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Post by katyflyer on May 2, 2023 20:17:33 GMT -8
Just got an email that trainlife.com is closing down. Wonder how this affects exact rail? Pelle Søeborg’s Daneburg Subdivision Layout is going to scale trains.
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Post by riogrande on May 3, 2023 3:08:33 GMT -8
Yep. Have been getting spammed to heck from TrainLife over the past 6 months with sales so that was a harbinger of the closing announcement in hindsight. No idea about ExactRail. Chris Brimley had mentioned a couple years ago that they had tooled the end lockers for the D&RGW GSC bulkhead flat cars so I'm hoping those will be announced this year. I'm glad ExactRail got another run of D&RGW "great steel fleet" quad hoppers released a year ago. There was so much demand that two number series (18 numbers each) sold out in a weeks time. Previous quads in other roads like GN, CB&Q and BN took years to whittle down inventory.
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Post by markfj on May 3, 2023 5:33:52 GMT -8
The still have some inventory left and the prices are reasonable. I bought an Athearn Genesis locomotive from them about a year ago and that was it. Usually I would find better pricing at other vendors. Hope the magazine archive gets saved somewhere.
Thanks, Mark
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Post by riogrande on May 3, 2023 6:03:37 GMT -8
I decided to check the ExactRail MRS "beer" cars which were a pre-order. ExactRail redirects to TrainLife for those models. Nothing showed up - nada. Either something is wrong or all of the PC&F "beer" cars are gone or all pre-orders spoken for. I was thinking about one of the MRS models, but maybe SOL. They are a little late for my time period anyway.
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Post by jstevens on May 3, 2023 7:01:50 GMT -8
I decided to check the ExactRail MRS "beer" cars which were a pre-order. ExactRail redirects to TrainLife for those models. Nothing showed up - nada. Either something is wrong or all of the PC&F "beer" cars are gone or all pre-orders spoken for. I was thinking about one of the MRS models, but maybe SOL. They are a little late for my time period anyway. They have a brief Q&A page about a variety of things (including those "beer" cars). A couple noteworthy items for those who want a brief overview: Q. What about my pre-orders for TrainLife exclusive ExactRail releases? A. (Simplified) The Beer cars are enroute from the factory to the warehouse. All pre-orders will ship via TrainLife and remaining stock via ExactRail. All other TrainLife exclusive ER products will also be sold on Exactrail's website. Q. What about my pre-orders for other items I put a $5 deposit on? A. Most of your deposits have been refunded. If you haven't been refunded wait a couple days or contact them. Q. Can I still place orders for existing products? A. Yes, all remaining inventory is sold "as is", no returns or exchanges will be accepted. The free shipping and points programs have been discontinued. Q. What is happening to Pelle Søeborg’s Daneburg Subdivision Layout? A. ScaleTrains acquired it for their headquarters in Tennessee. Q. What is happening with the magazine archive? A. They're looking for interested parties to acquire it, contact them for (serious) inquiries. Q. What happens if I have a gift card? A. Gift cards will be honored through May 19th. The post can be found here: trainlife.com/blogs/news/trainlife-closing?utm_source=Klaviyo&utm_medium=campaign&_kx=N6shblSuG08oOOi2UkThe9ojC1PGc5z465aeVkyg-EY%3D.FfeATU |
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Post by riogrande on May 3, 2023 7:05:09 GMT -8
Jason, thanks for the info.
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Post by jonklein611 on May 3, 2023 7:13:15 GMT -8
I've been in Provo quite a few times for work and found it impossible to get to the shop during their hours. I found that weird, 9-6 during the week and closed on the weekends.
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Post by Colin 't Hart on May 3, 2023 7:14:09 GMT -8
Explicitly, regarding the beer cars, they haven't shipped yet:
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Post by riogrande on May 3, 2023 8:53:12 GMT -8
I did visit TrainLife in person in August of 2021 when I was on a road trip out west with my wife to Salt Lake City UT, Meadview AZ and Houston Tx. I put several stops along the way and Spring Creek and Greely Museum in Colorado and Trainlife in UT were all stops along the way. I would hazard that Spring Creek has the largest, if not one of the largest inventories of rolling stock I am aware of. Not only is the sizable main store loaded, but an other part of the building and an additionally purchased building nearby all loaded with rolling stock! OTOH, Train Life had a fairly small foot print but had a decent selection of stock there, including all of ExactRails inventory. I would guess that when TrainLife closes, that retail part of the building will go to another tenant and ExactRail will keep the other part.
