Model Train Stuff shutting down?

I saw it on FB today. Bummer. I bought lots of stuff from them over the years. I noticed that the offerings were slimming down recently, so I am not really surprised they shut down.

@Dave Warburton posted:

This notice came up in my Facebook feed yesterday so I am passing it along. I have no reason to disbelieve it, but…

I thought it might be of interestto some of you.

You’ re a little late to the party. Here are a couple of threads where you can get caught up on all the gory details.

M.B.Klein is closing their store Dec 15th....going to online only.

More Issues on Our Hobby, from the UK

@Training Wheels posted:

You’ re a little late to the party. Here are a couple of threads where you can get caught up on all the gory details.

M.B.Klein is closing their store Dec 15th....going to online only.

More Issues on Our Hobby, from the UK

Yes, I see that. This notice that I just published appeared on Facebook yesterday. CTT just published this same notice a few minutes ago. . I think it is referring (adding) that the mail order sector of their business is closing as well as the retail?

Total shutdown per their website.

https://www.modeltrainstuff.com/

Yep, apparently they got nuked after Hatton's bought them and then crashed and burned and took Model Train Stuff with them.  BUMMER!

Came as a surprise to me, I purchased some items from them in December, received them promptly.

Looking for another item and checked their website yesterday only to see they're closed!

M.B Klein was my go to train store when I got back into the hobby 21 years ago.   I loved their downtown Baltimore location!  Their old funky building had a plethora of charm.    I knew their shelf inventory so well that I'd help other customers,  who were looking for a particular item, when Klein's employees were busy helping a customer.  Over the years I got to know employees and developed a friendly relationship with them.  They were always so helpful and willing to spend time answering questions and giving sound advice.  I bought several locomotives and much other train stuff for my layout from M.B.Klein over the years.  It's sad they are no more.  

Once Klein moved to Cockeysville, the vibe in the new store changed, however,  the store continued to be busy with lot of customers, especially on weekends.  

@Dave Warburton posted:

This notice came up in my Facebook feed yesterday so I am passing it along. I have no reason to disbelieve it, but…

I thought it might be of interest to some of you.

This had already been under discussion in two other current threads as well as earlier threads.

Again, Hatton’s Model Railways, a large online retailer based in Liverpool, England, bought M.B. Klein/Model Train Stuff last fall, but didn’t make any grand announcement. Rumors started circulating about MTS’s future, and Hatton’s responded to questions by acknowledging the Maryland warehouse was closing and operations would be moved to Nebraska.

Then suddenly, in early January, Hatton’s posted this on their website as part of a “Closing Down Sale” FAQ page concerning Hatton’s itself:

• The company is NOT insolvent. The company is being wound down in an orderly fashion, leaving no outstanding debts.

• Changing market conditions have had a large impact on the business, we have seen this in declining customer numbers, changing customer demographics and supply chain disruption.

• Increased cost of compliance has become a large factor. Brexit, GST and other operational costs of running an international business have all increased dramatically over the past few years.

• We do not have an exact date for closing down as of yet. We will be communicating this in the coming weeks.

No mention was made then about MTS.

Then, just as suddenly earlier this week, MTS posted a message on its home page that the business was in the process of restructuring and had suspended operations in the process.

By midweek, that message was shockingly changed, indicating the business had closed. The word choice, that MTS “had ceased trading,” is clearly very British, so there’s little doubt where that announcement came from.

Yes, there are a lot of unanswered questions about the last five months, and Hatton’s, I am told, has not responded to them by those with business-related reasons to be asking them. The biggest: Why did Hatton’s buy MTS if “changing market conditions” and “changing demographics” were present?

One forum member heard that Bachmann, which has a major U.K. product line, would no longer be distributing through Hatton’s. But wouldn’t that be all the more reason to diversify your operations by continuing in a different market, given MTS’s popularity with HO and N scale hobbyists in the U.S.?

We don’t know, and it looks like that won’t change.

A month or two ago they started their "blow-out" sale.  Judging by the pricing, it looked like they were clearing out the inventory that they actually owned.  It was like the stock market, watching the prices vary from day to day.  During a phone call to them, I heard another rep telling their caller that they weren't closing and that they were continuing to operate.  It seems that the family members who inherited it were not business people and that contributed to their situation.  It is never good for the hobby when such a large dealer closes.  They will be missed.  Best wishes to all of their employees.

