Edit topic

Updated your discussion topic below.

Subject
Enter a subject for your topic. Maximum 150 characters.
Post Body
Enter your post below.
Ok, a few of you saw my post on joining the nuttyness, heavily addictive and not so cheap hobby of model railroading.... Well, I made my first purchase, ok, now before anyone gets excited I bought my first $500 loco, slow down... All I bought was a few small items that will be used sometime down the line. I visited my semi local hobby shop, the one on the way to and from my work. All be it a very small shop, it had most of the basics. Anyways, I picked up 3 sections of flex track, 3 sections of road bed(cork), a pack of 18 degree curves, a pack of cuplers and 2 Model Railroader magazines... yup, thats it. I shot the bull with the owner for a bit to get the feel of the guy, you know, trying to find out if the guy is going to just sell me stuff to make a profit and feed his own hobby or if he is really going to make my experience a good one. I must say, he was a bit more helpful then expected, not pushy at all, but answering my questions without skipping details. One thing that I was looking forward to was picking up a Walthers catalog... he said he did not deal with them due to them never having what his customers wanted in stock and having to wait a good while to have them come in. He also said he didnt like having to meet their minumum order ammount... I can see he issue there, paying for shipping since he didnt reach a certain ammount to apply for free shipping, but hey, thats his issue... One thing I didn't like, the customer standing inline in front of me was paying credit for an item that was not over his $20 limit on all charges... I wanted to say in the worst way that that practice is illegal and also could get his card service pulled if Visa/MC found out he was doing it. (side note to all, there is no such thing as a min. purchase ammount for credit cards. They just get less profit on smaller purchases)... anyways, the guy left and I was able to make my purchase. I'm going to visit a few more shops this weekend and next weekend around my area to get a feel on who I'm going to want to do business with.Ok, I bought the items above not to have my trains running by the weekend, but to give me an idea what the limits are to the track and to get an understanding of the turning radius and so forth, in the next few weeks it will also help me in designing my layout. I'm going to buy a sheet of the pink foam from Home Depot this weekend so I can also have a better understanding on how it is used in the landscaping portion of this whole mess I'm getting into :)[img]http://www.michiganmustang.com/images/trains.jpg[/img]
Tags (Optional)
Tags are keywords that get attached to your post. They are used to categorize your submission and make it easier to search for. To add tags to your post type a tag into the box below and click the "Add Tag" button.
Add Tag
E-mail Subscribe
Check the box below if you want to receive e-mail notifications when replies are made to this thread.

Receive notifications

Subscriber & Member Login

Login, or register today to interact in our online community, comment on articles, receive our newsletter, manage your account online and more!

Model Railroader Newsletter See all

Sign up for our FREE e-newsletter and get model railroad news in your inbox!

Subscriber & Member Login

Edit topic

Subject

Post Body

Tags (Optional)

E-mail Subscribe

Subscriber & Member Login

Users Online

Search the Community