Wicor-Models

20 hours ago, Widnes Model Centre said:

Hi Gareth, was this sent by your Business Development Manager?

 

As we don’t even have a Hornby rep anymore not sure who tells us if this has happened. We no longer receive stock lists, back order lists etc. Thankfully we are still receiving the email and or phone call every month asking if we are going to pay our invoices on time. We are led to believe that every Hornby retailer gets the same phone call. Having never made a late payment in eleven years l do think it’s a dreadful waste of resources.

 

As Steve at Grimy Times alludes to, we have never had it so bad. But maybe it’s about to get worse. 

Likewise we've had the same email cutting some of our allocation by 50% and certain Corgi items by 100%.  We are going to have a few disappointed customers especially as we were promised as Tier 1 stockists we would get everything we asked for.

14 hours ago, Ducking Giraffe said:

hi

 

Does anyone know where  they have a R3948 ndm in stock, they seem to have sold out everywhere... I've got a 7 car set on order but would like to beef it up a bit!

 

cheers!

Steve

We have one left for mail order or collection depending where you are.  It’s on our website just search for R3948.

13 hours ago, Farang said:

The 8-wheel tenders attached to the T9s and other Drummond locos were BOGIE tenders. You may add to your knowledge by looking at Don Bradley's book: LSWR Locomotives The Drummond Classes (Wild Swan 1986).

You are quite right I don't know what I was thinking at the time, the T9s were all but 15 built with 6 wheel tenders but the last 15 did have 4000 gallon bogie tenders.

20 hours ago, Farang said:

Sorry, what is the meaning of TTBOMK?  The LSWR T9 8-wheel tenders were on bogies with inside bearings. Urie bogie tenders had outside bearings. So why did Hornby produce a tender without bogies? I'd guess because with bogies it wouldn't traverse second radius curves. Keep in mind that Hornby is making toy trains.

On 24/09/2021 at 10:25, Farang said:

Thank you all for your comments.

I did remove the body and inspect the mechanism. There is no sign of Mazak rot and the gears were lubricated. So I suppose it must be the gears. As no one has these in stock I'm not going to wait for what might be a considerable time so I shall return it to the dealer when I see him in November. Pity as it's a nice model. I had to return a T9 which suffered Mazak rot. That too was a

nice model except for the bogie tender which did not have bogies! But that's another story.

To the best of my knowledge T9s never had bogie tenders, just 6 and 8 wheelers.  https://sremg.org.uk/steam/t9class.shtml

That should indicate which loco had what tender and when they had it, T9s and tenders are a tricky subject.

2 hours ago, mattingleycustom said:

 

On further examination my 35017 has exactly the same problem: drive coupling loose in the box, easily sorted.

 

Glenn

We had Ellerman Lines returned with a similar problem except it would appear the shaft had never been fitted as it wasn’t in the box or in the body when I removed it. Hopefully one is in the post from Hornby.

Wicor Models will be open from Wednesday 14th April at 10.00.  Our opening hours will be Wednesday to Friday 10:00 until 16:00 and Saturday 09:00 until 16:00 until further notice.  Covid restrictions still apply and face masks to be worn while in the shop etc.  Click & Collect continues to be available for those who don't yet feel confident to enter the shop or customers in a hurry.

28 minutes ago, Bomag said:

 

Not allowing 'exempt' people from having the same ability to browse as those wearing mask would likely be unlawful discrimination given the wording of the S.I. If you cannot maintain safety by providing space for people to keep 2m apart, irrespective of wearing masks, then your action to only do click and collect is perfectly correct. I cannot see why some would refuse to use some sort of hand sanitiser (they may want to use their own though) - as a Reduction measure rather than a Control measure its a much more reliable safety measure.

We have checked this with the local council here and have been assured that we are within our rights to stop anyone not wearing a mask from entering the shop.  As many of these "exemption certificates" are available to anyone who has an internet connection and a printer they are not worth the paper they are printed on and there are really very few people who have a condition that prevents them from wearing a mask. 

We too have been sworn at and had Google reviews that are less than complimentary all because we are trying to keep ourselves and all of our customers safe.  Fortunately we are now in Tier 4 so we can only do Click & Collect until further notice.