I live only a few miles away, snapped this shot a few minutes ago…note the iconic tin sign of the B&O Royal Blue Pacific that was on the Gay St store is gone, as well as all the other signage.



My Grandfather was born in 1901 and worked for Baltimore City. Henry was a train nut and shopped at M.B Klein on Gay St. his whole life. Kleins began as a hardware store 111 years ago and quickly morphed into a train shop. Henry took me and my brother there many times as boys. As an adult I worked only a 10 minute walk from the Gay St. location, and probably walked up there once a week during my lunch hour to see what was new in the store. It was my LHS.

They had great customer service. Everything was marked down 10% before it hit the shelves. Their return policy was great, if you weren’t happy with a purchase you could return it for your money back or an exchange if they had another one, no questions asked. I remember I bought the first Legacy Big Boy, there was something wrong with it right out of the box, I took it back and was given another, no questions asked. They also had good repair people in the store.

When they moved out to the County they were good for awhile, until they changed tactics and committed all their space to internet sales and customers could no longer go inside, internet only. Curbside pickup was allowed. But, half the fun of a LHS is being able to shop, and you might walk out with something you didn’t expect to buy. They lost me on that, and then I was like I can buy online via internet from Trainworld, Ro, and Pats Trains out of state, and save the 6% Maryland sales tax I would pay Kleins.

I was shocked by sale, there were rumors for over a year, but I found out about the actual sale in December. The end came quick, the closure of the County location, and movement of inventory to the Nebraska warehouse. But to have the buyer go belly up in January was really crazy.

I don’t know anything, but I suspect something went wrong with the purchase of MTS, and that lawyers are now involved.

Maybe the hobby rags (CTT, OGR, or Trains) will dig and find out the truth of what really happened

In early December, I ordered and received a number of O scale items from Model Train Stuff.  Yesterday, February 2, I received six emails with the subject "We'd love feedback on your recent ModelTrainStuff purchase."  This is over a month and a half after the purchases were delivered.  Strange for an outfit that has stopped trading but I take it they haven't yet turned off their automated email responses to buyers.   I wish they really were interested in my feedback.

The best explanation I have seen so far of what is likely to have happened is from Conrail 1285's website (which also has many photos which are mostly if not all from the old downtown Baltimore location):  https://conrail1285.com/so-what-happened-to-mb-klein/

I think you can safely assume that MB Klein/Model Train Stuff no longer exists as an operating entity in any form or under any new ownership. If someone in a position to actually knows has information to the contrary, I would invite him or her to contact me at my editor@ogaugerr.com email address.

I think the fact that they have shut down is beyond doubt.  What I liked about Conrail 1285's website is that this is the first detailed explanation of I have seen of what probably happened and why.  The dates of the changes in ownership/management coincide with what i experienced as a customer so it makes sense to me.

@PGentieu posted:

In early December, I ordered and received a number of O scale items from Model Train Stuff.  Yesterday, February 2, I received six emails with the subject "We'd love feedback on your recent ModelTrainStuff purchase."  This is over a month and a half after the purchases were delivered.  Strange for an outfit that has stopped trading but I take it they haven't yet turned off their automated email responses to buyers.   I wish they really were interested in my feedback.

The best explanation I have seen so far of what is likely to have happened is from Conrail 1285's website (which also has many photos which are mostly if not all from the old downtown Baltimore location):  https://conrail1285.com/so-what-happened-to-mb-klein/

If you look more closely at the email (which I got too for an N scale kit I bought in December), you’ll see it’s to review the product. So the review of the product has value. Of course, once Model Train Stuff takes down the website, the product reviews go with it into oblivion.

@Jim R. posted:

If you look more closely at the email (which I got too for an N scale kit I bought in December), you’ll see it’s to review the product. So the review of the product has value. Of course, once Model Train Stuff takes down the website, the product reviews go with it into oblivion.

"We'd love your feedback" pretty much says it's for a review.

As far as I can tell, it's useless because there is no way to access it once it's "published."  Publishing the review seems to be equivalent to flushing it down the drain.  I don't see the value.

And now this.

I’m glad that there might be hope for Model Train Stuff, but I’m tired of the repeated vagueness of these website messages.

