I live in Australia and have been importing model railroad items from the USA for 50 years. I regularly deal with some very good model shops, like MB Klein and Midwest. However I wanted some Atlas signal items and they are out of stock with my regular suppliers. Blue Ridge had them advertised and at very low Memorial Day prices so i placed an order with them. They acknowledged the order advising (a) that they did not actually have stock and had to order on their wholesaler (that could take awhile as everyone else is out of stock) and (b) as my Credit Card was not issued in America they would hold my order for 30 days before shipping. This is nonsense a credit card is a credit card. No matter what country it is issued in. MasterCard is an International company (not even based in the US!). As I find discrimination against overseas customers offensive I emailed Blue Ridge and told them to cancel my order and refund the charge to MasterCard. Their computer system (it was night in the US) replied with the advice that cancellations would only be accepted if I telephoned them . . . In the middle of my night and at some cost. I told them again by email to cancel and so far they have ignored me. I asked MasterCard to cancel the charge but as I had preauthorized it I had to take the matter up with the store, which I already had. What happens next is up to Blue Ridge but international modelers need to be aware of these discriminatory policies and shop elsewhere.

No sir, I am talking about Blue Ridge.Ive been up there 3 separate times, Google says youre open but you werent. I even saw a package outside by the front door the first time. I would love to come check out the store to give it a real rating.The 1* I was giving more towards Google by having wrong information about times youre open. Not the business itself. I did leave a voicemail to the number Google supplied though, with my name and number asking about actual hours, it said someone would reach out to me, but its been over a week and no one has called me. If you could give me times youre open during the week, Tuesday this week is my day off, I would be more than happy to come by!

Ive ordered and pre-ordered several items from Blue Ridge and the service has been spot on every time. Make sure you read their policies page and you wont have any trouble. Keep it up guys!

All you need to know about this store and owner is obvious in his critical, defensive and outright insulting responses to customer feedback. There is a complete lack of ownership or any type of understanding of customer service or appreciation. If his time is so valuable, he should spend less writing a dissertations on why every customer is wrong, and learn a little more about how to successfully run a company. Since his business is 99% online, (as he says) that means anybody that visits his store in-person receive 1% of his attention. Id suggest everybody take 100% of their purchases to another online vendor offering model train products.

Ive placed 14 orders through Blue Ridge Hobbies over the past six months. Overall, Ive been very pleased with their service. When I am dissatisfied, its the result of the current business climate where product is scarce and in high demand, not because of any fault with Blue Ridge Hobbies. I find their prices better than anyone elses on just about everything Ive ever checked. When I order from someone else, and I do, frequently, its only because someone else had product in hand that BRH cant get when I want it.I have one recommendation for customers considering doing business with Blue Ridge Hobbies and that is that people should pay attention.Pay attention when something you want is shown as in-stock because although its in-stock at that moment in one of BRHs sources, that doesnt mean that its in their hands when you place your order. It could be gone, sold to someone else, before your order gets as far as the warehouse. Thats happened to me several times but I cant blame BRH for that; I was just too slow.Pay attention when you suspect something you order will wind up being backordered. Depending on the scenario, BRH doesnt do backorders. They will do reservations for products that are advertised but that are not yet on the market for delivery. Think Rapido and Broadway Limited.Pay attention when you want to change or cancel an order, when youre a new customer they dont know, and for every other interaction you might have with this company. They advertise how theyre going to respond even before you ask and all you have to do is find, and read, the text behind their STORE POLICY menu hotspot, top left on the home page. I know, ugly website, mostly ineffective search engine, some public rants to wade through, but the site does function and everything you want to know is there, somewhere, usually as part of their STORE POLICY.Of all the thousands of dollars Ive spent with BRH, Ive only come up with one error in what they charged me. I sent an eMail, got a call back the same day with an apology, and was refunded the error immediately. No quibbling. No fuss at all. Ive also had occasion to talk to the man himself several times on the phone and hes always pleasant, professional, knowledgeable, and ultimately helpful. So he wont win an award for web design - hes still an extremely valuable supplier to me as I build my RR.I do have one complaint, and that is that BRH doesnt allow me to create an account. That means I have to search all my eMails to find the list of orders and recall their status. I have named-folders in my eMail just to handle this bookkeeping but the accounts I have with others, such as Rapido and Walthers, allow me to log in and review my purchase history much more easily than I can with BRH. Its a small price to pay so BRH continues to be my first GOTO site when I need something.I dont do many reviews, Im rarely inspired to leave one, but I do like doing business with BRH and Ive done enough to have an opinion to share. 5 Stars, theyve repeatedly shown me they warrant it.

