard anything bad about them.
I had the same experience. I placed an order on Dec. 4 and never received anything until early Jan. And that was after an email inquiry on my part. I was very dissatisfied with their service and decided not to use any more of their products.
I can’t speak to the issue of how they run their business but seeing that they are a business in a foreign (to the U.S.) country it may take time to get things thru customs. since I do ship things to Canada I once inquired as to how the system works when dealing with USPS Mail (Dont know if they ship thru the Canadian mail system or not) The host country gets the postage only. Once it hits customs and clears it is routed to the postal system for that country where it is essentialy treated as a dead animal. If there is room to send it it goes, if not, it sits untill there is room. The agreement is you handle ours and we will handle yours so, essentialy they deliver it for free which is why it may take time.
Now, it may also be that they do not stock most of the items they sell but, instead, they manufacture them as orders are placed. If this is a busy time for them it may take some time to clear the pipeline. Understand this is purly conjecture on my part.
I will agree though that they should have a better answer than “processing”
This is a shame to hear. A small company, probably a one-man-band, certainly not much bigger than that. Tim, the owner, always stuck me as a reputable type and certainly had built a good reputation. I hope this is not a sign of trouble of some kind?
In my case it was not a mail problem. When I contacted them the week of Christmas-almost a month after the initial order - their reply indicated that the order was just then being shipped. It was as if it had been ignored or lost up until that point.
I also ordered from Fast Tracks and it took over a month to receive the items. I e-mailed them and they were very responsive. Some of the items they use are in short supply and I was told it takes time for them to receive their backorders from suppliers. Also. they like to ship a complete order so all it takes is one item to be out of stock and that slows down the entire order. It also takes a week or two after the order is mailed before it reaches the US. Be patient, the quality is worth the wait.
Am confused! Congress pushed NAFTA through fast; told the American public it would take downtradebarriers with Canada/ Mexico. It seems there are STILL barriers, if Canadian mrr companies can’t get stuff to us in a reasonable amount of time. Makes you wonder…papasmurf
If I had to guess, I would say it is still a small company, two guys. They have built a good reputation and are getting swamped with orders. They have to get aluminum blanks from a supplier and then have them CNC’d to their specs. They may take a couple of weeks just to produce types X and Y jigs, fill orders, and then move on to what is waiting.
Shipment to US destinations from most of Canada typically takes about 8-10 days. Same the other way around. Canadian Border Services can take up to three days to process parcels, occasionally longer, when they come the other way.
When a two or four person opertion has a family emergency, things can get bogged down really fast. Each of those persons has a family, likely, and the probability that any one family has an issue of some sort is reasonably high.
I have ordered from Tim at Fast Tracks several times in the last year. I felt I recieved very good service from him. The products are excellent. Tim is a reputable person as well. He may have been out at several shows during the last few months cutting into the time he has to fill orders… The whole company is just a couple of people.
Many items from Fast Tracks are made to order… Therefore it may take a bit of time for them to be made for you. It states that right on their website. And yes even with NAFTA, it still may take a bit more time to get something shipped stateside from Ontario Canada.
I sent a link to Fast Tracks and we can expect a response from Tim later, perhaps over the weekend as he is running a clinic today. Ron responded and basically they are swamped with orders, frustrated with backlogs on items that they are awaiting. This is a small company, and I expect that they are suffering some pains right now due to their success. I have never read a bad word about their product, so it should be worth the wait.
It shouldn’t make you wonder anything. Trade barriers and the mail aren’t even close to the same concept. All it means is you won’t place tariffs or import quotas on transnational sales. It doesn’t mean that the USPS and CPC are seamlessly integrated or that customs has been eliminated.
If they are swamped with orders, and having great success, then why don’t they hire a couple of more people? They’re gonna hurt their reputation if they don’t start getting orders filled more quickly.
I buy all of my rail, ties, and track laying tools from Fast Tracks. Like nearly ALL model railroad related businesses they are a smaller operation so sometimes orders do take time.
The quality one receives from Fast Tracks is well worth waiting for. I am able to understand that they don’t always have stock sitting waiting to ship and that orders can pile up. I try to anticipate my needs so that I am not held up waiting for n order to arrive that is overdue because the customs agent decided to play with my stuff for a couple of days before taping the box up and processing it. [;)]
If you are ordering from the US, don’t start thinking your order is overdue for a month or so. Living in Canada and ordering most of my hobby stuff from the US I know that 8-10 days is OPTIMUM shipping time. More realistically it’s 10 days to 3 weeks, depending on the level of service the customer purchases. Customs have been known to “lose” packages, causing even more delay. Free trade has nothing to do with this. Every package still has to clear customs.
I’ve had very similar experiences from time to time with a number of hobby vendors. It’s really easy for us as customers, to criticize and second guess their operations, saying they should hire more people, etc. Since we know all the answers, lets start a model railroad business and show them all how it is done. If any of us make it 6 months in a niche market and these tough economic times, it would be a miracle, IMO.
Cut Tim and Ron some slack. They aren’t sitting on their laurels watching orders pile up. If they say they are swamped, they are. Also, as someone else mentioned, Tim takes Fast Tracks to many of the big shows on both sides of the border, so at a time when there are lots of shows, product demand increases at the same time that manpower is stretched thin.
If you gave up on Fast Tracks because of a shipping delay you’re the one who’s missing out, I
If this is the way people are going to treat small manufacturers, I´m not surprised when they finally quit!
You CAN NOT demand next day service from small suppliers, you may get it, but don´t consider it the norm!
As mentioned above; it is a small company and have a lot of things going on right now as it seems. But they couldn´t start hiring due to a small order backlog! That is a good way to get OUT of business!
I have ordered from a lot of small mfg´s, and if it takes a month or two, so be it. I wouldn´t need customers calling each and every day, if I had a small supply company!
I purchased some track laying alignment tools from a guy in Turkey thru Ebay. I really like the design of these tools. He was up front that shipping would take 2-3 weeks. He shipped within 2 days of the order. Today is 3 weeks without recieving them. I also read somewhere in the last week that because of increased security screening in the US that it may add 2 or more weeks until delivery. I accepted the risks when I ordered from overseas. I will find something else to work on until they show up. There is always something else that can be done.
Without going into too long a lesson on how business works, it is easily possible for businesses to grow too fast and get in a cash flow jam. Not saying that is the problem here, but it speaks to the idea that they should “just hire some more people”. It’s just not that easy for a small two or three man operation to hire people and bring them in and train them, etc. And while they might be doing very well, the extra cost of more employees may not be managable just yet.
To me, four weeks for a small specialty company to deliver the kind of stuff they sell seems quite reasonable.