railroad model shop that have a good reputation for senting goods to england

Model Railroader General Discussion (Model Railroader)
1

I am looking american railroad item to purchase that are hard to find in the britain

2

Robert,

Can you help us with what type of American railroad item(s) you are looking for - e.g. locomotives, structures, rolling stock, etc?

Tom

3

tom

I am looking for locomotives ,rolling stock, DCC mainly NCE ,decoders, lights for railway, kadees ,tortoise motors ,items from micro-mark plus a lot more, try to lower the cost of buying american items for my hobby, I know that I can pay the same price in pounds as you pay in dollars, I model bnsf/cn from 1990s to now, I am looking for a shop that can supply me most of the items, at a cost that better price uk shops and items that are not stock, as you have to cost in US customs, UK value add tax (ie vat at17.5%) royal mail handing fee at £8 plus postage to uk per parcel. if convert dollar to the pound you can make a small saving or as i have found out a small lost?

regards robert, ps we are 6 hours in front in time

4

There guys are pretty good for trains, track and scenery/structures:

http://www.modeltrainstuff.com

They also carry both NCE and Digitrax, but I would advise buying DCC stuff from a regional shop so you can get local support on it if you run into problems. Kleins has great prices and they ship their stuff quickly, but they are a bit “challenged” as far as technical expertise/support.

5

Hi Robert;

Full service; you can not beat http://www.caboosehobbies.com/catalog/index_brief.php

Discount, in the USA, I usually deal with: http://www.trainworld.com/

But they may not have all the accessory items you are looking for.

6

For electronics (DCC systems, decoders, LED’s, etc. I recommend Litchfield Station (http://www.litchfieldstation.com/DCC-University/index.htm) or Tony’s Train Exchange (http://www.tonystrains.com/). My personal preference is Litchfield Station but both offer competitive prices and good service.

For rolling stock, structures, accessories, etc. I have had good experience with First Place Hobbies (http://www.1stplacehobbies.com/) and Hiawatha Hobbies (http://www.hiawathahobbies.com/), especially for track components. A friend recommends Dallas Model Works (http://www.dallasmodelworks.com/) but I have have limited first hand experience with it. I agree Caboose Hobbies is an excellent choice for a full service hobby shop but often their prices are not competitive.

Good luck!

Roger Johnson

7

All of the above are good places to mail order railroad stuff from. The big problem is that you have to catch an item and get your name on a list before they do a production run on them or chances are you won’t get an item until they do another run on it again sometimes after 10 years.

Back in the old days you could get anything you wanted because most of the companies over produced many items but now they want to know who wants them and that’s all they’re going to produce at that particular time. It’s really frustrating when you plan for a certain scene on your layout, only to find that what you want to include on your layout is out of stock and out of production

anyway, here’s a couple of my favorites: www.internettrains.com and www.discounttrainsonline.com …chuck

8

I would like to thank tom, ken L, roger & chuck

I have made a list of the shops to check out in January, as not to get stuck in Christmas rush

9

Robert,

I have just bought some Atlas locos from Hoosier Hobbies. John at Hoosier was very helpful and they arrived in Australia within 8 days of me paying for them. They were half price items that I’d been trying to get here in Oz for some time. I found Hoosier on ebay.

cheers

Alan J in sunny (and hot today 97F or 36C) Queensland Oz