I would be very leery of doing business with them again after  the latest funny business.

Gunny

Lets give them an opportunity to "return" first before doubting their integrity. With all the shops currently closing it's encouraging to see a shop determined to hang in there........

When the comment is made about the difficulty of the international business today,  what exactly is causing the difficulty?  Do shippers have to pay taxes on a purchase to every country they ship to?  Are there environmental protocols that have to be met to put something in a box and send it across a border? I know shipping costs are a nightmare everywhere, with loss, theft and damage being only part of the problem.  In the live steam world and museum RR's in Britain and California, there have been rumblings in the discussion of them burning coal and the pollution these small operations generate.  The loss of hobby business blamed on 'graying' of the hobby has at its core, a much more complicated cause and effect that goes all the way back to fathers and their presence or absence and how they interact with their kids, plus money to spend on hobby endeavors and not groceries and gas.  In today's world, it seems it is simpler and cheaper to give a child a smartphone and leave it at that.

@gunny posted:

I would be very leery of doing business with them again after  the latest funny business.

Gunny

I'd be super leery until proven otherwise.  It's certainly possible that a scammer could grab onto the site name, it's happened before.

Wonder how you go about proving otherwise? I would not take the suppposed current owners word for it!

Gunny

Per Conrail 1285's website, maybe Intermountain is going to "pick up the pieces" now that Hatton's has folded.  Just speculation on my part, but if Intermountain was interested before, this might have given them the opening and second chance they were looking for.

The Hattons North America LLC  ((corporation) is listed as INACTIVE by the state of Nebraska.

Interesting

I get requests to review a products every time i buy something off the internet or use a service such as ordering food for pick up. A lot of these reviews are handled by third parties. These companies must get paid by the review, if I don't respond I will get another request months later to review the product.

Well ... I can tell you that they informed me that they were going out of business and ordered a stop to their advertising / magazines ... yet I see that they still have the back page (expensive) of CTT.  Interesting ...  I have contacted them in the last day or so with no response.  If they have in fact "returned" (were they ever gone?), then they should be in our magazine and forum because if not, they will be missing out on a large segment of their customer base.

@OGR CEO-PUBLISHER posted:

Well ... I can tell you that they informed me that they were going out of business and ordered a stop to their advertising / magazines ... yet I see that they still have the back page (expensive) of CTT.  Interesting ...  I have contacted them in the last day or so with no response.  If they have in fact "returned" (were they ever gone?), then they should be in our magazine and forum because if not, they will be missing out on a large segment of their customer base.

They cancelled their advertising at Kalmbach, too. But the gone-for-good posting on MTS ‘s website was well past ad deadlines, and efforts at reaching the company to discuss what was happening were unsuccessful. So I guess the ad ran for contractual reasons.

Everyone is still guessing. Sigh. So much confusion for three months now, thanks to Hatton’s.

@Jim R. posted:

They cancelled their advertising at Kalmbach, too. But the gone-for-good posting on MTS ‘s website was well past ad deadlines, and efforts at reaching the company to discuss what was happening were unsuccessful. So I guess the ad ran for contractual reasons.

Everyone is still guessing. Sigh. So much confusion for three months now, thanks to Hatton’s.

Thanks Jim for the much appreciated info!

So it looks like a span of a single season between Hatton's buying MTS and their sudden shutdown. Seems odd that the state of Hattons' finances would be such that buying another retailer would induce a collapse of the whole kit-and-kaboodle three or four months later -- and the due diligence one would expect of an experienced retailer considering such a purchase would fail to unearth potential show-stoppers lurking so near in the future.

---PCJ

Just received this in an email

"

This dovetails with an announcement this week about Rails of Sheffield taking over Liverpool-based Hatton’s in England. My guess is that Rails or Hatton’s completed the transfer of ownership of Model Train Stuff to Factory Direct Hobbies as part of the closing of their U.K. transaction and timed the announcements accordingly. Here’s the link to that deal.

https://railsofsheffield.com/b...5f3_Nd0axrR34.RXkVMS

I’ll say this: Factory Direct Hobbies is a lot more open about communicating such transactions. No vague messages on a website that leave people guessing. I’m not sure what was going on with Hatton’s before and after it purchased MTS/M.B. Klein last fall, but the relative secrecy left a bad taste in my mouth.