Walthers encourages you to support your local hobby shop — you’ll benefit from their personal service and knowledgeable staff. We realize, however, that some people don’t have ready access to a local retailer, and so anything in our warehouse can be ordered directly from Walthers.

To place an order, select your product and click “Add to Cart.” When you’re ready to check out, click the “Your Order” button. You can also place on-line orders with any of the other hobby shops included in the Hobby Shops On-Line section. Choose by state or from the complete list, then select the shop by clicking on the “Place order” button included with its listing. The “Additional Ordering Info” link that follows each listing provides shipping information about a particular dealer. You can also contact any of our on-line dealers via e-mail.

PLEASE NOTE: We hope this listing will make it easier for you to get in touch with dealers who might specialize in hard to find products you’re looking for. If you use the e-mail system to make inquiries, please be courteous. If you’re just looking for information and not ordering a product, make this clear to the dealer. Please do not ask more than one dealer to special order an item for you. The shops listed in Hobby Shops On-Line section are working with Walthers to satisfy your modeling needs.

The Walthers on-line catalog can tell you the price and stock availability information for over 85,000 products listed in our database. You can search for particular car types or particular road names. We include photos of many of our products and are adding more everyday.

Please note that discontinued items are not listed on the Web site. If you have an older catalog number and cannot get information about the product that you are looking for, the item has probably been discontinued.

To keep our catalog as current as possible, we update our database each evening. Please note that we rely on the delivery estimates of the manufacturers we purchase from. The information that we receive from them is subject to change.

You may want to start by narrowing your search to one scale. Unless otherwise indicated, the search engine will search through all scales. You can also narrow by manufacturer. Enter the manufacturer name or number and your key word to search one manufacturer at a time. Finally, if using one key word produces too many entries, add another key word.

As noted above, our database has been created over many years, using a number of different standards. During this time, there have been numerous abbreviations for road names, types of cars, etc. Because of these differences, searching on “CNW” will give different results than “C&NW” and searching “locomotive” will produce results different from searching “loco.”

A list of manufacturer numbers is available on our Manufacturers List. You can also search by manufacturer name instead of number. Both “DREMEL” and manufacturer number “250” will search all of Dremel.

Advanced reservations are new items that have been announced by manufacturers, but Walthers has yet to receive. We want to let you know that these items are planned, so that you can make your own plans for using them on your layout. Many of these items are released only on limited runs. To ensure you get the ones you want, it is best to place an order with your dealer.

Many of the products we carry go in and out of stock very quickly. Sometimes, high demand items are in our warehouse for only a day or so. When we get a shipment of products, we first ship all backordered items to our dealers. For this reason, to make sure you get the products you want, we suggest you place the items on backorder.

It also sometimes happens that when we are waiting for shipment of a product from a manufacturer, and for some reason the manufacturer cannot deliver. In these cases, the estimated delivery date would change. If the manufacturer does not give us an estimated delivery date, we indicate this by “unknown.” Since we update our database each evening, you will get the most current information we have.

There are several ways to search for locomotives, depending on which type you are looking for. For a broad search, use “loco” as your key word. This will give you a wide range of locomotives and will let you see other key words that you can use to help narrow your search. Please note that using “diesel,” “engine,” or “locomotives” as your key word will not produce a list of locomotives. Narrow the “loco” search by selecting a particular scale from our list of scales or by adding a road name abbreviation in your key word entry. You can also do a key word search by locomotive maker — for example, use “EMD” “GE” or “Lima” — or by type, “F7,” “GE-8.” etc. Many of our steam locomotives are listed under their wheel configurations — for example, 2-8-2 or 2-8-0 — which you can use as your key word.

All Walthers Trainline locomotives are listed under manufacturer number 931. To get a full list of this product line, enter “931” in the manufacturer number field and click on the “Search” button. If you know the type of locomotive you are looking for, you can also narrow your search with the key word function. For example, use “EMD,” “GP9” “GE-8” “FA-1” or “F40PH” as a key word. You can narrow your search further by using a road name abbreviation as a key word.

All Walthers Cornerstone Series kits are listed under manufacturer number 933. To get a full list of this product line, enter 933 in the manufacturer number field and click on the “Search” button. You can narrow by selecting a scale from our list of scales. If you know the name of the kit, you can also narrow your search with the key word function. For example, if you are looking for the New River Mining Company, use “new” or "river” as a key word.

