It just occurred to me as a new member of this Forum how tremendously helpful it is to the hobbyist in many different ways.
Some of these ways are obvious : great place to get technical information; great way to make friends; great place to buy and sell trains; another great way to express one's creativity.
Some ways are not so obvious, one of which inspired this post. Let's say you bought a train from someone and it is defective. One way to motivate the seller to replace or fix the defective train is to nicely mention that you belong to an On Line Forum and network with many, at least hundreds and maybe thousands or tens of thousands, of O Gauge model train enthusiasts in the US, Canada, The United Kingdom, Finland and other countries.
This won't work every time, but if I was the seller and heard that remark, and I wanted more business, I would move heaven and earth to help solve the problem with your train.
This idea probably occurred to me because I belong to a business networking group known as BNI (Business Network International) in which business owners make referrals to others that they believe are honest and provide good service and/or products.
A potential good source of business for anyone in business is a personal referral.
A word of caution. I would only make the above remark in a nice way, hinting that you might be a good source of referrals because of your Forum contacts. I would not use this in a negative way by saying or hinting that you will tell your contacts how bad a train dealer he/she is. The dealer may also be an innocent victim because the cause of the defect might be someone else like the manufacturer, UPS, etc.
I remember a great collector of Prewar Standard Gauge trains (I think it was Frank Petruzzi), said on the McComas & Tuoy 6 video set, words to the effect of he who is alone in trains loses, and he who has train buddies wins.
I would love to hear what you all think about this subject,
Arnold
