Stopped into Pat's trains today while driving through the area for work. Couple of things
1. Pat was very friendly, knowledgable, and had plenty to talk about including after the sale was rung up!
2. The inventory in this store blew me away. If I didn't have another 5+ hrs to drive I could have stayed all afternoon just trying to get my head around what was on hand from all manufacturers.
3. Some of you may remember I started a project to "hotrod" a mpc era lionel u36b. Since one of the commentors on that thread mentioned that a williams jeep would fit the lionel shell I brought the shell with me knowing I would stop in at Pat's. As soon as I mentioned this Pat didn't hesitate and had a shell off of one his williams gp's before I could really even ask.
4. Since they are such a good deal right now I ended up with not one but two of the Williams gp's. One for project and one to run as is. There was no hard sell this was completely my idea.
5. For $100 you can't beat the Williams GP9. If I had to pay the original full price I might of balked a bit and I certainly wouldn't have bought two. The TB II horn is kind of annoying, there is no lock out switch for the direction, and the paint scheme on the Reading unit is incomplete. The rear of the unit just has a yellow block where the zebra stripes should be and something isn't quite right on the front nose either. The NS unit on the hand looks great. Kinda like a tuxedo its hard to go wrong with basic black. My intention was to run the Reading unit and Dummy the NS one but know that I look at them both I'm kinda torn. I know it sounds like a lot of complaints in the middle of a compliment but hey- I'm a mechanical engineer, I spend my whole life being picky and sweating details. But again, $100 for a two motor, flywheel unit with horn and bell = hard to beat.
6. Getting back to the service at Pat's the Reading unit lead truck pilot frame looked kinda wonky - it just wasn't level. Pat disassembled the truck on the spot, found a burr from a drilled hole that was keeping it from seating correctly, removed the burr and reassembled the everything right away. Again it wasn't anything I had to ask for it just happened.
Thanks for a top notch hobby shop visit Pat. Now I need to go work some OT in case I end driving thru Wheeling during business hours again.
JZ.
