Garden Railway Forum

In these modern online communities we seem to be very quick to berate poor customer service from Traders (there was a recent one on one of the Facebook Group's in the lead up to Peterborough), so I'd like to balance those out to record the excellent Customer Service I have just received from Accucraft UK.

I won a 2nd hand Edrig on eBay from a bereavement which had a few problems on arrival. I found that one crank was loose on its axle and established that it was held on by a grub screw which required an 0.8 mm hex allen key. I could not source this size allen key but found a very similar AF size in one of my sets which just about tightened up that grub screw. However it still worked loose again after each running session.

I picked up a 2nd hand Caradoc from a fellow 16mm NGM West of Scotland group member just over 2 weeks ago and it suffers from exactly the same ailment with one of its cranks.

I had intended to discuss this problem with Ian or Graham at the Peterborough show but they were always very busy with other visitors each time I walked up to the Accucraft stand. A recent posting on one of the Facebook Group's again confirmed that an 0.8mm allen key was required but no-one could provide a link to a possible source. That posting also warned against the use of threadlock to keep these grub screws in place.

So I decided to contact Accucraft via their website contact form, and a couple of hours later I received a prompt response from Ian advising me that he had sent me an 0.8 mm allen key plus some grub screws in the post. These were waiting for me on my return home the following day.

Now that is excellent service for 2 products which are well outside their original warranty period.

Thank You.

Chris Cairns

Is it now I should post my bad experience with Accucraft UK?

Having inexplicably developed an interest in 16mm scale models way over here in Canada, you would think one of the difficulties would be ordering models and parts, since they all come from the U.K. which is very far away. However I have found the opposite to be true. All the small businesses I have dealt with have been helpful, courteous and friendly. Things posted in Royal Mail seem to get to my house much more quickly that anything from my own country. I would say that one of my favourite things about this hobby is the customer service. I haven't dealt with Accucraft (yet) but I have received the same level of service from Roundhouse, Locoworks, DJB engineering, IP engineering, Brandbright, Chuffed2Bits.

In this day and age it's actually a very nice experience to ring someone, talk about what you are looking for, and feel confident that they will actually help you, send the item promptly, and can be trusted with your credit card!

Ordered some chopper couplings from Slater's Plasticard one evening last week. they dropped through my door less than 48 hours later.
Praise where Praise is due.
David.