I want to buy a couple of engines (BLI and Proto Heritage), and money is real tight as I’m a college student. I know Trainworld talks about special clearances, etc…but it seems that their everyday prices on current items is way lower than anyone else.
I read some posts here when I did a search … is it true they don’t know what road name or road number they have in stock?
Is everything nice and new, in nice boxes and stuff? Packed well.
Or should I just stop worrying about it and save some big bucks with them?
I haven’t ordered from them but I will stop by their shop. ( I live in NYC) Trainworld like other discount shops have low prices on older Atlas or Less popular items. The SD70MAC from Kato lists at $150 but I got mine for $95 including tax. Standard Hobby actually has it for less (79.99 + tax) but I was at a train show.
I did see in the April MR that they again have great prices. I will hit them soon.
I have bought from Trainworld several times and they ship very fast. The prices are good and they do know what they have in stock, but the trick is to know what you want (their item #) and what roadname you want, because they are not the biggest talkers. They just want your order and to get off the phone.
I would guess their sales volume is the reason the prices are lower.
I have ordered BLI and Proto locos, all sorts of rolling stock, track etc.and have always been 100% satisfied. When you call in an order they will tell you exactly what they have in stock . Best bet is for you to research the item you want and come up with the manufacturers ID code or numder…It makes ordering real easy. You can sometimes find lower prices but, it takes alot of searching on the Webb…
Also if you are after BLI do look on their site as the carry some really good buys in repaired and referbed locos…I have two from there and NO problems at all.
Trainworld has store prices and advertised out of store prices plus sales…
Go on their webb site and see if they have what you are after…Like anything else do your homework first…
I’ve ordered from them several times with great service each time. In fact I’m waiting for an order for myself and a friend. Their shipping to us in Canada is fairly high - US$24.95, so we combine orders semi regularly to split the costs. They have a downloadable order form in MS Word that you can fill out at home and e-mail them. I like this method because I have a copy and I make sure everything is right before I send it.
I’ve ordered Life Like RDC-2 and -3’s from them at $19.95, a Rivarossi Heisler for $89.95 (less 10% during a sale they had on), and this current order is for two Bachmann On30 side-rod gas mechanical diesels - at $29.95 each. I assume they buy this stuff in case lots and get great prices. Most of the time their great prices is for their choice of roadnames, I assume its to speed up their selecting of the order. Sometimes you can get the roadname you want, but they charge you more for it.
You can get on their mailing list and get advance notices of special sales and offers.
I ordered my subway train from Trainworld on Wednesday after dinner, and it was at my house Friday afternoon. I live in the suburbs of Boston, and the shipping was plain old Brown Ground.
If you take a look at many of their “blowout” prices, they are on out-of-production models. Like M.B. Klein, they seem to buy up inventories of these things and just keep them around until someone buys them. Fine with me, since these are new-in-the-box items and they’ve just been sitting on the shelf for a while.
They do know what’s in stock, but they don’t maintain this information electronically on their web site. You do need to call for road names and numbers, as they typically don’t show these. It’s true that they don’t waste their time in idle chit-chat on the phone, but I’ve found them pleasant to deal with, even when just inquiring about road names.
By the way, M.B. Klein at www.modeltrainstuff.com maintains a similar inventory of out-of-production locomotives, and their prices are generally the same as Trainworld’s on these. The good news is that the two suppliers will often have different road names available, so if you don’t find what you want at one, try the other. I’ve also ordered from Klein’s and have been very happy with the service.
Stop worriying and purchase the items you want if they have them.
There are other dealers out there already mentioned that meet and sometimes are lower on certain items than Trainworld.
I have purchased from Trainworld several times but have found other dealers that are more customer friendly, at least for my money. Trainworld has the products and are very busy, but are worth checking out for sure.
I’ve been to Trainworld and didn’t find the owner to be unfriendly. They are very New York – busy, work at a fast pace, no time to shoot the breeze – and don’t want to encourage a bunch of model railroaders to stand around the store talking trains. But calls come at a pace of two or three a minute and even the cashier has to take orders on the phone. If you know what you want ahead of time that is the place to go.
One big reason that Trainworld is so cheap is because they’re the 500 pound gorilla of model RR retail. Years ago, when Life Like was seemingly releasing new diesels at the rate of eight a year, Trainworld bought them by the CONTAINER load. That’s a lotta little toy trains. Buy in bulk and save, as the saying goes.
And I’ve surprisingly found the staff at Trainworld to be VERY helpful. They don’t have barcode readers and modern inventory software, so it might take them some time to see if they’ve got a specific roadname in stock, but they WILL look for you, and do so quickly and pleasantly.
I’ve ordered from Trainworld a few times, and my wife has even ordered stuff from them (I have a VERY cool wife!). All in all, we’ve always been satisfied with the prices AND the service!
They do know what they have in stock. They’re much more willing to review what they got if you call their regular (718 area code) number than their 800 toll free orders-only number. Said fixation probably part of how they keep costs down.
Everything I’ve ever got is nice, new, well-packed and shipped fast.
I did make a purchase from Trainworld once and it went fine. How do they offer such lower prices? If you’re concerned it might be ‘gray market’ stuff, don’t worry. It’s the real thing. Besides, I don’t know if the MRR industry is big enough to make it worth someone to make a buck off of coming up with gray market items.
I’m sure they are a volume seller that can command better pricing from the manufactures. The blow-out stuff is likely excess inventory that didn’t sell very well. They understand that the longer something sits, the more it ties up their capitol and loses money. So sometimes they are willing to take a loss on these things to prevent taking a bigger loss by having it sit around longer. Making money in retail is about turning over your inventory as many times as possible.
I’ve ordered a couple of things from Trainworld and have had no problems. The thing you have to keep in mind when calling is that the customer service is NOT really knowledgeable about the stock. All they deal with is numbers.
What I have found helpful is to e-mail them, asking them if they have a particular locomotive in stock. I include the road name and part number (usually the manufacturer 's part number) and I usually get a response back within 24 hours. If they do have it in stock, I then order it either by phone or fax. Again, when ordering by phone, DON’T give the customer service personnel anything more than just the part #. Anything more than that just confuses them.
With that said, I’ve gotten some incredible deals through Trainworld. Their Proto 2000 Alco S1 switcher ($110 MSRP) for $29.99 still boggles my mind. It’s one of my best running locomotives - smooth as glass. As already mentioned, their service is quite fast. I had my S1 ordered and in hand in 4 days! [:0]
Service Temporarily Unavailable
The server is temporarily unable to service your request due to maintenance downtime or capacity problems. Please try again later.
Apache/1.3.33 Server at trainworld.com Port 80
I’ve ordered stuff from them before and got it in a couple of days. One time a loco I ordered was missing the whistle. I called them up and they quickly offered to replace it if I’d send it to them. I told them thanks and went to the LHS and bought a whistle.
Looks to me like they’re Beta testing a new & improved website. If so, that’s good news: they might even get more orders with an up to date online ordering system!
I have ordered many times from Trainworld and gotten great deals. Their order takers are a no nonsense bunch but I’ll take that to get a good price. I don’t need to pay for chitchat. It surprises me that they haven’t set up their website for internet ordering. It seems like they could cut their overhead and maybe increase their volume if they didn’t have to take so many orders over the phone.
