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Order Tracking Information: Lionel Suppliers Garden Railroading Primer Articles: All about getting a Garden Railroad up and running wellGarden Train Store: Index to train, track, and other products for Garden Railroading
Large Scale Starter Sets: Begin with a train you'll be proud to runBest Choices for Beginning Garden Railroaders: a short list of things you're most likely to need when starting out
Large Scale Track order FormFamily Garden Trains Archive Articles: Other miscellaneous articles about garden railroading
Large Scale Christmas Trains: Trains with a holiday theme for garden or professional display railroads.Free Large Scale Signs and Graphics: Bring your railroad to life with street signs, business signs, and railroad signs
Garden Railroading Books, Magazines, and Videos: Where to go to learn even more
Collectible Trains and Villages: On30 Trains and accessories designed by Thomas Kinkade and others

Most of the trains listed on the Big Christmas Trains and Garden Train Store buyers guides are available only from folks who supply hobby and collectible items. (Even if you bought a train through Amazon, chances are you actually got it through a hobby store.) But Lionel(r) trains are different, since they sell so many trains through department stores, especially at Christmas. This has two goofy side effects:
  1. Several different stores may be selling a particular Lionel set at the same time. This is good for you, and is one reason you see more than one "check stock" buttons on some trains. As always, I link only to stores that:
    • Have a reputation for good customer service, and
    • Have given me permission to link to individual product pages on their sites.

  2. Unfortunately, most department stores that carry Lionel trains order them in batches in mid-summer, so they'll have plenty for the Christmas season, but they don't re-order until next year, and they may not re-order the same trains. So once they run out of a particular train, they are usually out, period, at least until next summer. That is exactly why I provide as many potential sources for each Lionel train I list as I can. For most Lionel trains, I start out with three or four "check stock" buttons in the fall and am down to one or two (if any) by December 21. Again, most readers appreciate not having to spend hours surfing the web just to see what is available, and then having to track down a supplier who has that product in stock.

That said, every year I hear from at least one reader who has ordered a Lionel train and can't remember which store he or she ordered the train from. Most department stores don't give me any feedback on sales until the product has actually shipped, so it's hard for me to help out unless I know which store took the order.

In short, if you have ordered a Lionel train and have a question about shipments, billing, etc. there are two things you can do to help us help you:

  1. To get questions about orders or billing solved in the fastest possible way, try to find the store you ordered, and use their "track order" links or customer service number to get your specific question answered quickly. Details for each recommended Lionel supplier are listed in the following table.

  2. To keep us in the loop and to help us know what kind of service you are getting from our suppliers, please use the form at the bottom of this page. Please let us know as much as you can about your order. That way, if you need our help with something, we have the information we need. Also, this kind of feedback helps us keep the list trimmed down to suppliers we trust (and you should probably know that we have removed a few whose customer service did not meet our quality standards).

The following list shows sample pages of each supplier which we're linking to for Lionel trains in 2006. If one of these pages "jogs" your memory, please follow the instructions to click through and find their customer service information.

Buy.Com - Look for the "Order Status" menu item in the middle at the bottom of the page. If you bought a product through Amazon, go to the page you used to order the product, look at the lower left corner for a box labeled "Where's My Stuff?" and click on the words "recent orders."
Boscov's - Click on the words "Great Customer Service" on the lower left part of the page, or call 1-800-284-8155. Unbeatable Sale - Click on the words "Order Status" on the orange menu bar toward the upper right corner, or call 1-888-657-8436.
If you ordered your train from Home Click, click on the image to the right, then click on the words "Order Status" near the upper right of the page. Their Customer Service # is 1-800-643-9990. If you ordered from Shoppers' Choice, click on the image to the right, then click on the words "Order Status" near the upper right of the page. Their Customer Service # is 1-877-743-2269 (8am to 6pm CST M-F).
If you ordered products from Hammacher Schlemmer, click on the picture to the right, then click on the words "Order Status" near the upper right side of the page. Their Customer Service # is 1-800-321-1484. Trainz supplies Lionel and some other products, including Bachmann and AristoCraft trains. If you recall clicking on a page that looks like the one at the right, you probably ordered your product from Trainz. Their customer service contact page is at http://support.trainz.com/. Their customer service phone # is 1-866-285-5840 Mon-Fri 9am-5pm Eastern Time.
This list may change from month to month, as suppliers run out of stock, etc. If you don't see the supplier you ordered from above, please use the following form to give us enough information to track things down.

Help Us Help You

Please use the form below to let us know of any problems you have with any of our recommended suppliers, or if you have not been able to contact the supplier directly. We need your name, your e-mail address, and as much as you can tell us about the product(s) you ordered and where and when you ordered them. Of course, if you want to occasionally receive e-mail announcements or "US mail" garden train product catalogs in the mail, add your mailing address to the following form. We will not sell or give this information to anyone else, but if a manufacturer gives us materials to send out to our readers, we will forward them to you.

Again, please contact us with any questions about this, and feel free to add any comments in the comment box below.

Thanks, and happy railroading,

Paul Race

Family Garden Trains(tm)

Garden Train Store(tm)

Big Christmas Trains(tm)


Your Name

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What Kind of Product Did you Order? Note: If the class of product you ordered does not appear in the following list, please visit the overall Order Tracking Information page.

Lionel
Large
Scale
Lionel O
Gauge
(three-rail
track)
O-Scale
Accessories
Other
(describe
below)

Describe "Other"

Please enter as much information you have about your order, including which recommended supplier you ordered it from, your customer number (if you have it), the product ID (if you know it), and the date on which you placed your order. The more information you can give us, the faster we can track things down.

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On30 and O Gauge trains to go with indoor display villages and railroads


Note: Family Garden Trains?, Garden Train Store?, Big Christmas Trains?, BIG Indoor Trains?, and BIG Train Store? are trademarks of Breakthrough Communications (www.btcomm.com). All information, data, text, and illustrations on this web site are Copyright (c) 1999, 2000, 2001, 2002, 2003, 2004, 2005, 2006, 2007, 2008, 2009 by Paul D. Race. Reuse or republication without prior written permission is specifically forbidden.
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