What are your favourite Bricklink shops for Trains?

[Legoist]

Hi all. I've never used Bricklink but I've been recently taking a look at it for Trains-related parts.

Since the amount of sellers is very high, it's a pain to browse for shops that offer a decent variety of these parts. Using Search is good when looking for a specific piece, but not if I am just looking for many different parts for Trains and hoping not to have to buy each from a different seller.

So which BL shops do you know that are kind of specialized in Trains spare parts, and would suggest to someone looking for a good amount and variety to create some "parts pool" for building trains?

[peterab]

So which BL shops do you know that are kind of specialized in Trains spare parts, and would suggest to someone looking for a good amount and variety to create some "parts pool" for building trains?

That's not a particularly helpful way of approaching the problem, since good stock at low prices tends to change regularly.

Compile a wanted list, then use the By Shop link from your My Bricklink page, and it will list the shops that have items on your list. You can change the settings so it show them in the order of the most unique matches, and exclude any shops not in your area etc.

[Dfenz]

A couple of years back I went about acquiring many of the 9v train sets via Bricklink. This wasn't cheap but typically what I'd do was identify a set I really wanted, e.g. the club car or metroliner at cheapest prices (taking into account possible postage and any funny exchange rates) and then see what other sets they had in the same store. If the extra set was reasonable (not necessarily the cheapest) when benchmarked against other stores I'd probably acquire the extra sets to save on postage.

Generally the fewer stores you use the better but as trains can be expensive and the sets aren't the largest a bit more splitting up of orders than normal can be warranted. Fortunately I acquired the Santa Fe and some other sets from LS@H and the Cargo train just before 9v was discontinued.

[Legoist]

Compile a wanted list, then use the By Shop link from your My Bricklink page, and it will list the shops that have items on your list. You can change the settings so it show them in the order of the most unique matches, and exclude any shops not in your area etc.

I was not aware of this feature, I'm fairly new to Bricklink. I will try this out.

I am not however particularly interested in targeting the cheapest shops but rather those with a larger selection of train related parts (not sets). It's hard to guess that just by looking at the shop size (number of lots on sale), because there is no way to tell if they are useful for trains until you go and check the shops one by one.

BTW did you notice that several BL shops artificially increase their lots number by having thousands copies of a few totally ugly and overpriced sets that nobody wants? I am afraid they do this do gain visibility (since you'd rather check out a shop with 100,000 items than one with only 1,000), and if they put up 8,000 copies of a horrible 50-piece Belville set for 100$ each they are pretty sure nobody's going to verify they really have them...

[vgo]

It depends on what you're looking for, 12V (blue/gray), 9V, 4.5V or the RC trains...

[Legoist]

It depends on what you're looking for, 12V (blue/gray), 9V, 4.5V or the RC trains...

For the moment unmotorized/unelectrified, so just building parts for trains except the motors and controls.

[vgo]

I wasn't referring just to the electric parts. :)

For example I like to build in the gray 12V style, wagons use the old wheels etc.

Shops that I've found useful:

Bestmecki

Diana's brick shop

Gabi's store

joerilla

Magic Magnus

Mattoncini-Mania

Paul's store

Tines Steine-Welt

I'm a 12V buff, but I use a lot of 9V and some new parts too. :)

[Dfenz]

I was not aware of this feature, I'm fairly new to Bricklink. I will try this out.

BTW did you notice that several BL shops artificially increase their lots number by having thousands copies of a few totally ugly and overpriced sets that nobody wants? I am afraid they do this do gain visibility (since you'd rather check out a shop with 100,000 items than one with only 1,000), and if they put up 8,000 copies of a horrible 50-piece Belville set for 100$ each they are pretty sure nobody's going to verify they really have them...

I use Bricklink a lot and wouldn't necessarily share the view that people will naturally drift to stores with larger lots. People tend to look for x quantities of specific parts or certain specific sets. I suspect its irrelevant to most if the shop has 8,000 copies of a horrible Belville set (and by the way these often contain suprisingly nice parts) because the shopper is only interested in specific sets and parts. Its not like going in to a mall and seeing what X store has in stock today (despite various attempts in the Bricklink forum to highlight new stuff in stores). In that regard the wanted list and search functions would probably direct people to stores relatively efficiently and stores aren't ranked in results lists by quantity of stock held.

A smaller store with a wider range of sets is likely to win more business from me than a large store with multiple copies of undesirable sets that no-one wants. On the other hand a store with large quantities of parts will gain business because of scale as its better to acquire as much as possible parts from the one store than try to meet your requirements from different stores - postage is the killer. this is why these stores can afford to charge slightly higher prices than some stores selling smaller quantities of parts. If you need 100s of an item there is a more limited choice of stores available. With a wider selection, many buyers I suspect add stuff to orders they don't really need simply to justify postage or meet minumum order requirements.

My two cent.

[peterab]

I was not aware of this feature, I'm fairly new to Bricklink. I will try this out.

I am not however particularly interested in targeting the cheapest shops but rather those with a larger selection of train related parts (not sets). It's hard to guess that just by looking at the shop size (number of lots on sale), because there is no way to tell if they are useful for trains until you go and check the shops one by one.

The ByShop link on your MyBricklink tab, list shops by the most matches on _your_ wanted list. It sounds like exactly what you want, and has little to do with shop size. You should spend some more time fiddling with the search options on bricklink to become more familiar with them, it really does work rather well.

[Legoist]

The ByShop link on your MyBricklink tab, list shops by the most matches on _your_ wanted list. It sounds like exactly what you want, and has little to do with shop size. You should spend some more time fiddling with the search options on bricklink to become more familiar with them, it really does work rather well.

Thanks, this solves up everything