Mission Statement

Hobby Rails's mission is to provide personal hobby shop service to the world of the internet.  We understand the thrill of receiving a new model train item and placing it on the layout that first time. We're model railroaders first and online merchants second. Hobby Rails strives to be more than just another model train retailer - we want to be your online model train store and we will earn it.

We want to work with you to enjoy our hobby. As your partner, if you have a model railroading question, need help selecting the right locomotive, or need help in starting that first layout, please give us a call or send us an email.  Everybody on our staff - from our web development team to our shipping team, is a model railroader of some sort. We'd love to connect with you and give you a hand.  

Our goal is to offer full product lines. We don't pick and choose the most popular items in a given brand - we sell it all.  Notice how some hobby shops never carry certain brands?  We don't discriminate based on profit margin.  We are here for you as a model railroader to have access to the products you want. Can't find what you need on our website?  Please give us a call or send us an email - we will get the product you need (and will get it added to our website within 48 hours).

Should I assume that everything is in stock at Hobby Rails?

Like so many other online stores, we have adopted a “Just In Time” policy when it comes to order fulfillment. That means that once you place your order the clock starts running and we begin the process of getting your order out to you. Many times the merchandise to complete your order is sitting on our shelves but there are times when we need to procure the merchandise to fulfill your order from one of our distributors.

Online stores that claim they have everything in stock sitting on a shelf waiting for your order are probably misleading you as there are over 100,000 model train items and it would be impossible to carry all of them in stock. We all buy from the same distributors and get the same wholesale prices. Having a large static inventory gathering dust is a burden to any e-commerce store and asks us to assume a huge cost of doing business that usually gets passed onto the customer in higher prices. Not having to bother with that problem allows us to offer you great prices.

We always strive to get a customer’s order fulfilled as quickly as possible but there are times when products become unavailable in the supply chain. This is when we can use our vast experience in the model train business to go that extra effort to search that product through our many secondary sources. If we can’t find it, it doesn’t exist.