3 hours ago, JZ said:

Bristol used to have a few. The much missed Max Williams near Lawrence Hill station, Model Highways on the Gloucester Road, one called Trains of Bristol in Bedminster. There was Modelmania along Clouds Hill road.  A short lived one called Kemps in Brislington. There was also a Beatties in Broadmead and, I think it was, the Bristol Model Centre on the edge of Broadmead, which later became Antics and moved just along the road. Also Ian Harper Models in Hengrove, though mainly radio control models, did have a few bits. Up to seven were concurrent, I don't think Kemps and Beatties existed at the same time.

Antics is the only one left now.

Nobby's Hobbies on Gloucester Road was another one in Bristol

21 hours ago, Mike at C&M said:

It needs to put into context that Peco have been cursed with bad luck since the whole Covid shenanigans started.

 

The need for safe working environments and social distancing meant they had to adapt their production methods for this. Hence the closure of Pecorama to allow them to spread out their production area. And all this with a limited workforce due to the initial lockdown.

 

Factor in that the world and his dog suddenly found time to build layouts and use Peco products, and the production problems above. This saw existing stocks quickly exhausted and difficulties in replacing that stock. This problem is still to be fully resolved as they work hard on their production.

 

Throw in a cyber attack that effectively locked up all computer records for a few weeks, and just this week despatching of orders had to stop when a member of staff had a positive CoVid test.

 

As a retailer, I have to thank Peco for keeping us fully informed of what is happening down at Beer. They have been prepared to tell us the bad news, as well as the good, so that we are aware why what would usually be normal is not happening. They have made a Herculean effort to keep all shops supplied, so if you are unable to immediately find what you are looking for in your shop of choice, it is unfair to consider it to be a failing of Peco.

Totally agree, Peco have been wonderful at keeping us (the trade) informed and trying to be fair with everyone.  We still have stocks of Code 100 but going down fast, especially turnouts, but no Peco point motors of any sort left now.

Wicor Models' shop will be open for business on Wednesday 17th June at 10.00.  We will be operating a maximum of two people in the shop at any time with waiting outside under the canopy.  We have placed a table 2 metres from the door and anyone arriving for Click & Collect orders will be able to pick up their bag of goodies from the table without having to go inside.  Likewise we will have someone on the door who can pick an order and take payment even if there are already 2 customers in store.  Contactless card payment is preferred but we will take cash.  Other details such as our new opening hours are on the website at https://www.wicormodels.com

On 28/05/2020 at 11:58, Chris M said:

I'm now quite happy shopping online. The risk from being in a shop that only allows two people in at a time for a couple of minutes would seem to be very low. The big difficulty for model shops is that kind of the whole point of going is to have a browse, a chat, and maybe pick a few things up to look at them more closely. I can't see this being a good thing to do in the short term.

Unfortunately we are not going to be able to do that in the short term, according to the current guidelines the 2m physical distancing has to be maintained where possible and, short of ditching a load of stock and shelving, 2 people (possibly 3) will be the maximum in the shop.  If it's quiet then we may be able to chat but if we have a queue then I'm afraid we'll have to ask people to leave as soon as practicable to allow the next customer(s) in.  Also we will be unable to entertain family groups as we have in the past for the same reasons.  This is the way supermarkets, DIY stores and pharmacies have been operating for the past few weeks and this appears to be the new normal, for now.  But as with all things COVID this may change in a matter of a few weeks.  We are encouraging Click & Collect, using the website, where possible to minimise the risk of transmission and discouraging the use of cash but we're determined to Stay Open and Keep Taking Your Money.

28 minutes ago, Widnes Model Centre said:

 

As I anxiously press "Refresh" on orders we have posted out via Royal Mail. I see many reports on here of rapid delivery, is this possibly Regionalised?

 

In an attempt to try and sustain our business we have tried a small amount of mail orders. We are still very mindful of the need to help prevent the spread of this terrible disease but are trying to make a very slow return to some sort of service. We are certainly not fully operational. In our shop which is in a town centre the couriers aren't delivering. The shop mail isn't being delivered, our local, brilliant postie is bringing it to our house on a very infrequent  delivery service. The Post Office is open 9-1pm with very long queues. My wife queued for an hour yesterday to post a couple of parcels. In an attempt to ease the queue the new postmaster came out to the people waiting 2 metres or more apart as they should be. He then went up to them and took the parcels off them to save them holding them!! Any closer would have meant a proposal of marriage!

