Update
Hi everybody! Even in Wisconsin, spring is on it’s way, the snow is fast disappearing, and the lakes are thawing. For lots of our families of train hobbyists, tis time to pack up the trains, and get outside to enjoy the coming of warm weather. We are starting a new program on our site that should be a lot of fun. It is called “Train Stories”.
We so much enjoy talking with many of you about what you are doing with your layouts, their history of model trains, how you got started, what original layouts were, and you current layouts are etc. So we decided to dedicate a portion of our site to folks that would like to share their stories. In the section you will find our 1st 2 stories, along with a link where you can email your personal stories you would like to share. Because of concerns of privacy, we think it is a good idea to only publish your first names and last name initial. Pictures are fine. Should be a lot of fun! I am not aware of anything like this being done before other than folks that have giant complex layouts. My grandson who designs our site tells me we have had 100’s of thousands of “hits” so there should be lots of stories out there! Wanna hear bout yours!
What a season this has been! Record sales of our TinMan tracks. Our research on train and transformer protection has resulted in our introducing circuit breaker kits for both trains and accessories. Their sales took us by surprise and sold out several times. Many thanks are due to our suppliers who made extra efforts to supply us with needed parts very quickly.
Our last new item we are now producing is a new switch (or turnouts if you prefer) controller, that we have named our Sam G controller. It is designed for any switch that normally has lights on their controller. So here it is:
Looks very similar to our original except for the switches that determine which way you want the switch to change to.
The switches that control the which way the switches move has been changed. You will notice, they no longer point to the LED’s, but are normally straight up. That is because they are now what is called momentary action switches. How they work is the same as the original Lionel flip lever switch controller, where you push it in the direction you want the switch to turn to and when you release it, they go back to the center. This was done at a request from Sam who prefers the action of the 2 switches be completely independent of each other. The center blue push button has been changed to a push button toggle switch. Push it once and the switch turns power on to a new cable (the green one) push it again and it turns off the power to the green wire. We changed the cable that goes to the transformer to a heavy duty 4 conductor wires. The blue wire can now be hooked to any independent power source you wish. Can be used to power accessories, or spur tracks. The cables are heavy enough to power even the biggest trains. We are not positive how well this will be received so it is being offered as a no extra cost option.
Tis been a long winter, with many 7 days a week, 10 and 12 hours a day producing products to meet the needs of our customers.
Through the process we have come to realize, our bookkeeping system we have been using just does not cut it. Many orders were late, some requests got lost in the shuffle. This spring/summer season we are dedicated to improving on these issues. Will be adding some new software, and changing many procedures to correct the problems encountered. Any suggestions would be appreciated.
TinMan AKA Rich 262-914-0057 or tinman@tinman3rail.com
Our shipping address is: TinMan N7555 Hoffman Lane Gresham WI 54128