Euro Rail Hobbies & More

Excellent products, friendly staff, thank you!

I went with three stars to average my experience with Eurorail Hobbies. From their website and the ordering process, I give them five stars. From visiting their store, I give them one star. I have long wanted to visit their store and I have seen on their website that they occasionally close for long periods of time to process shipments. I have two little boys and a wife, so visiting a hobby shop 1,400 miles and 21 hours from home is not something I can just do on a Tuesday afternoon. However, due to a long story, I was able to plan a road trip in that direction for the summer of 2018. I decided it would be a perfect time to visit their store. I called them in February of 2018 and told them I wanted to visit and asked if the first week of July would work. I was told that it would be no problem at all and they looked forward to seeing me. I made my plans, reserving rooms in advance along the way and in Canada and couldn't wait for July to come! Finally, the first week of July came around and O drove the fourteen hundred miles, crossed the border, made my way to Summerland, parked near the store and with much excitement, finally approached the door to the actual Eurorail Hobbies! I was very excited! The door was locked and there was a sign that read "DUE TO LARGE SHIPMENT WE RECEIVED WE WILL BE CLOSED FOR THIS WEEK AND NEXT WEEK. SORRY FOR THE INCONVENIENCE. ERH" I cannot express to you my disappointment. Rarely in my adult life do I feel such disappointment. But then, rarely do I get that excited about something. To some, this may sound stupid, but I was really looking forward to perusing the inventory and hand picking out the various figurines I would later use in dioramas. Based on my behavior at trade shows, I anticipated because of their inventory and my needs I would be spending around $500 to $700 USD. I went back to my car and called them. The lady that answered was very polite and said she could not let me in to shop due to their insurance policy. She apologized for the inconvenience and that was that. "Inconvenience" cannot quite capture months of anticipation, prepurchase of hotel rooms along the way and in Canada, a week taken off of work, hundreds of dollars spent in fuel and of course the deflating finale of not being able to spend the hundreds of dollars I had anticipated on fun stuff for my hobby. With that last part said, I can say that may be the only silver lining. I really did not *need* anything from their store, I was just looking forward to the experience and knew it would be costly. So, I can thank them for saving me the money and needless to say, in future purchases, I will not be looking to Eurorail Hobbies as my first choice. I am a loyal customer of proprietors that show some kind of loyalty to me. I know this wasn't a personal attack from them, but it nonetheless felt like a betrayal. Some of you will say "Well you should have looked at their website before you went." and to that I can only say, "Yes, you're right." but I have to also counter argue that I can't just run up to their store. I live in Denver, Colorado, USA. They are in Summerland, BC Canada. So for me, it had to be a planned trip and that means time and money. So even if I had checked and let's just say for the benefit of the doubt that they had it posted prior to me leaving for Canada, I would still have been out hundreds of dollars in prepurchased rooms and been SOL on the entire week that had been planned, vacation time booked in advance from work, etc... Bottom line: Them randomly closing for two weeks when they had already told me to come visit that week was one of the most uncool things that happened to me in a long time. I would recommend you DO NOT VISIT EURORAIL HOBBIES unless you are driving through Summerland some day and have nothing to do with your time and want to chance they're open.

Bad customer service even if the error was their fault...