I have used ebay as my main tool for my search in New Old Stock and good used trains. Up til now everything has worked out for me, the New Old Stock was always just that, new trains that were discontinued, just laying around and someone found them in a old hobby shop that closed up or something. The used trains has also been good buys til my recent horror buy. Most of the used trains that I bought has always come from private ebay sellers and most were well taken car of trains from estate sales. There was a Philadelphia Cream Cheese USA Trains reefer car that I wanted and saw it on ebay for only $40 which was more than reasonable, espcially since that one sold for $55 when it was new and was now discontinued. The ad went , USA Trains Philadelphia Cream Cheese reefer, missing ladder trim, other than that it is mint with original box. It had a buy it now option. I aso noticed this was a third party auction place selling this train car on ebay. Not to be confused with auctions such as Auctivia which is a free auction site to assist those who want to sell trains they are not familiar with, but a actual 3rd party auction place and this not the only time I ever saw another auction place sell trains on ebay. So I went for it anyway, let me tell you I was shocked when I got the train car. The only thing that was mint was the box. All of the hand rails that made up the ladder where missing and another 4 hand rails on the other side, All the ice roof hatch locks are broken, there is one lower broken ladder and this car had Aristocraft couplers on it and even one of those were broke. This reefer car was in need of restoration and no where near mint. So first thing I had to do is take the roof off and push all of those broken off hand rail pieces out of the holes, I found by taking a small metal rod and pushing from the inside out, it pops the broken piece out so you can just reinstall a whole new hand rail rather than making a mess trying to glue the old broken one back on or by trying to drill the old one out and oblonging the hole. Next was to buy all of the parts needed to bring this car at least up to like new standards. The first purchase would be a pair of USA couplers at $6.95. The next step would be to buy the USA woodside freight car hand rail kit at $6.95. This does not include the locks for the ice hatches and the ice roof hatch lock kit is another $6.95. Now to buy the correct color lower step kit which is a 6 piece step kit for USA woodside reefer cars at another $6.95 The cost in replacement parts comes to $27.80 to bring this what I would call a parts reefer back to like new standards. Add that figure to the $40 I paid for it at ebay would bring the actual total cost to $67.80 for a rail car that originally sold for $55.00. The only consulation I got was that it did come with USA silver metal wheels which would have added another 12.65 to the price of this rail car if I needed to buy them. The only reason why I restored this reefer is because I really wanted it and this one is the first onle I seen in a long time. My advice, stay away from those 3rd party auctions on ebay, there is a reason why it didn't sell at thier actual auction and they now have it on ebay. Picture of my USA Trains Philadelphia Cream Cheese reefer, came to me in a parts reefer condition, worth no more than $20. You can see in this picture every hand rail on this side is missing, thats because they were all broke off and I had to remove every broken piece out of every hole. I had to do this by removing the roof and from fromt the inside. This took a hour to complete
i would have files a not as described claim and got my money back left the proper feedback as well..... BUT as you said you wanted this car so all's well that ends well i bought something from a seller (i sell it now or something like that now) off of ebay. and had a problem, the store photos the item and a kid takes a breif note about the item then lists it. they dont know anything about what there selling :thumbs_down:
bigford, Yes I have seen that 3rd party vendor you mention every once in a while in the G scale section in ebay. I'm going to give the 3rd party auction on ebay a chance to give me at least a $20 refund, if not I will give them a neutral instead of a negative only because I did keep the rail car
I'll check with my local hobby shop to see if I can find replacment handrails for you for that reefer. I'd hate to see a bad auction ruin part of your collection.
Sorry for the slow response and much appreciated for thinking of me. I have been working alot of OT, so I only had time to read in the last 2 weeks. I found a bag of hand rails I saved from about 4 years ago and forgot about them, I finally got my hatch release locks last week when I was real busy, just didn't have time to instal them, but all is ok now. I gave this ebay seller a nuetral, probably deserved a negative, but now I see they have the Rio Grande MOW kitchen and Bunk car I have been looking for. This is the first time I have seen these in many years.