I did see tha tthe PC&F beer cars are on the way. I had wondered if the pre-orders were sold out since none of the beer cars were listed when I looked. jstevens info cleared things up.
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Post by riogrande on May 3, 2023 10:37:37 GMT -8
Speaking of Exactrail. I went to their website and clicked on a number of the models and none show available to order. Maybe they were removed from the website temporarily until the TrainLife closure is done.
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Post by jonklein611 on May 3, 2023 11:14:14 GMT -8
Thanks for the heads up, was able to snag some deals on a few Kato and Rapido items.
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Post by drolsen on May 3, 2023 13:29:00 GMT -8
Speaking of Exactrail. I went to their website and clicked on a number of the models and none show available to order. Maybe they were removed from the website temporarily until the TrainLife closure is done. ExactRail has a banner up at the top of their website now that says that due to a website issue, they have temporarily removed all products from the site. I wonder if the rush on Trainlife items may have somehow impacted their other site. Dave |
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Post by riogrande on May 3, 2023 13:36:41 GMT -8
Yep. I just posted that in the MFCL list about a half hour ago. I bet Exactrail inventory got caught up in the deep discount sale so they had to take everything down to stop any bleeding.
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Post by hudsonyard on May 3, 2023 16:12:00 GMT -8
Not gonna sneeze at 38 dollars for the latest run Molaco cars, i stocked up late last night and everything else was gone mid morning.
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Post by fr8kar on May 3, 2023 16:44:59 GMT -8
Not gonna sneeze at 38 dollars for the latest run Molaco cars, i stocked up late last night and everything else was gone mid morning. I was tempted by those myself, but grabbed a new Atlas 5250 at the best price I've seen along with a couple Genesis mechanical reefers instead. |
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Post by fr8kar on May 3, 2023 16:47:45 GMT -8
I did see tha tthe PC&F beer cars are on the way. I had wondered if the pre-orders were sold out since none of the beer cars were listed when I looked. jstevens info cleared things up. I thought those might be popular in spite of being stand-ins so I decided to pay up front for them. I'm glad they will be delivered ahead of Trainlife's unfortunate end. |
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Post by drolsen on May 4, 2023 3:08:20 GMT -8
I was tempted by those myself, but grabbed a new Atlas 5250 at the best price I've seen along with a couple Genesis mechanical reefers instead. I was tempted by both of those but ended up getting the four Atlas Utility Fuels Coalveyors from their latest release for the lowest price I’ve seen on those. I realized I have way more Athearn Berwick gons compared to Coalveyors and want to balance out my future monstrous, unnecessary, out-of-my-modeling-focus UFIX train. Dave |
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Post by riogrande on May 4, 2023 3:41:30 GMT -8
Not gonna sneeze at 38 dollars for the latest run Molaco cars, i stocked up late last night and everything else was gone mid morning. I was tempted by those myself, but grabbed a new Atlas 5250 at the best price I've seen along with a couple Genesis mechanical reefers instead. modeltrainstuff had the first run Atlas 5250's for $36 for many weeks, so I did pick one of them up, but eventually went. As for TrainLife, since my budget for April/May is basically blown, mostly on Arrowhead D&RGW coal cars, I didn't do any shopping at TrainLife. At least I was able to get the Arrowhead hoppers with 10 off coupons or reward points so they averaged around $49 instead of $56 (got free shipping as well). |
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Post by Christian on May 4, 2023 4:43:28 GMT -8
Yesterday I put things into my cart that I actually needed. But the shipping cost stopped me. Double what I paid last October. This morning I had another look and my stuff was still available. Otherwise, not much left. I pulled the trigger since even with shipping I saved quite a bit.
I noticed that Exactrail's site is up and running this morning.
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Post by jonklein611 on May 4, 2023 6:22:01 GMT -8
Yesterday I put things into my cart that I actually needed. But the shipping cost stopped me. Double what I paid last October. This morning I had another look and my stuff was still available. Otherwise, not much left. I pulled the trigger since even with shipping I saved quite a bit. I noticed that Exactrail's site is up and running this morning. I got UPS ground for $15, which I find to be reasonable. |
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Post by riogrande on May 4, 2023 6:55:01 GMT -8
One thing that was exclusive to TrainLife were the nice lumber loads that Blaine Hadfield originally created. I bought some a while back but would have like to have gotten more. Hope those go somewhere else to be produced again.
