Jason's Train Shop

According to his website, he is supposed to be open until 9:00 PM tonight. Wouldn't hurt to try calling again.

His hours were changed week before last, was only open in evenings week before. I spoke with him last Friday About an order. All seemed well. 

Jason's is indeed alive and well. He changed his hours. I was there on Sunday. I believe he is working an other job now which caused his hours change. Nice guy, good prices and very helpful.

Had to get another job, eh.  How To Make A Million Dollars With A Model Train Store - start with two million.

 

Pete

Glad to hear all is well.  I had spoken to him a week ago Friday as well - to place an order, and haven't heard anything since.  I've called everyday since then and have not gotten through.  

Yeah I talked to him last friday as well about finding out about shipping on an item I ordered. Called him even today still no response.

In this economy.......maybe he got laid off from his own store.

Please post if you ever get through to him - not sure what is going on.

I talked with Jason a week ago Friday about a preorder that has been shipped by MTH.  He said he had them and would ship last week.  As of today still no shipment.

 

Over the past few months it has been difficult to contact his business and he hasn't done what he said he would.

 

I have other preorders that I'm beginning to wonder if I should cancel and look elsewhere.  He failed to ship one item that I preordered months ago and said he didn't get it from MTH.

 

Hope all is well, but the signs are disturbing.

 

 

I have sent emails and left messages. No replies what so ever.  I tried to call and leave another message earlier the week but the mailbox was full. I have some items preordered with Jason and I'm really starting to wonder If I need to consider preordering those items some place else. 

 

Sunrise

Definitely not a way to run a business.   

Jason is a great guy, done plenty of business with him, I hope all is well with him

They say misery loves company - not saying that's good but it makes me feel a bit better to know my situation is not unique.  I placed my order a week ago Friday for items he said were in stock, got an order number, and was told it would go out Mon or Tues.  Since then - nothing.  The message machine was accepting messages Wed, so I left one, and have sent several emails, all without response.  I know he posted limited hours for this past week, but I called repeatedly on the days he listed he was open, and haven't been able to get through, including all day today.  

He did mention to me something about having a second job - hope things haven't got overwhelmed.  My card hasn't been charged, but I'd like to know one way or another if he will make good on the order, or if I should go elsewhere.  Don't want to buy elsewhere, and have his order show up out of the blue.  Need to speak with him.

 

If anyone lives near his store, maybe they could let him know that several of his internet customers need to hear from him.

I decided last year to exclusively stay with Charles Ro and MB Klein as I have from the beginning.

Experienced too many issues with other dealers I rather not comment on.

I do miss Jimmy.

 

S.

I have dealt with MB Klein, and have had excellent experiences, but they only stock limited MTH Railking locos, and I don't believe they do pre-orders (could be wrong).  I was attracted by Jason's claims about MTH stock and pre-orders.  Just want closure now to move forward, one way or the other.

 

I hope we have other reliable choices than MB Klein.  I see good deals on Trainworld and Nassau - anyone have good experiences at either of those 2 places?

 

I have ordered from Jason in the past, and always received top-notch service. 

 

His website now posts the following store hours, which appear to be consistent with those saying he's now working another job.  It would also explain folks not being able to connect with him if they're calling during daytime hours.

 

SUN:  1pm-5pm

MON:  Closed

TUE:  Closed

WED:  Closed

THU:  6pm-9pm

FRI:  3pm-9pm

SAT:  10am-5pm

 

I certainly wish Jason all the best.  These are not easy times to be making a living selling trains -- not to mention the fact that Jason became well-known for VERY attractive price-points.  But more often than not, you just can't make it up in volume. 

 

David

 

 

I saw those hours (I thought they were temporary for this past week), so I only called during hours he said he'd be open - no luck.  

 

I wish him well as well, since he did seem very nice the one time I was able to reach him, and his prices were attractive.  However, succeeding in any business means, among other things, communicating with your customers and doing what you say you'll do.  Not answering the phone (especially since that is how he takes orders), letting the message box stay full, and not following through on promised deliveries is not the recipe for success.  IMHO, if you can't do those things, you might need to rethink your business strategy. 

 

I have purchased from Jason several times and never had an issue.  I have been to his original store a couple times and try to stop in if I'm driving back from Pittsburgh.   I also go to Just Trains (30minutes away)and M B Kleins. (45minutes away).  What I find disturbing is people come on this forum and trash his business.  This is about the third time this subject has come up. 

