Frequently Asked Questions
When will my order ship?
If the items you ordered are showing as "in stock", they usually ship the same day up until approximately 4PM PST Monday through Saturday, holidays excluded. If all or part of your order is incomplete, we will often ship a partial and then ship the balance when the item comes in. If we are expecting the incomplete item in a day or two, we'll usually hold the order and ship complete.
Do you have any recommendations on good train videos?
Absolutely! You can check out a couple of "top picks" pages. These have nothing to do with "pushing product". These are genuine favorites. -> Sam's Picks and Lloyd's Picks
The DVD I ordered looks "home made". Is it a bootleg?
No. ALL our inventory is ordered directly from the independant producers or publishing dealer representatives. Many independant producers "burn" their own product. That is they burn the DVD themselves, print the overwrap and box them.
There is no runtime listed for the DVD I'm interested in.
There are a few titles out there with no runtime listed and the time is not supplied by the producer. We suggest you contact the producer and ask why there is no runtime on their particular DVD.
There's no shrinkwrap on my DVD. Is this used?
No. All of our products are unopened direct from the producer. Some producers do not shrinkwrap. We suggest that you contact the producer and ask them why they skip this step. The following producers usually do not shrinkwrap:C Vision (newest releases have a security seal on one edge, but aren't shrinkwrapped), David's Video, Highball Productions, Sunday River Productions, and Transit Gloria Mundi.
Why are some DVD's so expensive?
Almost ALL of the producers work out of their house or a small office. Train DVD's are an extremely small and specialized segment of the DVD market. Sales are not in the millions like mainstream DVD's. That being said, some producers simply charge more for their product. In some cases it's based on how difficult it was to obtain or shoot the footage. You'll find that generally content that is vintage based is usually more expensive than modern footage. There are some producers that have excellent modern and vintage at reasonable prices.
Why don't you carry ______?
There are a lot of producers out there, and we want to carry the cream of the crop. If you know of a good producer, or you're a producer yourself and want to see your product carried here, please contact us! Unfortunately some producers do not see the benefit of having their product available in more than one place and don't offer their products to resellers.
Do you rent or know where I can find a rental?
We don't rent, and we don't know of anyone doing this anymore. There was a time when you could rent a train related DVD, but producers refused to sell to those companies causing these companies to go under. Most of the train related DVD's specifically prohibit rentals. It's their product and they have the right to do that.
The DVD I ordered says "Widescreen" but I just have a regular old TV. What do I do?
No problem. Any DVD will play on any TV screen. Widescreen will play fine on your old TV and a fancy new widescreen TV. Same with Fullscreen. For more on this, check out this PDF file that gives you more of an explaination. -> Widescreen vs Fullscreen Explained
The DVD I ordered is not playing properly.
Contact us. Some very old DVD players are not able to handle DVD-R's. Also, sometimes we just get a bad one that needs replacing.
Do you ship internationally?
We ship all around the world. Our shipping rates are the lowest of anyone. We don't profit from shipping! -> Shipping Charges
My DVD player doesn't play region code 1.
Most (but not all) of the DVD's we carry are NOT regionally encoded at all (sometimes known as Region Code 0) meaning they will play on ANY DVD player in the world as long as the player is capable of playing NTSC DVD's. Most new players can play NTSC or PAL format. Also many DVD's now are capable of playing any region. We show the region encoding on all of our DVD's on the main individual product pages.
How much is shipping?
We pride ourselves on having some of the lowest shipping charges in the business. Don't be fooled by cheaper product prices. You'll likely find that the shipping charges are unreasonably high. -> Shipping Charges
Can I pick up my order?
No. Unfortunately our area is not zoned for foot traffic and the conditions of our business license dictact no walk up traffic is allowed.
How are orders shipped?
We almost always use the US Postal Service and in spite of all the jokes and the "snail mail" references, we've found that they are extremely reliable and predicatable. The method shipped depends upon the method you choose at checkout. We recommend First Class Mail whenever possible. Media Mail can be painstakingly slow (up to 10 days coast to coast). Orders over 13 ounces can only ship Media Mail or Priority Mail.
When will my order arrive?
First Class Mail is generally 1 business day for Northern California, 2 business days for Southern California, Nevada and parts of Oregon, and 3 business days everywhere else. If we use Priority Mail (see above), this usually shaves off a day for most of the 3 day delivery areas (not always though!).
International orders are wildly unpredictable. We've seen orders to the UK take 4 days, while orders to Canada take 12 days. We've had orders to Brazil and Portugal take almost a month. These are isolated situations though. In most cases the average seems to be about 4-12 days.
The DVD I want is showing out of stock. When will it ship?
As a general rule, the estimated time you see on the product page is tailored to that particular producer. Some items will be 2-3 days because they deliver fast, others longer as they're not as swift as other producers.
I need my order fast!
If you need a faster method of shipment, please call us at 888-654-2250. We can ship any method using any of the major shipping companies. As noted above, Priority Mail is generally 1-2 days to most parts of the country. We can also offer FexEx or UPS overnight if you need it even faster.
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