Edit:
I got around to checking ExactRails' site - restored and active again and now the PC&F new run cars are included (before they were TrainLife only). I checked the MRS and pre-orders were down to 2 left, one each of the highest road number so I put in an order for one. Only one left at this writing. Since they are on the way, guessing they will ship out in the next few weeks.
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Post by richardthomasatal on May 4, 2023 12:28:56 GMT -8
Exactrail is probably not far behind, I don't care what they say about the rumor mill being incorrect.
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Post by talltim on May 4, 2023 12:34:30 GMT -8
🙁 looks like I missed any good stuff in the sale
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Post by Christian on May 4, 2023 13:09:03 GMT -8
For those of you not on ExactRail's mailing list, this is cut and past of part of today's newsletter.
An Update and a Whoops
As many of our customers know, ExactRail & TrainLife are both owned by the same individual. The two companies operate independently but there is some overlap between the two, such as the location, staff and some computer systems.
On Tuesday night, 5/2/2023, TrainLife made the announcement that it will be closing. The inventory was then discounted to clear it out. When applying the discount on TrainLife it was mistakenly pushed to the ExactRail website as well. When the mistake was eventually caught, the quickest way to stop it was to temporarily pull the inventory off the website until we could make corrections.
For a few hours, many customers received, let's just say, more than generous discounts on ExactRail products. Our mistake is your reward. We will honor the discount on those that placed orders when the discount was up and will not cancel them. For those that missed out, I am sorry but we will not give those prices to you as it was not a planned sale. I would like to add that due to the VERY large volume of orders on TrainLife right now, there will be delays in getting those orders shipped, so be patient, you got a good deal.
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Post by lyonwonder on May 4, 2023 13:13:17 GMT -8
Exactrail is probably not far behind, I don't care what they say about the rumor mill being incorrect. I wouldn't be surprised Exactrail ends up being sold to Scaletrains or Atlas at some point since I can easily see either company wanting their HO and N scale line. |
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Post by Christian on May 4, 2023 13:21:09 GMT -8
I got around to checking ExactRails' site - restored and active again and now the PC&F new run cars are included (before they were TrainLife only). I checked the MRS and pre-orders were down to 2 left, one each of the highest road number so I put in an order for one. Only one left at this writing. Since they are on the way, guessing they will ship out in the next few weeks. I took a close look and only the Lamb Weston car isn't described as a foobie. It looks like the rest are are from a FGE order with different ends, sills, and doors. Used to be that Exactrail didn't sell foobies except on the TrainLife site. |
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Post by riogrande on May 4, 2023 13:40:39 GMT -8
I got around to checking ExactRails' site - restored and active again and now the PC&F new run cars are included (before they were TrainLife only). I checked the MRS and pre-orders were down to 2 left, one each of the highest road number so I put in an order for one. Only one left at this writing. Since they are on the way, guessing they will ship out in the next few weeks. I took a close look and only the Lamb Weston car isn't described as a foobie. It looks like the rest are are from a FGE order with different ends, sills, and doors. Used to be that Exactrail didn't sell foobies except on the TrainLife site. Not true that ExactRail only sold Foobies on TrainLife. That is a recent thing. There are a number of examples of Foobies sold by EXR prior to that. And yes, I am aware that the MRS car is a stand-in. |
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Post by cera2254 on May 4, 2023 16:54:52 GMT -8
I was a little worried that something was happening to exactrail since the two are related, but am relieved that this is not the case. I didn’t mind getting some IPD boxcars for $19.99 though!
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Post by lvrr325 on May 5, 2023 2:39:22 GMT -8
Glad I ordered a few cars at the mistake prices. They were around 50% off.
Exactrail admits the depressed center flat is a foobie, purposely made to have the most common features that make it only mostly correct for one small group of EL cars.
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Post by locochris on May 5, 2023 5:09:40 GMT -8
Exactrail admits the depressed center flat is a foobie, purposely made to have the most common features that make it only mostly correct for one small group of EL cars. Well that's not very exact of them. |
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