Common Questions and Answers about
The Con-Cor Website
And our Company Policies

Overview of the Con-Cor Company

     Con-Cor has been in business since 1962 (50 years !). Many things have changed over time as originally we were a complete manufactuering operation in the USA and at one time had upwards of 45 employees. We not only designed the models,we built our own molds, did injection molding, painting, printing and packaging on our models.

     As times and costs changed, we gradually moved most of our manufacturing overseas and now import 90% of our products as totally finished goods, or in finished components. We only do some incidental manufacturing today within the USA. We wish we could do more in the USA, but governmental policies and economic times do not allow to do so.

     Since we today are mainly a warehousing operation, we have only a small group of employees compared to years ago. And we concentrate on filling incoming orders,

SO PLEASE NOTE: so Email or Phone requests for parts information and or general inquires have to wait until we have the time to take care of them.
(This might be up to 10 to 14 working days).

Mini-Index of Topics Covered Below: 


#01) Business Hours,/ How to Order
#02) Auto Reply details
#03) Order Processing Time Table
#04) Order Delivery Time to Your door
#05) Close Out Items
#06) Email Replies (include thread)
#07) Is an Item In Stock, or Out of Stock (This is the inquiry we get the most)
#08) Pre-Orders / New Items
#09) Parts, Repairs, Returns
#10) Unsolicted Returns
#11) Print Catalogs
#12) Register for our E-Mail Newsletter
#13) Con-Cor and DCC installations

Important Information #01) Business Hours / How To Order

     Our Facility in Tucson, Arizona is a manufacturing plant and warehouse. We are not a retail store and hence we are only open Monday-Friday 8:00- 3:30 Mountain Standard time. Closed on all Holidays. We also close for a Holiday break during the Christmas and New Year Holidays. For example in 2011 we were closed from Dec 22nd till Tuesday January 3rd to give all our employees a much deserved Holiday break.

      We do not have a retail store. But we have a very active Mail Order division to sell directly to you if you so choose. Years ago we always directed customers to go to their Local Hobby Shop, but we know for many of you a well stocked hobby shop is not within a reasonable driving distance anymore. Hence we welcome orders placed over the Web (www.con-cor.com/orders.htm) , by phone using our Toll Free Phone Number (for ORDERS within USA ONLY) is 1-888-255-7826, or by Fax 1-520-721-8940.

     Where practical we urge you to support your local Hobby Retailer, but you may find they do not inventory much of our product, but many will be happy to special order our products for you, if so we encourage you to do so. If they are not willing to special order for you, then we welcome you to place your order directly with us.

     Our Toll Free 888 number does not work outside of the Continental USA, For orders from Outside USA you may use our general Office phone of 1-520-721-8939 and leave a voice mail if necessary, or reach us via Email at "concor@con-cor.com".

     We only check Emails on weekday mornings, and concentrate on downloading orders, so we can pass the orders to the warehouse staff so they can start working on them. Other Emails have to wait until we have the time to take care of them.

Some of the most common questions

Important Information #02) You will receive an Auto reply to incoming Emails

Question: I sent you an Email a few hours ago and you have not answered.

      You should receive an auto answer that we have received an incoming order or other inquiry within one business day. (M-F only). Other questions and inquiries may take 10-14 business days for us to reply to, depending on how many people are ahead of you. We wish we had the time to reply immediately, but we do not.

We concentrate on spending our employee's time in getting orders shipped to customers.

If one of the Q and A's on this page answers your inquiry,
THEN YOU WILL NOT not receive a 2nd hand written reply as we assume you have read the topics covered on this page....

     Some days we get upwards of 200-250 Emails, some of that is spam and we have to sort through it, but we can at most spend 2 hours a day answering random Email, or we would get nothing else done. We appologize in advance, but we can not answer every Email that arrives unless it contains an order or specific request for merchandise.

Important Information #03) Order Processing Time Table

Question: I sent you an order a few days ago and do not have it yet.

