Brooklyn Locomotive Works (BLW)?

I always pictured that BLW was a busy retail store packed with all kinds of cool stuff.

Russ

 

I knew he didn't have a store, but my picture has him running this out of a garage or his basement. The neighborhood must love the steady flow of UPS trucks if that's the case....again only my guess though. :tb-wacky:

 

Right on the $$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$
You nailed it.

 

I have dealt with:
Wig Wag
BLW
Feather River
InternetTrains
A few others that advertise on trainboard.
All of them have given me from pretty good to superb service and I would deal with any and all of them again if they had what I wanted.

Disclosure: I now work for Pacific Western Rail Systems - that does not advertise on trainboard. I buy most but not all of my N Scale equipment from them.

 

Before the internet, his catalog could be a 1 or 2 page flyer, like the
old Rio Grande. Earlier this year Pete posted an apology on his web
site, in which he hoped that his medical issues were taken care of
and he would be able to keep the web site up to date and take care of
the customers. I placed an order this morning [ Dec. 8 ] and he confirmed
it and it will ship on Monday.

 

I've ordered from Pete 10 or 12 times in the past 2 years. Every order was in my hands in 5 days or less. His MTL Special runs are slap dang fantabulous! My last order for the tank car runner packs was ordered on 5 Dec and delivered on 8 Dec. I've never had to try to contact Pete, so have no comment on that.

Mike and Robin at WigWag have called me to straighten out my mistakes, Chuck at Feather River has also been easy to deal with. Wayne at 4Nscale has been very responsive to me and gets the majority of my business.

Bob

 

I have been doing mail order from BLW & Pete way back when he sent out his pocket sized catalogs once a month in the early 80's. If I sent by mail and order in at the beginning of the week,I would recieve it the same day the following week. Pete gets my mail order bussiness 100% of the time,no ifs ands or buts,No need to order from anyone else.





Disclosure: I do not work for BLW - thay don't advertise here on trainboard. I buy all of my N Scale equipment from them.

 

I remember those old advertising flyers. I used to order from BLW once a month, saving everything up for that time. I had not thought about them stopping because of the internet.

Several years ago, I received a phone call about 9:00 pm on Saturday night. Pete had a question about an order he was packing, so he called me. That is a lot of dedication, IMHO.

I am glad Pete is okay; he sure does work hard. Does anyone have a picture of the location of the store? I think it would be interesting to see.

 

FWIW, I placed an order last night (Sat.) this morning there was a confirmation that the order is ready to be shipped.

 

Thanks for the tip, Bob! I had never, ever heard of 4Nscale. Went to their site just now and see that they offer a huge selection of products.

BLW just shipped our order. Pete wrote and apologized for not communicating, saying that there had been a perfect storm of problems (not his words) on his end. He the man...

While people are listing e-tailers that they like, I don't want the Fifer Hobby Shop left out. One of the owners is on Trainboard. I've always gotten extremely rapid service from them and no problems. Their prices are fair and they carry things I can't find elsewhere. The only problem I ever had with them, they assumed the blame and made it right very fast--even though they suspected it had been my error.
And so, as I later learned, it was. :tb-wacky:

 

I am delighted that all of you are getting confirmations, e-Mails and telephone calls. I wish that I could get a simple 'yes' or 'no' reply, by e-Mail, to my e-Mail that asked about the status of my order.

If he has been ill, I am sorry to hear it, but it seems that some of you gentlemen have gotten replies that I have not received.

This would be my first time ordering from them and they have not made a very good impression.

 

You know,
Its possible Pete never got it & its floating around cyberspace.

 

If Pete was having a perfect storm of problems, I'm sure it's because of Xmas and other things that we don't know about. The people he contacts will be the people whose orders he has managed to fill. Apparently--for some reason--he has had trouble with yours. Mine was a difficult order. I didn't order some common Kato engine, but a Tichy work train that no one else but Pete seemed to sell. You never know what the story is. Maybe it has something to do with what low prices he offers, making it not so easy to pick up hard-to-find items sometimes. And now we know that in general Pete doesn't seem to communicate until he fills an order and gets ready to ship it. I never knew this before, but how could I? Before, he has always shipped the next day, regular as rain.

I think you can sit back and relax, confident that he will fill your order come hell or high water. It's up to you if you decide not to order from him again, but I can tell you it will be your loss.

 

I always get a confirmation of my order from Pete. In fact I got two PCM M1's ordered from him since August 4, 2005. I know I will never see them but that ain't Pete's fault. And no I don't want to go there.

 

Had I ordered a Walthers diorama kit (which seems to be hard to find unless you go direct to WKW), a J'n'J B&O bay window caboose and a Kato JNR 2-6-2, I might expect a wait.

I ordered a WKW 0-8-0 and a LL DL-109; not exactly obscure items. Both showed 'in stock' when I ordered them.

And no, I would not blame someone for failing to ship vapourware; he cain't send what he ain't got 'n' ain't seen nor hearduh, neither.

 

I ordered my xmas gift for myself right after the NE, pitt game around 7:30 EST last eve. and recieved a confirmatiom this morning Have you guys installed a software block or something that you can't recieve his email?

 

There are numerous reasons for emails not getting through. Ask me and another TB member who cannot send/receive emails, one of whose ISP's is apparently to blame. And I had a problem with another optonline.net subscriber. For months we were unable to send/receive emails. Another is Spam filters. Once Pete put me in his address book I have had no unanswered emails.

This doesn't explain the failure to get a telephone response. But it is a busy season so keep trying. Or just be patient until after all Kato GS-4 reservations are completed.


Ben

 

At the risk of whatever, here goes.

Unless a retailer has outright stolen from you (taken the money or charged the charge) and then does not deliver or does not respond to inquiries, I think we do more harm to retailers here by posting and adding to threads like this. There will always be problems with anyone in business. I would hate to see the damage done to any particular retailer because of negative posts, warranted or unwarranted, short of complaints about outright theft.

Then, of course, there are the always present "I buy from .... and he is the greatest in the world... " responses or threads. You know something guys, you place an order, you ain't happy, you learned your lesson with that retailer and you don't order from him again. Move on.

 

Good point. But it is not only us members of no rank involved. Note the posts by staff members and administrators. Maybe one could just delete the thread. No, wait, that may cause more trouble than the thread itself.


Ben

 

I was concerned about my order also. I tried e-mails, faxes and calling both numbers, which were always busy. I just called now to see if the lines we busy after hours (8:30PM EST) and Pete answered the phone. He confirmed my order was shipped and provided a tracking number. He explained they are buried with holiday orders and behind with responding to e-mails, but shipping orders is getting top priority. I now see my order was shipped immediately, but I did not receive a shipping confirmation, only an order confirmation. I would try calling around 8:00-8:30PM EST to see if you can reach Pete about your order. I get the impression they are doing everything to complete orders in a timely manner.