Placed an order on 2/13 for in store pickup. On 3/3 I hadnt heard anything, so I contacted the owner via email. He said it was ready for pickup, but included a paragraph about how it could be Friday, or could not be. On Thursday there was an email saying it would be Saturday. At around 4AM Saturday morning there was an email saying since the majority of our local customers do not pick up at the retail store my order would be shipped to me. (Lots of these emails were sent with multiple customers copied, instead of blind copied.) By the time I read this email Saturday evening there wasnt much I could do. On March 23, weeks later, I got an email saying the order had finally shipped. The next day my card was charged the original amount, plus tax (which is fine) plus about $15 for shipping. When I inquired about this, it started a back and forth email chain in which the owner blamed me for some emails not being sent/received, berated me for not reaching out multiple times to figure out my order, and stated I violated his store policy by not picking the items up within 8 days of being notified.He stated I was emailed 3 times prior to my reaching out on 3/3. I contacted my email provider to try and find these to no avail. I can understand technical difficulties, but I shouldnt be blamed/charged for them. Not only that, but if we accept I was notified the items were ready on 3/3, I was not given the adequate time as his policy states: Again per store policy you have 8 days from the first notification that the store pickup is ready. From my reaching out on 3/3 my order being changed on 3/6 is not 8 days. Furthermore the owner stated We can not help that your emails are not getting to you. While that may be true, I did my diligence to see if the issue was on my end, and it wasnt.I noticed when I went back to the website to figure out what was going on with the order that the frontpage is a mix of shipping updates and bashing customers. Given this, my experience, and reading other reviews, the common denominator seems to be whomever is managing orders or communicating with customers. Technically BRH initiated an unauthorized charge after they took it upon themselves to change my order details. I wont be filing a chargeback because it isnt worth the effort, but wanted to warn others about using this business as the whole thing has been a great hassle.

BUYER BEWAREI have learned the hard way that if you order from Blue Ridge Hobbies you better take an hour or two to carefully read the entire store policy, an 8,000 word document the equivalent of 19 pages of single spaced type, complete with convoluted syntax, grammar and punctuation errors, etc.When I asked to return a Broadway Limited locomotive, I was told that no items of an electrical nature were returnable. (Anything else carries a whopping 25 to 50% restocking fee). Frank Ruby, the owner, said it’s right there in the policy and if I didn’t thoroughly read every word, then that was my fault. Yep, there it was, tucked into the second sentence of a paragraph in the returns section, and in a smaller font to boot. (He said the different fonts were to make some things stand out- a smaller font makes that important bit of information stand out?)When I said that due to his policies I probably wouldn’t order from him anymore, he actually said “I don’t care”. When I said I’d be leaving a review, He also made a thinly veiled threat regarding legal action about negative reviews. Note my very careful wording in this document. (I even sent him the draft of my original review out of courtesy and have since modified it, mainly to keep the lawyers at bay.)To top it off, the cumulative $1900 I had spent on his site were “not a lot of items” and so because of my “argumentative” stance, he’s banning me from ordering again. $1900 not a lot? Possible future purchases notwithstanding, how shortsighted can you be? It’s his choice, of course, although I’m not sure of the legality of banning a customer simply because he doesn’t like my attitude. I don’t intend to find out, though.Shipping costs are another can of worms. He says he charges just the actual cost, therefore you won’t know what that amount is until you receive the shipment. That may be, but again you need to read his policy very, very carefully. If you don’t want to pay insurance or sign on delivery, you have to put that in the comment box on the payment page. Too hard to actually provide that info on the payment page, I guess. Every retail site I’ve ever visited has their policies clearly stated on their order pages.Since I failed miserably to read all the details, my shipping costs on my latest order were more than double what they would have been for the same order elsewhere. That might have had an impact on my decision to complete that order, but it’s too late for that.I could go on and on, but you get the idea. Mr. Ruby’s attitude seems to be that if you don’t read every word of his store policy, too bad. It’s right there in black in white. What if he decides to reword it or make changes? Do we have to read the whole every time to make sure we didn’t miss anything?So I hit the trifecta. He doesn’t care if I stop ordering from him, he made unsettling noises about negative reviews, and he doesn’t think $1900 in sales is worth my continued patronage. Its too bad because Ive had a fairly positive buying experience with BRH in the past.Oh, well. There are plenty of other competitive sites out there. I’ll just hit the delete button for his.