 

I can't speak to previous posts, but I don't think anybody is trashing anybody here.  Conversely, I went to Jason based on positive comments I saw here.  I'm just looking for help understanding the situation from fellow hobbyists.

 

 

I've only made 1 purchase from Jason's and all went well, a pleasant experience for me.  It was several months ago and it was an item I could not get from my LHS.  I do hope everything turns out well for Jason and the ones that have orders pending with him.

I've also had trouble getting him on the phone lately.  He has great prices and I hope things get back to normal for him soon.

Looks like he's closing his doors:

 

https://ogrforum.com/t...m-jason-s-train-shop

Apparently not that great for him.

I do not envy anybody in the retail end of model railroad products these days.  The Internet has virtually killed the local hobby shop.  

 

I must admit that I'm a big part of the problem because I buy from whoever I can get the "best" price from, because this stuff isn't cheap to begin with.  It's sad, especially in my HO days I could buy stuff in California or New York much cheaper than three miles from my house. 

 

At least nowadays, I have gone to my local "exclusive" "O" scale train store and asked if they could at least "match" price with an on-line competitor.  They have just been absolutely great to me (TRAIN EXPRESS--INDIANAPOLIS) and I do buy everything, as much as I can through them. 

 

Still, many of the local hobby shops are long gone and/or aren't doing that well.  It's a tough world out there.

I hadn't seen much lower prices anywhere - he was consistently one of the "low price guys" and he was good to deal with beyond prices.   I'm wondering if there were other factors in play?  Johnstown isn't exactly an economic Mecca - you would have to reply on internet business to survive there.   I do wonder how pre-orders affect business, or more specifically, the constant shipping delays that put products back by months.   If you get a hot catalog, and fill a ton of pre-orders, but then you don't see that product until WAY past deadline, it must be really difficult to operate with any sense of predictability.   Seeing as most of the big ticket items are pre-order these days, it's got to really throw a wrench in the works.  Wonder how much pre-order backlog he had?  

 

I myself subscribe to a 10-20% rule.  I will pay up to 10-20% more to deal with a local shop as long as they are pleasant to deal with (if they are not, I invoke the "don't do business with jerks" rule...).   It varies with the item and the vendor, but I get at least that much value out of their service provided that they are serious about actually providing it.  On a $500 item discounted bare bones to $400 online, I'll pay $440-480.  I figure after shipping, the delta winds up being maybe $40-50.  That's cheap insurance if something goes wrong and I need help.   I've found a couple of great brick and mortar shops that are reasonably close, and I go out of my way to patronize them when I can.   I counted Jason's as one of those, although as stated earlier, his were among the lowest prices I came across consistently.  

I have the mth r142 on preorder with him and I wanted to touch base with him to see if he still has my information and I have had no luck getting in touch with him. 

Check his website for the latest store hours... even more limited just to weekend now that Jason has officially announced his retail shop is closing.  

 

David

What a shame. I will try and call him tomorrow according to his hours on his web site. I hope I can still get my set that I preordered in November. 

I had 3 items on pre-order that have been available from MTH for about a month.

 

With the uncertainty of Jason being able to fill pre-orders, and the closing of Jason's Train Shop, I felt it necessary to buy these items elsewhere.

 

I sent Jason a letter asking him to cancel my pre-orders and to NOT ship them.  Trying to contact him by phone may prove to be very difficult given his limited hours.

 

I trust that Jason can overcome his "personal hardships" with a minimum of disruption to his life. My thoughts go out to him.

 

 

I been trying to call all morning since 10am. It's either a busy tone or rings and no answer. I am not sure what's going on. I can get the set somewhere else but I don't want to be charged by him if he decides to ship my order.

Same here. I really don't know what's going on weather he's there or not. The hours say 10am-5pm today, so where is he? I have an SD80mac on order and I am trying to figure out if he has my item or not. Has anyone been to his store today or even recieved any word from him? This is very frustrating, I'd hate to have to go to Johnstown just to confront him.

Just saw that Jason's is closing. 

Sad, good guy. wish him the best.

 

My question is this. Did you pay a deposit? If not, don't worry about it. I'm quite sure he has more on his plate than most of us could stand. Let it go, it's best to avoid any confrontation.

How do you know how much or how little he "has on his plate" any more than I know or any one else around here knows. As I predicted early on in this ridiculous saga, this guy was going the way of AM Hobbies On Line. Same MO. Don't take any customer calls, Stonewall whenever you can, put out as many misleading statements through third parties as possible and finally intimate some tragedy to bring out all the bleeding hearts on the forums. What a bunch of ****.

 

JMHO, as usual.