We tell everyone to allow about 3 weeks for the order to reach you..this is broken down as follows:

     a)We process all orders (phone,Email,Snail mail and Fax) in order of receipt. So it may be a few days before your order even works it way to the top of the pile. (Weekends and holidays are not counted)

     b) If we do not have 100% of your items on the shelf, but we have the components in the warehouse of make it up, your order goes to the packaging/assembly ladies who will pack up or assemble as many of your remaining items as possible from components in the warehouse, it may take an additional few days for your order to reach the top of pile in assembly. (Weekends and holidays are not counted)

     So remember, we are not a "store" where we either have or do not have the item on the shelf and can just drop in a box for you the day the order arrives. Many products are actually custom assembled for your order, and that takes extra time. The Upside to this is that we can offer a much wider assortment of products for you to select from and enjoy. See further discussion in #07 below.

     c) Once the order comes out of assembly it usually takes about 2 days to process and ship the order. (Weekends and holidays are not counted)

     d) Then it takes about one day for every 300-400 miles you are from Tucson Arizona for the package to arrive at your door..Most packages under 4 pounds go U.S. mail, over 4 pounds go Fedex Ground Service. International Packages will take longer, see estimated delivery on International Orders on our web order page at: www.con-cor.com/orders.htm

Important Information #04) Delivery Time to your Door.

     Therefore it may take up to 3 weeks for the package to arrive to your door, but many orders take much less depending on our workload at the moment. Please DO NOT call or Email asking for the Status of your order if 3 weeks have not elapsed, the folks answering the phone have no way to track your order in the warehouse, and it only slows things down for everyone (including your own order).

     But during less busy months orders usually take much less time to reach you.

Important Information #05)Yard Sale Items (Close Out items)

     e) If you have ordered items from our Yard Sale, many of these special sale items sell out quickly and we can not update the website listing on a daily basis, so you may not get 100% of what you ordered, but this is the nature of Sale items, first come first served..

     f) Yard Sale orders are processed by date of arrival, and at any given time we may have 50-100 of them that have not been processed or entered into our computer system as yet.

Important Information #06)

     g) PS: If you respond to an Email reply, please continue the thread of the orginal Email with your reply...we get folks who just send a few word reply and we have no way to match that up with the thousands of Emails we may have gotton since the last exchange...

Important Information #07) Is an Item In Stock or Out of Stock?

Question: Your Web site lists and item, but now you tell me it is out of stock.

     There are two parts to the answer for this question.

     Our Website is "not dynamic" which means it does not change the list of items visible on the Web after every sale, this is for two reasons..

     a) Not all items listed on our Website are in stock at all times. Even if we are out of an item, we continue to list it, for it might be instock at one of the hundreds of dealers or distributors that buy from us, and they need to use our Website as a reference tool for product descriptions and pricing.

     b) As we mentined above, since we have a solid background in manufacturing our Inventory system is based on a "component system". That means that since many catagories of items have a lot of common components, we do not inventory dozens of each pre-packaged on the shelf, as the orders come in, they batch the items by common components (say Passenger Cars for example), and then they pull the decorated bodies from one Inventory area, and the common chassis parts from another, and make the items up for your orders. This method allows us a great flexibility in Inventroy control.

     This adds a few days to the order filling cycle, but allows us to be able to fill a higher percentage of your order in that if we only imported 100% finished goods, if you ordered a "Santa Fe Coach car" and we were out of it, you would not get it, even thouugh we have hundreds of Pennsy, or other Coaches on the shelf all Pre-Packaged. With our system, as long as we have a Santa Fe decorated body shell, we can make up your model for you.

Important Information #08) New Item Delivery/ Pre-Orders

     Note: All Pre-Orders will be entered into our computer and you receive a confirmation of that Pre-Order in the mail in about 14-21 days. If you fail to receive such a notice plese contact our office so we can make sure your Pre-Order has been logged in. International Pre-Orders will receive a confirmation via E-mail of their Pre-Order. You will be contacted before we ship any Pre-Order item to Re-confirm your order.

Question: I Pre-Ordered a New Item, when will it be available?

     Delivery dates on new items is always our best estimate (i.e. guess) based on information the factories provide us, as well as our past experience. We always take the information the factory gives us and add a couple of months for "Murphy's Law" that seem to appear in almost every project somewhere.We desire each project to be up to our exacting standards before we approve its final production.

Notice on Delivery Dates on New items.

     We can not respond to individual Emails asking for information on specific new items. We have done so in the past as a courtesy and then it appears on a Web Forum someplace and we gets dozens of additional Emails asking if the information "is true".

     Our Website pages show the latest "offical word" on Status of new items. We will post new information there so everyone gets it at the same time.

Here is a typical timetable for new Items

     Once a project is "picked" it can take 4-5 months just to gather enough information from Historical Societies, Museums, old books etc. to begin the design stage.

     lst Stage of Creating all the Cad-Cam design drawings usually takes 3-4 months depending on complexity of the project. But once Stage #1 is finished, we usually find Protoype Information we are missing and have to go back and do more research, this can take a couple of more months to get the information and revise the Cad-Cam drawings.

