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I want to share an incredibly good experience that I had with buying an engine through the mail from JusTrains in Newark, Delaware. After a lifetime of interest in “O” gauge trains, I finally got into accumulating engines, running stock, and accessories about 8 months ago, and I am hard at work on my first layout. That will be a three track, two level layout that occupies what used to be the dining room. I have mostly bought engines from train dealers who have stores in Pennsylvania, like Nicholas Smith, B&E Junction, and Scranton Hobby Center. I have read numerous reports on the online train boards about people who have bought engines by mail order only to find out that the engine had a problem, and then the sellers were less than helpful in resolving the issues. There even seem to be some sellers who do nothing at all about the non-working engine, or they promise to fix it and keep stringing the buyer along, but wind up just running out the 60 day time period during which a credit card charge can be disputed by the purchaser. So, I have been extremely reluctant to buy an engine through mail order. Many of the people who post to the train boards have pointed out some of the better, more reliable mail order dealers, but even with that, there would be people who had bad experiences even with the “good” dealers. One dealer that has always stood out as an exceptionally good dealer was JusTrains. So, I went ahead and pre-ordered a K-line 4-6-6T Philadelphia and Reading engine and some freight cars from them. Feeling more confident, I placed my first actual order for an engine by mail order with JusTrains to take advantage of their reduced prices on the Weaver 2-8-0 Consolidations.
Well, as my bad luck would have it, there were problems with the engine right out of the box. The cow catcher was bent downward which placed it sitting directly on the rails, and the tether wire seemed to have a short circuit in it, which caused the electronics to shut down, or flicker and stall. Howeve