Whew dawgy. Getem Frank! Some wild posts on here!!!You know who this is.....................

Very rude guy! Disrespectful wouldn’t give him my business ever!

Was very impressed with the customer service. On my last experience I called to ask questions about the website. The owner took time to go through with me on how to use it. I also was asking about hours to visit. With missing the hours the owner took my order over the phone and delivered my order with no extra charge. Will definitely be shopping here more often.

Wont answer the phone says they are open but went by there yesterday at 3 and they where closed no note on the door

STAY AWAY FROM BLUERAIL HOBBIES!!Had to contact the police r and file a report for my credit card company.**check them out on Yelp and BBB!!

Great selection and excellent customer service. Emails are answered promptly and orders are fulfilled quickly.

As a new customer, Im very pleased at your service and caring with the updates with this current virus problem.After going through alot of no replies to text, email or phone calls to a different supplier you will be my new source for product.Thanks for caring!

Regarding the post from Robert Sturycz:We have no idea who this person is. He is not an online customer nor have I seen him in our retail store. His post does not give any details at all and is not very clear on what was done to upset him. We great every person who comes into the store with a small and we are very very professional and helpful. We have an A+ rating with the BBB and a great in store and online customer retention rate with 264% of our customers returning both in store and online as of March 2018.

The business is not really run as a full retail location, but we went in during its very limited retail hours to purchase a Lionel train set around Christmas time. The set was competitively priced against even online retailers. The owner was very friendly, helpful, and knowledgeable about his products.

My mistake I made this review for another hobby store with similar name. My applogies to blue ridge hobbies. I have had no dealings with your store

Worst on line experience of my life. Not capable of running a business. Sent me the wrong package. Said he would pay me to forward it on. Then hung up on me when I called back. This is after waiting 6 months on my order. Which I never receivedJust filed by BBB report after seeing you had the same experience. Will look into the FTC now.

Updated with response to owner: Owner was extremely rude and unprofessional. Several red flags. Run from this establishment. Not a rational person.Responding to the owner. I also left a corresponding review on Yelp. I dont have any reason to fabricate a review. The context is that I walked in his retail shop asking for some brick sheets. He said he didnt have any then said look Im on a call and I have to take this at with point I said no problem and turned to go. At this point he called me an A**hole I then told him I would remember that and to have a nice day.

Ordered from their online store. beautiful web pages. a little difficult finding the search page. had items delivered to store. owner explained how the website worked. was knowledgeable and very helpful with all my HO Scale needs.

Certainly would not recommend. Deceptive and appearantly Im not the only one who claims such, appears others have fell victim to this business owner. His responses including where he gives himself five star ratings sound more like the ramblings of an unstable person.

Ive been dealing with on-line model railroad stores for over ten (10) years - some good, some not. 1st Place Hobby was my favorite, but it went out of business. At that point I discovered Blue Ridge. Ive been very pleased with the prompt service and the prices. I have placed quite a few orders over the past several years with BRH; and Frank has always called when there was any question. Normally I dont devote time to review motels, retailers, etc, however I feel that the negative drama in an earlier review may have been a bit overstated. This is only my personal opinion, but I shall continue to order from Blue Ridge.

If I could leave a lower rating I would. Was charged an exorbitant amount for shipping on a $67.38 order placed on May 27. On June 4th charged $33.58 for shipping 1/2 of what my order was. So much for saving any money. This made everything cost $8.40 more. Then to top it off one of the items was damaged. Emailed and phoned no response. This guy is a total rip off and should be put out of business. If this ever gets straightened out I will change my review accordingly.

The store owner was very nice and cheap prices, would recommend.

Owner was very friendly & helpful when I stopped by his store.

Drove here at 3:00 on a Saturday because it says they are open until 4. Door locked and everything dark. No sign on the door, and no answer to a phone call.

Friendly, prices are on par for a LHS, lots of HO stuff, still expanding N Scale.

Was there at 9:30 and at 10:05 it still was not open.. went elsewhere since the did not open . Their loss not mine

I drove all the way there because the hours on Google say they should be open today. Disappointed to say the least.