     Once the Cad-Cam drawings are finished we have to "wait out turn" for the Tool room to have an open window to start our project, this might delay the start of tooling for 2 months or so.

     Tooling on average project takes about 4 months, complicated locomotives might take more.

     All of the Con-Cor tooling is made from steel molds, the same kind of molds that are used to manufacture high volume items such as Cell Phones, and it costs about the same to make a mold for a Model Train where we sell only maybe a few thousand, or a Cell phone mold where they sell hundreds of thousands. That is why the mold cost is a very large percentage of our total costs in producting model trains.

     Once we have "test shots" from the molds, we usually find some items that need correcting, these changes can take another 2-3 months.

     Once all molds are approved, the factory will provide us with an "Engineering Sample" where we can double check everything, and still make "tweaks" to improve the model.

     Once the Engineering sample and sample decorations are 100% approved final production usually takes about 3 months.

     Once the models are finished it takes about 1 month for transport to our Tucson warehouse from say for example China.

     Once in our warehouse it takes about two weeks for models to start appearing in the retail stores, or at your front door if you have Pre-Ordered directly from us.

     So you can see, a complicated project such as the M-10000 can take upwards of 18 months from starting out until it reaches your door step.

     Some Mishaps over the years...

     Since we have been around for 47 years some of the "Murphy's Law incidents we have run into:

     Ship looses propeller 1000 miles from Asia at sea. They had to send out ocean going tugboats to tow ship to safe harbor. Delayed our shipment 45 days.

     Crane unloading containers at Long Beach drops another container onto one of ours,crushing container. Not much damage to our cargo, but they had to cut off the doors of the container with torches and wait for insurance company inspection, 30 day delay to us in freight arriving

     UPS Truck with about 50 packages going to dealers of a new item crashes, slides down an embankment and burns. UPS Paid the Insurance claim, but we did not have enough stock left from that new item to re-fill all dealers orders 100%.

     --We could go on, but I think by now you understand delays happen that are well beyound our control.

Important Information #09) Parts/Repairs and Returns

What is the status on Parts and Repairs.

     We do not have a repair service for older models.

     If you have a new model purchased within the last 60 days (and have the dated receipt from a store or Invoice from a mail order source showing the date of purchase), then we have a customer satisfaction policy as follows:

  • Must be a new Item purchased within the last 60 days and you have a dated receipt from a hobby retailer or Invoice from a recognized Mail order company or Reputable Train Show vendor where you can include a copy of this receipt or Invoice with the package showing purchase date.
  • We assume you had the dealer test the model for you before purchase, or you tested it yourself once you got it home, hence the 60 day limit.
  • You must be the Original owner, models bought used, or off Ebay or similar auction site are not covered, as we have no way to telling if it is in fact a "new" item. We have had in the past many items returned to us, said to be new, but when examined by us are obviously used items. (a lot of wear shown on the wheels etc.) so items of dubious ownership heritage are not covered under our Customer Satisfaction Policy.
  • Model has not been modified in any way, i.e. non-Con-Cor supplied Decoders installed, re-painted, Couplers changed etc... any of these activities can lead to accidental damage to the model by the customer or whomever did the work on it. While we might be able to fix the model for you, it would not be a "FREE" Repair under our policy.

     If your return complies with all of the above points, and you can call for a "Return Authorization (RMA#) " number and we will give you instructions on how to return it. It can be sent back to:

Con-Cor International Ltd.

RMA #____________________(Note: Packages Received without an RMA # will not be opened by us. nor any work perfomed on their contents.

Atten Service Dept.

8101 E. Research Court

Tucson Arizona, 85710-6758

All packages Must:

  • Be packed in a sturdy outer corragated carton (not just the soft cardboard, or plastic box the train comes in.)
  • Be insured for full value, Con-Cor Trains is not responsible for boxes lost or damaged in transit to us.
  • Keep insurance receipt in a safe place for your records.
  • Inside the Box, you must include a letter of explanation about the problem with the model, as well as the copy of The Purchase Receipt as mentioned above.
  • Inside the Box yu must include your complete name, and return address.
  • Include inside the box a DAYTIME phone number we can reach you at, if we have questions about the Return.
  • Allow about 7-10 business days for the box to arrive to us..
  • Allow about 3 weeks for us to work on the train.
  • Allow about 7-10 business days for the returned train to arrive back to you once it leaves us.
  • So allow about 5-6 weeks for the train to be returned to you, often it will be less, but during busy times it can easily be this long.
  • Please do not call us in the meantime about your repair, we will contact you if needed once they open the box and start to work on it for you. (All returns/repairs are taken care of in order of arrival, so it could sit here for a while unopened until they can get to it.)