The best way to start searching for freight cars by using the car type name as a key word. For example, if you are looking for hopper cars, use “hopper” as a key word. Please note, using the plural “hoppers” will produce different results than the singular “hopper.”

Once you have a list, you can see other abbreviations that will help you narrow your search. For example, you can search for Pullman-Standard covered hoppers by using “PS, cov, hopper” as your key words. You may also want to narrow your search by selecting a scale or adding a road name abbreviation to your key word list.

To locate information on Walthers Trainline train sets, enter “931” in the manufacturer number field and “set” in the key word field. Then click on the “Search” button. You can perform similar searches for the sets made by other manufacturers. For example, using “140” as the manufacturer number and “set” as the key word will give you a list of all of Athearn’s train sets. As with any search, you can also narrow the train set search by scale.

Please note: Because currently our search engine works by exact matches and many entries are abbreviated, using “train set” as a key word will not produce a list of train sets.

When you’re ready to go ahead and buy a kit, sometimes you might find that it’s been discontinued — there are a few reasons for this. Developing a new product takes a considerable amount of time and money. Sadly, we don’t have the resources to make every product we’d like to. In order to bring out new kits, we need to stop dedicating resources (time, money, shelf space, etc.) to older kits that have little demand. That way we can allocate resources to the new products modelers are asking for.

We try to keep our customers happy. Sometimes we’ve reissued discontinued kits. In 1997, for example, we produced a new run of Medusa Cement in HO scale because many modelers still wanted this popular item.

We also know that even after we have stopped making a kit, many dealers still have the product on their shelves. That’s why our Customer Service Department can help you contact dealers who might have a kit you are looking for. You can also quickly contact dealers through our Web site by clicking on Hobby Shops On-Line.

Walthers has been steadily increasing N Scale offerings over the last several years, and we plan to continue that expansion. The tooling and research to create models for complete industries (such as “The Works” steel mill series and the “Trees & Trains” lumber and paper industry series) require a tremendous capital investment. If we want to be able to continue to do projects of this type, we must produce the kits for the largest market first — HO Scale. Once we have released the HO models, we can use the research, drawings, and other parts of the development process already in place (in conjunction with customer feedback) to produce N Scale models.

If we didn’t do the HO Scale first, either we would not be able to afford to do the N Scale version, or the kits we did produce wouldn’t be affordable. If the N Scale market would become larger than the HO market, we may find it possible to reverse the production order. Until then, we hope you will have patience with us and know that we are trying to serve the entire modeling community in the best way possible.

Please note that the search results depend on the criteria you enter (such as the keyword). Entering “DR&G” will produce a different result than entering “DRG.” If you do not receive the results you wanted, try again with an alternate keyword, such as an abbreviation. More information on searching is presented on the Stock Availability page, under the search engine.

There are quite a number of different reasons why your dealer may report a bad fill rate from Walthers - the major ones are listed below:

Your dealer does not use the Walthers back order system.
Many hard to get items can come in and go out only to customers that have placed them on back order. A dealer that places “fill or kill” orders may never get these items, while another dealer that uses our back order system will receive them after some period of waiting. For example: demand for an item might be 150 units a month — but the manufacturer only ships Walthers 100 per month. In this situation, all shipments will be made from back orders after some waiting period. Depending on seasonal demand fluctuations, an item like this may actually be available for short periods during the year. On the other hand, it may never be in stock. Over a period of time the dealer using the “fill or kill" system will be repeatedly ordering items he won’t get. When these items get to be 90% of their order they will get a 10% fill rate. Ask your dealer: Do you use the Walthers back order system If the answer is no and you want specialty items, convince him to use this system or find another dealer who will.

Your dealer uses Walthers as their last source of supply.
Suppose your dealer orders 100 items from distributor A and gets an 80% fill. Next, they order the 20 unfilled items from distributor B and they get a 50% fill or 10 items. Finally, they come to Walthers for the last 10 items. Walthers will have a hard time getting a high fill rate on this type of order. Ask your dealer where Walthers is on their order list. Ask your dealer to place their first order with Walthers and then check the fill rate.

Your dealer thinks that they ordered the item from Walthers, but didn’t.
Running a hobby shop is a lot of work and requires juggling hundreds of details. Sometimes the order didn’t go out or went to another distributor that didn’t ship the item. Ask your dealer if you can see the order or back order confirmation for the item in question.

