An Outsider's View of Who We Are

Mike, maybe they don't have an LHS, so you are their LDHS (Long Distance Hobby Shop)

Problem with his theory is that it overlooks that most of the bigger, well known hobby shops are in the suburbs of well-established cities, or at least relatively close by.  Not to be argumentative, but the point is that these places would not exist where they are unless there was a market for the product in that area.

My list:

Start at  Lowes, HD,

1) ebay,  I knew of nothing else

2) Grew into - Trainworld, and Trainz, Pats, RMT- advertise

3) Joined OGR--- 75 %, of my , locos and cars, from you folks, success and full filling   my desires,and wants

4) ACCES.  - Hogtrainz, Evans, Scenic, Jims Model trains,

My trip to TRAIN LOFT, In Winston- Salem, will be the 1ST, store visit, in over 20 yrs

    THERE ARE not any in EAST TENN !!  -- GOTTA go Last day for Train world July 4th SALE !!

5),  I am a customer of FEDEX, UPS, and USPS priority mail

Hi Mike:

 

Let's see, Boonies or a derivative of the word Boondocks traces it's origin back to the Philippines where military personnel used it to describe remote mountain areas. Today anyone who resides in a rural area can be described by many as one who lives in the boonies. So taking this into consideration, I think your shipping guy makes a valid point. We certainly fit this profile and my guess is that many retirees have moved to the country to get away from the city where they worked for many years in order to have a change in lifestyle.

 

This would be a good subject for a poll. Good subject!!

It's part of the demographics that is a benefit of selling on the auction site. No LHS, long drive to one, etc. So, if I can sit a my computer, find what I want, and have it delivered to me, I'll purchase it that way. Availability, time and travel expenses.

 

It's even more of a benefit if you don't live near a major city or in the US.

 

That's probably all that "boonie" stuff says. No inference of the type of individual.

 

Just my view...

Probably because property is less expensive and you can have a bigger layout. An apartment in NYC really doesn't have much room for a layout and the prices in the surrounding suburbs means you work and commute more, leaving less time for hobbies.

 

Chet

Well I think this UPS guy's observation was that these addresses were  difficult to find on the UPS shipping zone map or whatever...so it's probably safe to assume that we're not talking about suburban bedroom communities to big cities.  We're talking about places where there are dirt roads or houses without street numbers or places where you might see "Mail Pouch Tobacco barns!"  

An interesting observation, and several valid points have been made above. In my case, since I moved to the boonies I am buying a lot more from eBay, the OGR board, and similar sources than I did when I lived in the suburbs of Washington D.C.. Back there there was a decent LHS and I could go to a train show once a month or so, and York twice a year, so that's where I got most of my trains. Out here in "the boonies" (a few miles outside the Tucson city limits), those opportunities don't exist, so I get a lot more deliveries than I did back in Falls Church, VA. 

Yep 'er I reckin' the closesest hobby shop from my shed is two hours! And the mail only comes up here once a week sonny...

 

 

 

It is hard to imagine any US postal zip code that is hard to find!!

Why fool around with visiting a UPS store when you can open an account online with FedEx, UPS or USPS...buy a scale and print out your own shipping labels then just schedule for a pick up or just drop the packages off..and you can save your customers a few bucks 

For what it might be worth, our house in Key West is considered in a rural area by UPS, even to the point they charge a rural delivery surcharge on all packages sent to us there.

 

Now, mind you it is an island, closer to Havana than Miami; However, we do have several million visitors a year, a tiny airport with service to New Orleans, Miami, Charlotte, New York, Washington, and Tampa, 4 live theaters, an Opera company, and on the 2 miles wide by 4 mile long island nearly 200 restaurants including half a dozen James Beard Award winning ones. So I guess UPS's ideal of rural and mine are at odds.

You're right about the zip codes.  Probably more the actual street addresses or locations of some of these towns was what was hard to find.    I know in the past from sending stuff back to PA where my in-laws live....they're in a very small town along the Monongohela, about 45 minutes SE of Pittsburgh.   They didn't have house numbers until a few years ago and shipping stuff out there occasionally was a little complicated.

 

Another thing...maybe his comment about "do all these people live n the Boonies?" was a reflection of how long it would take UPS to deliver a package to "the middle of nowhere" or how much of a surcharge there was to deliver to such a remote area.

