Railway Engineering - Help Requested


T

timewellspent

Member
Is anyone here familiar with Steve and http://www.railwayeng.com/ ? I was wondering if he was ill, or something, since I have not been able to reach him. I had placed an order for a single turnout months before I needed it in December, because I knew it would take some time being made to order. We had kept in contact and finally he mailed it out to me several weeks ago, but I never received it. It took several emails before he responded saying that he did not know what happened to it and that he was not able to track shipments. He then wrote he would mail another one with tracking info the next day. That would have been Monday the 12th. I never heard back from him since that Sunday, even after sending at least three emails asking if it had been sent. It is now Saturday and still nothing, no package and no reply.

I am a patient guy. This hobby has taught me that. But, now I am getting frustrated, angry, and looking desperately for a reason not to be. My project has been stalled for weeks now and I really need this specialty switch to do what I need to to. Due to the nature of my layout if I don't get it I am screwed with my current plans. So, I need to know what is going on. Has anyone here heard anything about Steve?

Thank you.
 
I don't know of the company, but it is frustrating when you try to contact someone you bought something from. They were all about responding right away leading up to the sale, but after that, yeah, good luck.
 
This fellow does good work and has a good reputation. So, I don't get it. I mean how hard is it to simply reply to an email. Unless, there is something wrong and that is why I was hoping for some answers here.
 
D&J RailRoad said:
I don't know of the company, but it is frustrating when you try to contact someone you bought something from. They were all about responding right away leading up to the sale, but after that, yeah, good luck.
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I'll second that as well. All is good when your buying but when there issue ... as D&J said, good luck getting any where.

As despicable as it is, if I were you I'd accept (very reluctantly) that nothing is going to come from this other than your loosing money, and try to find what you are after else where. IF this guy does get back to you then go from there but I wouldn't be holding my breathe from the sounds of it.
 
I think Graff hit it on the money here saying that he is off the grid. I just got an email from him. It was also last Sunday when I last heard from him as well, so maybe for whatever reason he doesn't waste his time online, even to check email, but just a few times each week. That is a bit hard to understand with having an online business though. He also mentioned that he lives far from town and wanted the trip to be muli-purpose. I think he may just be on his own and overloaded. In any event and as I hoped it was not malicious. So, hopefully he will get it out to me soon. At least now I know what is going on and there is hope that I will be receiving this turnout. What is special about it is that it is a curved RH in HOn3 code 55. This will save my butt.
 
Glad he got in touch with you finally.

And... just saying... just throwing it out there... I've started making my own turnouts. It's not that hard.
 
KB02 said:
Glad he got in touch with you finally.
And... just saying... just throwing it out there... I've started making my own turnouts. It's not that hard.
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I am very new to all of this. So far I have been learning quite a bit and have been able to create what I have in mind to do. I am happy with my results, but I don't suffer from any illusions. My work is decent for a new guy, but far from that of the more experienced modeler. For now I think that acquiring the right tools and skills to build my own turnouts would be one more new challenge best left as a thought only. Standard off the shelf switches have worked out real well for me and there is just this one that I need that must be made. Right now I am at the mercy of this individual as to when he will finally ship this out to me.
 
The problem with needing a customized piece to complete your puzzle is that you are on someone else's time schedule. The guy is probably a one man band with other responsibilities and customers, so you are stuck waiting for the vendor to complete your work. I have heard of some of these specialists taking a year or more to custom paint and letter a brass locomotive, for example. Narrow gauge further restricts you as vendors are fewer. It might be to your advantage to try and build one of your own, the next time. Not like this is mass production or anything like that.
 
Well, I really wanted to be telling all of you a happy story bringing this to a nice conclusion, but I can't do that. He emailed me twice a week apart that was going to ship out to me the following day, but that never happened. Now, he is not replying to my very polite emails at all. So, I have had quite enough and feel no need to be nice any longer. It has been very apparent that this fellow has no regard, or understanding for my situation, yet he expects limitless from me. I tried one last time to contact him and then have turned it over to PayPal for conflict resolution. I have not only requested a refund, but also some sort of black mark to be placed against this seller to help warn others away. I plan to do the same myself on different message forums. I don't know anything about this fellow, or the possible great work he may have done for others. To be honest I really don't care. I just know of his total lack of consideration and communication shown towards me these last few weeks.

If I had learned to build these myself, would I have had this issue, no. But, most of us outsource something here and there no matter how much we do on our own. And I would think we would hold those vendors just as accountable in similar situations.
 
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