I received the following in email today
One of the constant things in this life is change. Our Litchfield Station team has worked hard to meet the needs of the DCC community for almost a decade now. We have made many friends around the world in the process.
However, our team is finding it increasingly difficult to balance our personal lives with the needs of our customer base. We all have either parents over 80 or grandchildren that we want to spend more time with.
So, we’ve made the difficult decision to change the face of Litchfield Station away from being a full service DCC business. When our general items in stock are sold out, we won’t be restocking. We will accept only a limited amount and scope of special orders.
Jerry and Bruce will be fulfilling all the installations that have been booked with us as quickly as we possibly can. We will be accepting future bookings on a very limited basis.
Our future plans include doing some exclusive extremely detailed installations as well as some layout design and construction for a few select folks.
What are the immediate changes?
* Starting February 22, our phone and shop hours will be 10 am to 5 pm (Mountain Standard Time) Monday to Friday. February 20 was our last Saturday being open.
* We will no longer be stocking the wide variety of products we have been. What exactly we will have in stock has yet to be fully determined. However, our web site has been modified to show what is in stock. If it isn’t in stock, it won’t let you order it or it won’t show up on the store shelf! We manually update the web site for products sold on Phone or Walk-In orders as frequently as possible. In order to avoid chasing our tail, we may close the Cyber Store for a few minutes while we do this. If you find it closed, be patient, please, it will be back in a few minutes! We highly encourage web orders, as they are the most efficient for both you and us, with the greatest tracking potential. Please understand if the web site lets you order something that we just sold out of.
* With our reduced staff, we will work hard to cover all bases, but don’t, as a rule, have enough folks to answer all four phone lines. Please understand if your call doesn’t get answered or if we put you on hold to catch another. eMail is HIGHLY recommended!
* We will be closing our Avondale AZ location within a few weeks. Our lease actually expires at the end of February. We have asked our landlord for an extension. Due to the reduced staff, we ESPECIALLY request an APPOINTMENT for technical consultation in person.
What about . . . ?
* My installation? We will work through what we have booked now ASAP and in the order booked. Our in-shop time may be longer than you have experienced in the past, as we may have to order in parts. Rest assured, if you are part of the about 250 currently on our list, we WILL accommodate you!
* Parts I have on order?
o Normal parts that are currently in short supply or not yet delivered (the new Digitrax sound decoders come to mind) will be delivered to you as soon as we have stock in hand. No change here.
o Parts that have been announced and are not yet available – such as future Blackstone releases, SurroundTraxx and the NCE signaling system – will be handled on an individual basis. We will do this in a way that will guarantee you get what you ordered. We will be sending confirmation requests to those of you who are affected and will make SURE that your positions and pricing are protected.
o Items we’ve special-ordered for you will be delivered as soon as we have the product in hand.
* My Gift Certificate? We recommend your redeeming it as quickly as possible. Our inventory is dropping daily.
* Store Credit I have? We are in the process of refunding any outstanding balances that we can through your credit card or PayPal. Generally these refunds are available for transactions for the last 60 days. If your store credit is from years prior, we HIGHLY encourage you to take advantage of our current situation and the bargains on our web site and use your credit. We will make arrangements to refund any remaining balances.
* Warranties? We will no longer be able to handle warranty issues. You will need to work directly with the manufacturer on any warranty issues.
What happens to the TEAM?
These changes will allow each of the team members to pursue some of their interests:
* Julie will be doing more volunteer work, including training Dino to be a therapy dog and work with some of the local hospitals and nursing homes.
* Donna will be traveling back and forth to California, assisting her father, who has had some recent health challenges.
* Nancy has already left and is semi-retired and providing some marketing consultation to a start-up business.
* Jerry (and his wife, Penny) will be spending more time working on their N-scale pike and spending time with their grandkids.
* Linda wants to do more painting, including doing some murals for children’s wards in local hospitals.
* Bruce has a long list of things he wants to do, including:
o Finish the Fn3 Rocky Mountain Pacific garden layout in the back yard
o Start on the HO model of the Santa Maria Valley Railroad that he has been planning for several years now
o Work with Linda on a G scale model of the FDR funeral car – one of the extremely detailed items previously mentioned
Linda and Bruce will be spending more time with their folks and doing some more traveling. We hope that our travels allow us to visit some of you and your pikes.
We all really appreciate your loyalty and referrals and thank you for your business.