      We are sorry it takes so long, but we only have one part time person who works on repairs, and sometimes that is during the evening or on weekends, so calling and asking about a Repair will not gain you anything as the chances the person who does them will not be here during our normal business hours anyway. We applogize in advance for the time taken, but we do not get enough returns repairs/ or parts order to hire a full time person for that department.

     Items returned under this policy we will replace or fix, or exchange components at our choice.

     If the model has been serioulsy altered in any way, for example, decoders added, custom painted etc, we may not be able to work on it, as we can not be responsbile for damaging something added to your the model , but we would be happy to work with a repair person of your choice to get them the parts required.

To find a local repair person, check with a local hobby shop, or local train club in your area. Almost all clubs have members that repair models for other club members.

     If you have purchased an older model on Ebay, or at a Train Show, we will be happy to supply you parts if we have them, but do not send them back to us for "repair". Prices for common parts can be found at:

     www.con-cor.com/roundhse/hoparts.htm

     www.con-cor.com/roundhse/nparts.htm

     As outlined previously, since we do not do any of the primary manufacturing in the USA anymore, we do not have "coffee cans" of loose parts laying around. We get spare component "assemblies" from our International Suppliers when we can. So for example, we can only sell complete boiler assemblies, or in the case of drivers or valve gear for steam engines, we only sell a complete driver+ valve gear assemby as they come in from the overseas factory. We do not have "loose bits and pc" so to say.

     Rivarossi parts: As you must be aware, the Rivarossi company went bankrupt almost 5 years ago, and we have very few parts left for their models, and no hope to get any more.

Important Information #09A)Time Table on Parts, Repairs and Returns

     Due to our limited Part time Staff in that Dept. Orders for parts, and repairs and Returns are the lowest priority in the warehouse, allow up to 4-5 weeks for processing and return to you.

Important Information #10) Unsolicted Returns

If you return items without a "Return Authorization" Number your return will not be processed, and you must pay us for the cost of sending the item back to you.

Important Information #11) Catalogs

Do you have any Printed Catalogs?

     The cost of printing and mailing tens of thousands of catalogs has not proved practical based on the amount of orders they bring to us. Most modelers are using the web today. We are printing small flyers highlighting our new products and they area being distributed at many of the train shows. They reflect the same information that is posted on our Website.

Important Information #12) Register for Email Newsletters

      You can Register with us to receive an Email Newsetter about every 6-8 weeks, this will highlight new items and updates to our website. Just click on the "Registration" tab at the top of this page.

Important Information #13) DCC (Digital Command Control & Con-Cor Products

How do I install a DCC Decoder into a Con-Cor engine?

     Con-Cor Trains has partnered with the DigiTrax Company to make Sound Decoders for some of our newest products released over the past few years. These Sound Decoders are standard DigiTrax platform Decoders with special sounds and features added for our Con-Cor products.

     We have made 3 products that included a DCC decoder made by other manufacturers than DigiTrax is the past.

     a) HO/ Hon3 Galloping Goose made about 2000 (Sold out and discontinued version, made by Soundtraxx company for us.

     b) HO MP-15 switcher with built in DC/ DCC dual mode board. (Sold Out now)

     c) N Galloping Goose with built in DC/ DCC dual mode board (few currently in stock)

     Most other locomotives Con-Cor has made since 2000 have included the Industry Standard NMRA 8 pin Socket set which makes them DCC "Ready", most also had pins #9 and #10 on the board which are used for speaker wire leads if you choose to go the route of adding Sound to your model.

     Each Con-Cor Train model is built to the Real Train dimensions, so in some cases fitting a DCC decoder is easy, and others hard due to confined space available.

     As expalined above Con-Cor does not manufacture any Decoders, for some of our new models we have Partnered with DigiTrax to use one of their standard decoders and make a custom version for us with the correct sounds for particular models. In some cases we also do not use the DigiTrax standard Speaker, but supply one that will be as easy fit to our model.

     Easiest thing for you to do is check our Web pages for specific models and see if we have a Con-Cor Trains special edition decoder available for that model.

