Special Orders & Pre-Orders
We do our best to show a wide variety of model railroad products on our website. However if we published every model railroad product available to us, our web store could become cluttered and it could be difficult to find in-stock products or the most popular products you may be looking for.
Special Orders
We are always happy to try and help you find what you need for your model railroad. If you have found a product that you would like and cannot find it in our online store, just get in touch and we will do our best to bring it in for you at the best price possible.
For most out of stock products or products not listed on our website, we can have it in your hands within 2-3 weeks if it comes from our North American manufacturers or distributors (including Marklin, Trix and LGB) . For European products we can generally have it within 2-6 weeks depending on the manufacturer.
What can we special order?
A great resource is the current Walthers Model Railroad Reference guide (or the Walthers website). This book is a massive catalog of everything available from Walthers, the largest model railroad distributor in North America. We are often able to offer a 5-20% discount off the MSRP prices shown in the Walthers guide as well (after conversion from USD).
Other sources of product include the major train manufacturer websites such as Athearn, Atlas, Rapido, ScaleTrains and others as well as the accessory and scenery manufacturers such as Woodland Scenics, Faller, and Noch. These websites will often show what the manufactures have in stock from past runs and what is in production for later release (see pre-orders below).
What can’t we get?
Some ‘hobby’ and smaller manufacturers do not sell to distributors or dealers, preferring to offer their products direct to customers through their websites. In these cases it would actually cost more for us to bring in the product as we would likely have the same product, shipping, and import costs but have to add in some profit margin to keep our lights on.
Pre-Orders
We try to post most of the pre-order products from brands such as Rapido, Marklin, and others where pre-ordering can often be necessary just to get a product on release. If you see a newly announced or yet-to-be released product on a manufacturer website, and would like one brought in for you, just get in touch. If the manufacturer or one of our distributors still has the product available we can reserve one for you on release.
Payment for pre-orders and special orders
In most cases we will not ask for a deposit for a pre/special order if you have come into the store or contacted us via email/phone. For pre-orders placed online, our website will take a small refundable 5% deposit. When the product arrives in-store we will send you an invoice for the balance that you can easily pay online.
For some higher-priced or very unique special orders we may request a larger non-refundable deposit be placed at time or order. At this time we do NOT charge restocking or cancellation fees if you change your mind.
Shipping Costs for Pre-Orders
To get the most accurate advance shipping costs for your pre-order, please place individual orders for each pre-order item (or similar pre-order products). If you have a pre-order item mixed in with a number of other products available to ship right away then the shipping shown may not accurately reflect shipping costs when your pre-order arrives. Similarly if you submit a pre-order of multiple products which may arrive at different times then our site may not be able to calculate each individual shipping cost. Please understand that we do not try to profit off shipping and are only trying to cover our costs.
Pre-Order Prices
We post all our pre-order prices in Canadian Dollars to avoid confusion regarding exchange rates with the US Dollar and Euro. However we do reserve the right to adjust our pricing on delivery of products If the Canadian Dollar has fallen more than 5% since the pre-order was received, product costs are changed to to tariffs or duties, or the manufacturer has adjusted their pricing.
The growing importance of pre-orders!
More and more, manufacturers of locomotives and rolling stock are only producing an amount of product based on pre-orders from dealers and distributors in order to keep their inventory and warehousing costs down. What this means for consumers is that many popular products will sell out at the manufacturer before they even arrive on dealer’s shelves. Customers who have not pre-ordered a product are increasingly finding themselves unable to purchase a product they wanted on release. While we try to order extra store stock on ‘hot’ products, these often sell very quickly just before and after release. Examples include many recent Rapido products such as the 2024 CPR Hudson ‘Empress’ steam locomotive, Rapido GMD-1s, as well as many limited production products by ScaleTrains, Atlas, and others. If there is a product you would like to ensure you get on release, please consider pre-ordering to avoid disappointment!