Side Track Hobbies

Side track Hobbies are good people have purchased things from them and are very good at helping you out.  Best of luck to them.

 They are a class act and as a friend says, "Al is the best dressed guy in the toy train business." 

 

Really?   I got to wear my Tux at York!

 

Best of luck Al! Charlie...

Lots of happy memories doing business with them at Monroeville.

Side Track Hobbies is alive and well...  I have enjoyed talking to Al at both York and over the phone.  Always a very good conversation....

 

Alan

I received the same post card. I hope they don't go to much smaller. They are great to do business with.

Didn't someone here  on this forum, supposedly knowledgeable about it, fairly recently say that Sidetrack is going to 'concentrate' on their on-line/web business and less on their walk-in store?

 

- walt

Gerry,

 

I bet that your friend who said that "Al is the best dressed guy in the toy train business" must be extremely smart and good looking.

 

It might alos be nice if you sent me a Trainstock 6 hat.

 

Charlie,

 

Al may be the best dressed guy in the toy train business, but you, Chris and co. are the best toy train dealers/hobby shop owners in the business. How's that for high praise?''I'll be calling for my large discount tomorrow.

 

Erol Gurcan

AND... their new display layout at York was really nice.  It certainly enhanced the visit(s) to their booth

 

 

 

Ed

I was at Side Track last weekend and there were some bare shelves with lots of boxes stacked up in the back.  Looks like mostly new old stock (PW/MPC) that has been removed.  I talked to them a bit but didn't learn much so I'm not going to speculate.  They did say the attic of Al's new True Value store is much smaller than the current Side Track store, so things need to go.  They are also dropping their RC aircraft and probably their RC car lines, which were expanding.

 

I hate seeing him move out of the store; it is huge with a lot of product.

 

Ron

I looked on their web site for the sale list but there is only one item. Did I miss something?

Go to the search, and look at their stock. It appears that Al has put the entire stock on sale! I know I'll be making a trip south next week!

Thanks Jim, there are some excellent prices.

Unlike their prior recent sales where products were discounted X% across the board, this sale is a bit more selective.  Prices you see listed on the website ARE the sale prices... whereas with prior post-card sales, the actual sale prices were discounted another 5% or 10% off the website prices.  So this sale is a bit of a hit-or-miss proposition... luck of the draw, so to speak.  Some stuff has been discounted (over 8,000 items according to the post-card) from earlier selling prices, while other items are still the regular website prices.  YMMV.

 

David

Al has always been a pleasure to talk with and he's been a good source for me to find that hard to get item for me!

I received the same card. I didn't think anything of it and neither should anyone else. Sometimes a change in location is needed when an attempt is made to focus on a new business goal. They will continue to have my business as a show of support for them. 

I'm looking forward to something special to end all of the speculation. 

Not sure what all the speculation is about here on the forum lately, but I guess it's only human nature.  For gosh sakes, we had the inference of Charlie Ro "selling the business" the other day just because he's been sending "collection special" emails lately.  Where do people jump to these conclusions???   

 

Same thing is going on here with unnecessary worries of downsizing.  Real estate is expensive.  No big secret there.  Wasn't that long ago that Sidetrack Hobbies "lived" above the hardware store, and here we have signs that it's returning back to its roots.  Probably just a healthy reaction to more business coming from online / mail-order vs. retail walk-in traffic.  Nothing more... Nothing less.  So I don't in any way view this "inventory reduction sale" as any type of "going out of business" sale.  In fact, as I pointed out earlier, many of the items on the website -- especially the ones I'm looking at  -- are still regularly priced!!! 

 

David

 

 

Heading to Southern Maryland for Memorial Day weekend on the water.

 

I'll be stopping in at Sidetrack Saturday to load up!