      For many of our older models, we do not have a specific decoder available, and so you will have to check with yur favorite Decoder manufacturer to see if they have a "retro-fit" decoder to fit that particaular Con-Cor Trains model. We do recommend any Decoder brand over another for these Retro-Fit installations. Yesterday Brand "A" might not have made a Decoder for one of our models, but today they might announce one, so it is up to you to contact your favorite decoder manufacturer to see what they currently have availble.

     Also we have found "Decoders" are like Politics, a lot of customers have a "favoite" brand they wish to deal with, or their club uses a specific brand of DCC Controllers they must be compatible with. So it is a "no" win" situation for us to recommend, this or that decoder.

     Con-Cor warantees our models for 60 days after purchase to run 100% OK in "DC" mode, and 100% OK if "DCC" mode if a Con-Cor Trains/DigiTrax Decoder has been installed. Once the model is converted to DCC version using any other Decoder, we can not help with diagnose of any problems, as we have no control over the manufacturer or Installation of the Decoders by 3rd parties for our Products. Our Customer Satisfaction Policy only applies to "original" purchaser of the models, and not used or 2nd hand models. Copy of "dated Purchase Receipt" will be required for any Customer Saticfaction Policy work requested.(See comments above in Item #9)

     We have no knowledge of how non Con-Cor/DigiTrax individual decoders can be installed or modified to be installed into one of our units, as all Decoder manufacturers are independent 3rd party companies with no financial, or technical connection to Con-Cor Trains.

     We have made available to all Decoder manufactures the opportunity to obtain samples of any of our models, so their technical staff can study them and recommend the best Decoder of their personal manufacturer to work with Con-Cor Trains...

     Some Decoder manufacturers have taken us up on this offer and received all samples requested, others have never requested a sample, (go figure??)

     Some decoders are apparently not manufactured to be compatible with the "Industry" Approved Standard NMRA Soccket sets... we at Con-Cor Trains have no control over this.

     We also ahve found that in the past some Manufacturers have supplied "DCC" power supplies that exceed the Industry recommended practice of an 18-19v MAX "AC" DCC signal output. If you are having trouble with your "DCC" operations we strongly recommend you put a meter on your "DCC" signal output to check the voltage is within Industry standards. Exceeding the 18-19V output can cause a Decoder to overheat and fail.

     When you buy one of our Con-Cor models, and plan to add a decoder, please test run the model to make sure it runs 100% OK in "DC" mode only. As long as it does, any further problems are either in the Manufacturer or Installation of the Decoder. Any problems need then to be reported to the Decoder's Manufacturer and not Con-Cor Trains, as we can not diagnose an technical problem of some other manufacturers products.

Here is a list of the major Decoder manufacturers service the USA. Before you install a Decoder into a Con-Cor Train, we suggest you contact them (or one of their dealers) and make sure the Decoder you plan on buying will work in the Con-Cor Train you want to install it in. You might find "brand "A" does NOT make a compatible Decoder, but Brand "B" does. This information changes all the time, as each decoder manufacturer continues to release new Decoders almost every month, or variations of old Decoder models.

  • www.BachmannTrains.com - makes basic decoders for resale, but does not seem to have a separate Email Tech department.
  • www.DigiTrax.com- one of the largest suppliers, goes out of its way to have Con-Cor compatible Decoders available.
  • www.LokSound.com- German Company with USA office.
  • www.Lenz.com - Germany company with USA office, the pioneer in DCC for trains
  • www.ncedcc.com - one of the early manufacturers, has good reputation
  • www.modelrec.com - old line company, we have not been satisfied with their tech support, others have been.
  • www.soundtraxx.com -first one with good sound system for model trains, good support
  • www.tcsdcc.com- "Train Control Systems" Function decoders only so far (i.e. no sound(, has a lot of installation information on their web site.

    We want to thank all of our customers!

         We at Con-Cor have had a great 50 years servicing you and bringing you a lot of great models for you to enjoy in your modeling.

         With our new series of "Famous Trains", we will be bringing you even more spectactular models in the next few years.

    Jim Conway / Con-Cor International,Ltd.

    © 2012 Con-Cor International Ltd.
    Revised: Jan. 2012 All rights reserved. E-mail concor@con-cor.com
    (We reserve the right to correct errors and change prices or product specifications without prior notice.)

    (Not all items listed are in stock at all times. Even if we are out of an item, we continue to list it, for it might be instock at one of the hundreds of dealers or distributors that buy from us, and need to use our website as a reference tool for product descriptions and pricing.)

    •