A Little More Progress On The Richmond Main Street Station

I installed terminal strips and an NCE Illuminator under the baseboard of the T-Trak module and laid a fuil-length strip of Unitrack temporarily along the plaform. I connected this to the main T-Trak modules and made a first test run of a train under power onto the Main St module:

I was delighted that all the Just Plug LEDs worked when I hooked them and the Illuminator up, as their wiring is buried deep in the foamcore shell of the train shed, and they'd have been very difficult to replace.

I was a little surprised that the train shed roof looks so high above the track now that it's been put in place. However, I checked some of my photos, and it does seem to be roughly correct, at least:

I did work directly in N scale from published plans for the train shed on the web, so this may just be a feature of the camera angle. I'm encouraged enough to resume scaling and printing out photos of individual parts of the station structure to glue to the foamcore base.

There's Something Definitely Off About Modeltrainstuff.com

When I first posted about Modeltrainstuff in February, a visitor disagreed in the comments, saying among other things that they offer free shipping for orders over $100. Well, that went away with my last order; apparently they no longer offer this.

If that were the only sign that things have changed, I'd simply grant it and move on, but of course that's another reason they're nothing special now. But in fact, other things are changing, too, and not for the better. One reason I sent them a new order (against my better judgment) was that they were offering Bachmann N DM&IR SD9s for a litlte over $100. Trainworld had a similar special, and I was planning in fact to send for my SD9 from them, but all of a sudden, all the Bachmann SD9s disappeared from Trainworld at once, almost overnight, so Modeltrainstuff was Plan B.

I got my Bachmann SD9, but when I took it out of the box to test it, I found that although the loco would work, and the sounds would function, on DCC using address 3, I couldn't reprogram it with a new address. I tried all kinds of things, short address, long address, program on main, or program track. On the program track I got all kinds of wild messages, but the bottom line was it wouldn't program.

So I reported this to Modeltrainstuff's support portal. I got an immediate reply with an RMA number and a prepaid shipping label to return it. They said they pulled a replacement to send me when they got the first loco back. I packed it up and returned it a day later. I was a little troubled when, a week later, I got an e-mail from the support people saying they hadn't heard from me. I replied saying in fact I'd sent it back, and if they hadn't received it, we needed to get on the problem, but I never got a reply. In fact, a few days later, I got the replacement.

When i tested the replacement (if in fact that's what it was), it had the same problem, worked on DCC using address 3, but I couldn't reprogram the address. My surmise is that all the Bachmann N DM&IR SD9s have the same defect, which is probably why both Modeltrainstuff and Trainworld had them on special, and possibly why Trainworld suddenly took all the Bachmann N SD9s off their site.

I notified Modeltraintuff's support portal of the problem, requested a return label and an RMA, and told them I didn't want a replacemnt, I wanted a credit, since my guess was that all those locos have the same problem.

Then things got flaky. The first support guy, John Weigel, who'd been handling the problem, simply stopped replying. I sent one or two e-mails politely trying to follow up, but several days later, realizing Modeltrainstuff was at best very slow in resolving the problem, and I was stressing out about it, I decided to just dispute the charge with American Express. Why stress over the thing when all I wanted was a credit, and AmEx could give me one just as easily?

Bang, AmEx credited my card by return e-mail -- they didn't just say they'd investigate, which was what they usually do, and credit my account a few weeks later. Nope, they immeidately closed the dispute and gave me the credit. Odd.

A day or so after that, I had an e-mail from another member of the Modeltrainstuff support portal, Cheryl Koblinski, discussing the problem again. I told her about disputing the charge with AmEx and their resolving the issue, but that I wanted to return the loco if she'd send me a prepaid label. I got a day or so of runaround, but no label, so I've still got the SD9, but no shipping label to return it. I told Ms Koblinski that I would interpret this to AmEx, if they asked, that Modeltrainstuff was refusing to send a prepaid return label. She didn't reply.

I sent a hard-copy letter to Modeltrainstuff's director of operations, Frank Wrabel, outlining the problem with names and dates and saying I wanted simply to resolve the problem quickly and courteously, if they'd just send me a prepaid return label. I never got a reply.

At this point, I'm not even sure these people still work at Modeltrainstuff. My experience with the support people in the past had been that they're prompt and respond quickly to messages. This time they didn't. In addition, I'm wondering if they're in such dire financial distress that they don't want to issue credits. Are they stiffing vendors now as well?

I realize that the COVID lockdowns last year hit the model railroad industry hard in general, since even mail order suppliers like Walthers and Trainworld were shut as well as Modeltrainstuff. But Walthers and Trainworld are back to normal -- orders I've sent to Trainworld since reopening last year have ben shipped same or next day. But Modeltrainstuff still has "Please be patient with us due to COVID" messages in its e-mails.

So right now, I have a defective Bachmann SD9 that I've received a credit on, but Modeltrainstuff doesn't seem to care if it comes back. I suppose I'll hang on to it for some period of time, and if I hear nothing more, I'll get around to installing a different decoder in it.

I think back on Carstens Publications's 2014 bankruptcy. They'd apparently been stiffing vendors for some time, and in 2002 I had a tough time getting payment for an article they solicited from me (I finally did get paid). They began to miss issue months, and I heard their printer had put them on a cash-only basis. But when Superstorm Sandy cut their power, that was the end. It sounds like there wasn't a single cause for them to go under, it was a series of things over time.

I'm wondering if COVID hit Modeltrainstuff the same way.

Richmond Main Street T-Trak Module Progress

Just about two years ago, I posted on the start of my project to build a T-Trak module based on the Richmond, VA Main Street station. This has been an on-and-off thing, where I work on it for a while until I get stumped on something, when I move to something else. But then my interest rekindles and I work on it some more.

I wound up finishing the roof on the train shed. I built the basic shed shape using foamcoare with 1/32 basswood sheet for the roof. Plans for the train shed are available on the web.

In the station's current use, only the platform on the east aide is used for passenger trains on Amtrak's route to Newport News. The train shed interior is used by the city as an event venue, so I had no interest in modeling the shed interior and was happy with just the basic shape.

The dimensions of the shed and headhouse avialable on the web show the whole station is pretty compact and a good candidate for an N scale model. Before I started building the model, I dimensioned it to fit a Masterpiece Mudules double-wide recessed deck T-Trak module. The headhouse is small enough to fit just fine in full N scale.

I had to shorten and truncate the train shed, but enough of it is there at full N scale to give a good overall impression.

Over the past week,. I called good enough for now on my train shed assembly and finally ordered a Masterpiece Modules double-wide recessed deck module to put it in. Here's a final view of the underside of the train shed as made up from foamcore:

I installed three Just Plug cool white stick-on LEDs under the roof overhang to serve as platform lights. You can see how the leads are threaded through the deck for attachment to an NCE Illuminator running off the DCC bus underneath.

Below is a view from the top. I was, and am still, concerned about how to handle the 1/32 basswood sheet that makes up the roof. I glued it to the foamcore forms with wood glue and gave it a coat of sanding sealer. The sanding sealer is water based, which caused the sheetwood to warp, but when it dried, it mostly went back to flat. I don't know how I may eventuially finish the roof beyond this, if at all, but for now, I gave the whole thing a coat of Krylon matte black. Prototype photos show the roof as mostly dark gray or black.

And here's the current state of play. For now, I'm continuing to collect photos of the headhouse that I can reducce to N scale and glue to the foamcore basic form as "skin".