Your dealer hasn’t paid their bills and can’t get anything from Walthers.
Walthers (like most businesses) only ships to accounts in good standing — unfortunate, but necessary. Ask your dealer how often they get a shipment from Walthers and if you can see the packing list from their last order.

The vendor isn’t making the item, or makes it in one batch rarely.
If Walthers can’t get it, they can’t ship it. These items will generally be out of stock for long periods. Ask your dealer how long he has been trying to get the item.

The vendor can’t keep up with demand.
Walthers works with more mom-and-pop manufacturers than anyone else. Many of these started because a modeler had an idea for a product and started making it. At the same time, they’re running their hobby shop, or they have a day job and have a hard time keeping all of their line in stock all of the time. Items from this type of manufacturer generally need to go through the back order/wait system. Ask your dealer if you can see a back order confirmation for an item that you have been waiting for.

A special order item wasn’t handled correctly.
Even though Walthers stocks thousands of specialty parts that sell just a few units a year, there are some items that are not stocked and ordered only when an incoming order is received. If your dealer doesn’t get these on back order they will not be processed. Again, ask your dealer to see a copy of the back order confirmation for an item you are waiting for.

Walthers goofed up and didn’t buy enough.
Sometimes Walthers doesn’t buy enough, or Murphy’s Law strikes. Because the Walthers purchasing department reviews most items every 2 weeks, these problems usually create spot outages rather than long periods of unavailability. Ask your dealer how long he has been trying to get the item.

Hobbyists have a wide range of interests, and their desire for prototypical accuracy varies greatly. To some modelers, historical accuracy is of prime concern, whereas another modeler is more interested in running a particular road name. Also, the demand for a particular item is not always tied to its prototypical accuracy. Manufacturers make a product because people want it and are willing to buy it. If that changes, the manufacturers will change as well. Finally, simple economics plays a role. Tooling for any plastic model is very expensive. By increasing the number of available road names, manufacturers sell more kits and then amortize the tooling over a larger production run — so they can price the item affordably — and the designers can actually produce an item instead of just dreaming about it.

Walthers.com listings combines the personal service of your local hobby shop with the speed of the Internet. You can browse the Walthers warehouse for modeling products, then place an order at the shop of your choice. Your local shop owner fills your order from stock or from our computerized system. Either way, you get the products you want as quickly as possible. Additionally, if an item you want is out of stock at our warehouse, you can quickly contact the shops listed to see if any of them carry it. (As we note on the On-line Ordering page, if you use the e-mail system to make inquiries, please do not ask more than one dealer to special order an item for you.)

Each shop listed on walthers.com uses our special Walthers Expres III^tm ordering system for fastest delivery, and the Walthers Back Order system to provide priority shipping of hard to get items. These shops maintain walk-in retail establishments with regular store hours. Each orders regularly from Walthers — which reduces the time you have to wait for merchandise. They’ll will confirm your order within 48 hours of receipt, and offer “will-call” order pick up service.

Many visitors to our site have said they want to order through Walthers and pick up their orders at a local hobby shop. Listings on walthers.com enables visitors do just that. Retail customers get quick and easy access to product information; shop owners get more contact with customers and make sales through the Internet.

The hobby of model railroading thrives on personal service. Walthers has long acknowledged that a local hobby shop can always give better service than a mail order house. And we regularly encourage hobbyists to patronize local shops, where they can get direct service and informed answers to their questions. We also encourage you to build a relationship with your shop owner as you grow in the hobby.

As a distributor, we want to provide the best service we can to hobby shop owners; our service to them enables shops to provide you with the kind of service you have a right to expect. Still, we consistently get requests for on-line orders. These come from hobbyists who do not have easy access to a hobby shop, but who nevertheless want to buy products listed in our reference books and sale catalogs. Through our web site, Walthers is serving these customers.

Many of our activities — from publishing our reference books to setting up walthers.com — contribute to our effort to stimulate modeling activity and modelers’ creativity. We firmly believe that enabling individuals to enjoy their hobby as fully as possible is good for the model railroading industry as a whole. And we all benefit when the industry thrives. So while we direct you to your local hobby shop as the primary means of meeting your hobby needs, we want people to know that we are also a source for modeling material.