Does anyone have any experience with this repair service. I have had a repair there since January. They will not respond to my calls or e-mails.
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Looks like they have a legitimate web site. I was going to suggest that you take a drive there, but I see you are quite a distance to warrant that.
The Train Doctor can always be seen at train shows in the NJ area. Don't get me wrong. Rem's a good guy. I can't speak negatively about his work because we're both in METCA and I personally haven't had him do work for me. From what most people tell me, he does good work but at the same time he does poor work. He does things differently then other repair specialists would. For instance the way Joe Mania (another NJ based train repairman) would repair a Lionel postwar locomotive could be a completely different process then the way the Train Doctor does it. Everyone has their own way of doing things.
I won't say that one repair service is better than the other, but in my short time in this hobby there are two people who have always come through. There's Jay's Train Repair in Somerset NJ. And of course Joe Mania who owns JLM Toy Train Reproductions and Restorations. Now personally, I mainly use JLM. Just a personal preference as he's done work for me in the past and actually is working on five pieces of my equipment now.
As for the Train Doctor. I would keep trying to contact him. He might be busy with other repairs but it's hard to say. Good luck.
I would never discredit a repair person here unless they did a repair service for me. Rem is a good guy and probably works as hard as the rest of us.
I just have a personal preference to 4 repair folks:
Joe Mania of JLM Trains in Freehold, NJ
Dave Decker of Roundhouse Repairs in Jackson, NJ
Pat Rolland aka 03raledale here on OGR in Philadelphia, PA.
Bill Serratelli who works for Atlas (friends with him and his dad)
Just my opinion.
Thank you for the suggestions for other repair services.
As for the Train Doctor. I would keep trying to contact him. He might be busy with other repairs but it's hard to say. Good luck.
I don't care how busy a repair guy might be.
He's had this guy's train since January and cannot take a moment to reply with a status.
Very lame.
C W Burfle posted:As for the Train Doctor. I would keep trying to contact him. He might be busy with other repairs but it's hard to say. Good luck.
I don't care how busy a repair guy might be.
He's had this guy's train since January and cannot take a moment to reply with a status.
Very lame.
Hey the only reason I'm not saying more is because Rem's a good guy. I'm not going to criticize his work when I haven't had him do work for me. Obviously you can see I'm dancing around this and trying to be as nice as possible when referring to Rem and his business.
Plus he gave me free track and extra transformers a few weeks ago so there's my incentive not to bash his business.
This is why I appreciate this forum so much. Thanks to all of you that have responded I am feeling a little more at ease. It appears from what I am reading here is that he is still in business, and there are people here that know him. This was the true purpose of my post. However, I am not sure what to think about the absence of a written or verbal response from him. If he is that busy and doesn't have time to fix it, and doesn't want to tell me, then send it back to me!
Just got a response. Even though the estimate for repair seemed reasonable, I have had enough. This was exhausting. I asked that I be billed for the bench fee as well as shipping back to me. For this is what I agreed to when I sent it in. Thank you to anyone who may have helped with this.