 

Too much work!   One more online account to keep track of....one more piece of junk to clutter up my house.    

Another possibility to consider -- since the hobbyists that live in populated areas have more access to LHS's and train shows and meets, they may buy less from individuals online, which in turn means that shipments to private individuals may be more skewed towards the "boonies."  I know that between all the LHS's in the Pittsburgh region, a number of local train shows, and two Yorks, there is only a very few things that I purchase online during the course of an average year.

 

Andy

I'm a example of not having the hobby shop around. Other than super glue and a very limited supply of balsa wood at Ace Hardware I have to order everything though the mail. FedEx and UPS are incredibly high priced to ship here. Only hobby stuff available is paint ball and a few RC planes. Don

Wyckoff, NJ.... Now that is out in the middle of nowhere.

Tell me about it....EVERYBODY Knows This Is Nowhere!  

That's an awful broad generalization.  It's not the amount of space one has, it's what one does with it and personal preferences. 

 

Bet'cha there's quite a few HO and N folks out in the boonies.

 

Rusty

Mike, If you are mailing from New York City, then everything west of the Hudson is the boonies.

 

Pete

Does anybody really care what other people think of our trains? 

I think we qualify as being out in the boonies! 

Funny I would think it was more derived by Daniel Boone and his famed time spent in rural areas. Boonies are people like Boone or places like those he would have spent time, rural and remote.

       

Closest gas station: 8 miles

Closest convenience store: 8 miles (with the gas station)

Closest full line grocery store: 17 miles

Closest 'neighbor': > 300 ft

Closest LHS: > 45 miles

 

USPS, UPS, FedEx: no problem.

 

I buy everything on-line. Shipping is cheaper than gas.

 

I sulked for two weeks when they paved my dirt road.

 

Booney, I am - and lovin' every minute of it.

Don, are you really in New Zealand?  Of your own choosing?  No offense, but I'd love to hear the story.

No, we are in Maui, that was the first map I saw on Google. It shows Hawaii. Don't look at the dotted lines. Sorry. Don

After just returning from the TCA convention, there is nothing from Ohio to St. Louis< just ask my kids!

I lived in Blowing Rock NC which is a (very) small town near Boone NC. We referred to them as 'Boonies'...

 

Would also second the recommendation to have an account with UPS and do your label creating at home or office. It saves about $5 per shipment over using a UPS store or Mailing Center. I use the postal service for most of the smaller items (again online) but when the weight exceeds 9-11 pounds, the difference between UPS and the USPS can be significant with UPS the better deal. I recently shipped a Premiere PS4 steamer to OH and it was $9 cheaper using UPS. Would have been even more if the distance had been greater.

It's been my limited experience, living in NJ and having lived in Ohio and Pennsylvania, that those folks not in our hobby either consider us charming - to have a charming hobby/interest - or they find us to be odd-birds, to say the least. There seem to be many opinions in-between these two reactions, also. The most dubious reaction I ever witnessed was hearing a couple people converse about seeing a man crawl around on the floor connecting his track. Yet, I'm not sure they would have had the same skepticism seeing an adult - male or female - crawl around on the floor fixing a layout under the Christmas tree. But what do I know, I'm in the choir, so I cannot be objective (esp. since I have crawled around on a floor or two getting track ready for a run, before I raised it all up onto a platform for my own comfort and ease and protection for the trains themselves.)

Mike,

Since you are from Wyckoff, NJ, do you ever shop The Train-Station in Mt.Lakes, NJ ?

Bill B.

Well Moonson, I think your a charming odd-bird. 

Don

Like some other items that people shun, mock, or don't talk about, eventually you find out they have one. My wife barely tolerates the trains, then when someone comes to visit, she insists I run them. People who I have known for years eventually approach me to enquire about values and how to go about selling them. Apparently they forgot to tell me they had trains....

i  know a guy who lives so far out in the boonies that when he turns on his radio he gets yesterdays news  lol.  yes he really does live on a dirty road.  you know when you live in the middle of no where when big foot comes over to barrow a cup of sugar.  

Hi Bill.  Yes, I do visit The Train-Station from time to time.  You?  Nice place for Lionel stuff, especially postwar.  Great, helpful, knowledgeable staff.  great repair shop.

 

- Mike

Mike,

It's a long commute for me by auto, but on occasion I visit their on-line auctions.

Bill B.