 

A friend of ours helped us out with some stock, thank you Mike at C and M Models, Carlisle, open for mail order himself, he can be contacted on 01228514689. Excuse the plug but he deserves it for helping a fellow trader out . We needed the items to fulfill an order. He sent me a parcel and paid for Royal Mail Special Delivery guaranteed by 9am. Knowing that we needed them the next day. Royal Mail guarantee that this service will deliver before midday. The track duly arrived and we were able thanks to Mike, to fulfill our order. The cost of sending a pack of standard Peco N Gauge track, yes just one pack was £22.89p. That is a pack of standard straights, not a box of flexi track.

 

My admiration goes out to any shop that is working and doing Mail Order at these most difficult of times. Well done to those shops.

 

Please be nice. As we have found out they are wholly reliant on the variable postal deliveries for your parcel to reach you.

Like you we are trying a limited return to mail order but I'm worried about despatch as our local Post Office too has limited opening hours and normally a lengthy queue.  Mail is still being delivered here but it seems to be sporadic.  Like you I wonder at how some of the shops are coping with their mail orders. All the best to you, stay safe and good luck!

43 minutes ago, spamcan61 said:

Not sure what your specific circumstances are, but anyone is allowed to travel to and from their place of work if they cannot work from home unless there's been a new edict I'm unaware of.

There has been no new edict and no specific circumstances but as a non essential shop we have to close which means we have no work to travel to.  We have to drive to the shop with all the risks that involves and we would have to fill the car at some point and petrol pumps can be a coronavirus hotspot.  Also the government has instructed all people over the age of 70 to stay at home, even for food shopping and work, which is what we have done but we have decided with no end in sight we will see if there is still anyone out there that needs us.

We have decided the time has come to "rebel" against this lockdown and re-open the website for mail order only.  We will be picking and packing on Tuesdays and the packages will be despatched on a Wednesday.  Apolgies for the very limited service we can provide but until we are allowed to travel on a regular basis again this probably the best we can do.

10 hours ago, meatloaf said:

Thank goodness for that. I was looking for some PL-10 fishplates and couldn't find any. Looking on ebay reveals some model shops trying to charge well over a tenner a pack. One of which I used to use on a regular basis for ebay purchases. Not anymore. Same goes for the shops who tried ripping people off with a single bog roll for a quid or hand gel for a tenner a bottle.

If you haven't got any yet dm me and I'll pop a packet in the post tomorrow when I go over to the shop.

2 hours ago, Trains4U said:

A bit of good news

PECO are to resume processing trade orders from the 4th May.

The bad news is they are low on stock and have been for a while, I have a customer who wants 20 PL11s but despite ordering 3 times in a month none arrived.  Unfortunately for us we are unable to travel to the shop because of the lockdown and I'm guessing he will have sourced them from elsewhere.  It's a good job Peco aren't holding back orders.

Although I did start a separate thread when we first made our decision I'll add it to this thread too.  Wicor Models closed their physical store last Saturday (21st March) and it will remain closed until the government decide it is safe for us to re-open.  We also took the decision to close our mail order side at the same time as the government's advice at the time (now to be enforced) was not to go out unless it's essential.  So I would like to thank our many regular customers, both physical and online, for their business until now and look forward to serving you all again in the not too distant future.

Stay safe everyone - Dave & Lin (Wicor Models of Portchester)

It is with regret that we are having to close for the next few weeks due to the Coronavirus outbreak.  Following HM Government's advice for over 70s we are staying away from personal contact for however long it needs to get through this situation.  Unfortunately we will be unable to fulfill any mail order as it would involve driving to the shop and then to the Post Office which would somewhat defeat the object of isolation.  We anticipate this closure will last about 3 months but we will be guided by the science and the Government.  We are not looking forward to our incarceration but we are looking forward to returning to the shop and our loyal customers as soon as the All Clear is sounded.

Stay safe people  -  Dave & Lin (Wicor Models)

9 hours ago, Dungrange said:

Is it possible to pre-order future models such as the PFA and JSA though these local stockists?  My local model shop is now an approved retailer but don't actually have any Accurascale models sitting on the shelves.

8 hours ago, Accurascale Fran said:

Hi there,

 

The JSAs are open to trade and are on the websites of many of our stockists. Our PFAs are only available direct with us. 
 

Your local shop may just need to restock or place an order with us. It’s worth asking them if you are looking for any items. We also take orders direct of course, if your shop is unable to supply.

 

Cheers!

 

Fran

Maybe they have the same problem that we have had.  I tried ordering products from the website but not only do the products go into the cart at retail I am unable to checkout.  I have tried three different browsers all with the same result, so although we are listed as stockists we have no stock because we are unable to order anything.