Update May 2024
Another super successful winter train season is winding down.
I have known for years how terrific train guys have always been. Below is a reprint from our last home page update regarding the issue that we experienced.
As most all of you know, we are a very small company, and as such have not been as attentive to the accounting portion of our business as we should have. What we recently discovered was that all orders placed on our web site from March 2023 through February 2024 there was a major error in the payment portion of our site. The situation was that if someone placed an order and paid for the order using the credit card option (not with pay pal) their order was processed and forwarded to our shipping department as being paid and to go ahead and ship. Due to an error somewhere, we never received the money for those transactions, and the customer was never charged for the sale on their credit cards. If the customer ordered using Pay Pal, the funds from Pay Pal did go through to our account.
This error resulted in a loss of sales dollars to the tune of many thousands of dollars. We followed through by sending emails to those customers who unbeknownst to them never actually paid for the items they purchased. If the customer’s attitude was “tough luck buddy, there was nothing else we could do. What happened as a result of our contacting those customers that this happened to was completely amazing! We recovered over 90% of the lost monies, solely due to customers voluntarily contacting us and voluntarily paid the money to us to the point we recovered over 90% of the money we lost. There are no words I can come up with to express how grateful we are! To those who were involved a simple thank you does not seem to be adequate. You guys are incredible.
SOOOO….
More new stuff in the works.
- Our Gunrunner circuit breaker kits have taken off like a skyrocket! The only issue with them is they do not work very well with transformers that are under 140 watts or so, We have developed a new model that has a pair of smaller circuit breakers that will work perfectly with the smaller transformers.
- Super O track stuff. Recently we have seen a renewed interest for Super O track. As a result, we now have added these to our line sheet. Be a while before we have them on our site. One of the very few issues we have with this line is with their switches, they don’t seem to hold up very well. We now will be offering our O22 and some of the O27 switches that will work with Super O.
- 5100 series O72 switches issues. When new they work quite well. Ater some time some of them develop problems. Sluggish operations, ½ complete movements, and total failure seems to be the issues. The root of these problems always come back to their internal slide switches. We have developed solutions to these issues and will be soon posting a new tech tip on how to bring them back to life. So if you have some bad ones don’t throw them out, help is on the way.
- The original Z and V model Lionel transformers were and still are the most powerful transformers ever built. But no whistle controls. Lionel external models frankly, are not very nice. They rob a lot power from the transformer and break a lot. We are designing a new external whistle control that is similar to the one K line offered.
- Did you know that most all the X or Cross tracks we modify so they will work if they are used for 2 loops.
- A customer called and asked if we could make a device that he could switch 2 transformers that are hooked to separate loops one transformer is an original KW the other a modern MTH. Why? He wanted to operate his newer MTH engines on either line, and required the MTH transformer. We designed a simple switchbox that would do that. Of course, we added our new circuit breakers to the box also. A simple switch would allow either normal straight thru operation or swap the transformers. Is this something we should consider adding to our line?
Well spring is here and lots of including me, are dusting off the fishing rods and putting the cushions on the lawn chairs. Yup trains are super important to all of us, but so is getting to know mother nature once again! Enjoy the summer.
JUST REMEMBER!
“YOU DON’T GROW OLD FROM PLAYING WITH TRAINS. YOU GROW OLD WHEN YOU STOP PLAYING WITH TRAINS“
Our shipping address is: TinMan N7555 Hoffman Lane Gresham WI 54128
TinMan AKA Rich 262-914-0057 or MS Tinman(Christine) 262-417-4237 tinman@tinman3rail.com