I have written several articles about Menards. Also, I found items at Menards that are made by a company known as Lemax. If you need round or square dowels plus other pieces of hobby craft type wood, Menards has a small section (in the Hardware Dept). Make yourself a list and head out to Menards. You can also find paints, paint brushes, etc for your layout. Plus, Menards has every kind of glue you can think of to buy.
Menards.......they carry a full line of toy train "O" Gauge Freight cars and Cabooses. These items sell at very low prices and sometimes there might be a problem with one of them. When, you buy items at Menards, make sure you save your cash register receipt. If it is impossible for you to fix a problem, take the item back to Menards along with your cash register receipt and either trade it for another one or get your money back. Make sure you inspect and test all items right away as there is a limit on time to return them to Menards. As far as train items go...if you buy an accessory and one of the little men has fallen off of the structure, get yourself some super glue and glue it back. If you buy a train car and the coupler does not work, bring it back. If you buy an accessory and the lights do not work, bring it back. Remember, you must have your register slip with you. Do not expect Menards to return an item that you broke or it fell apart from use a year later---remember the time limit. If you do not think the train car you bought is heavy enough to track well, add weight to the item. Gondolas and tank cars with plastic trucks are light and it is easy to add weight to them. An average gondola, flat car, tank car, etc that has plastic trucks and couplers weighs only 7 ounces. You will have to add enough weight to bring the car(s) to about 11 ounces or more to make them stay on the track. Remember, you can add all kinds of loads to cars, round or square dowels on flat cars or gondolas can bring the weight up. Nails, bolts, and junk metal can add weight to hoppers, tank cars and gondolas.
Menards has recently starting changing the metal trucks on there freight cars to plastic. Would you pay a little higher price for the car if it came with metal trucks and couplers? I certainly would....As Menards sells train cars and accessories at very low prices.
Lemax: This company puts out electric operated accessories (around Christmas time) and other things. You can find there items at large discount stores and possibly five and dime stores. I found the following items at Menards this Christmas. They had little figures that were ice skating, boy and girl figures etc. There were all kinds of Miniature Electric -- Houses, Carnival Rides, etc. I found these 5 light LED searchlight on a pole that sold for $9 dollars each. Also a rubber mate with a cobblestone pattern in brown which would make a nice playground, etc. Price $9.99. Also I found and bought a scale double road flasher that had red LEDs. The flasher operates with 3 single AA batteries. Yes, the flashers alternate with the red LEDs but they had no way to connect up with a relay to turn them on and off. You can use Menards wall wart transformers to power the Lemax Accessories. You get 2 flashers in a pack that are wired to the battery battery box that has an on/off switch. Each flasher is 5 inches tall and the LEDs are in a housing with hoods over the open bulb....just like the real ones. Price of a pack of 2 flashers is $5.99. In order to turn the flasher on and off, I would need a relay to hook up to the train track and then I would have to cut through the battery box to be able to fix the wires so that the power would be turned on and off. Something I am not capable of doing -- yet! For the price of this accessory, $5.99, for 2 flashers, they are pretty neat.
Please note: Always pay your bill at Menards with a credit card or Menards Big Red Credit Card. If you have ever been to Menards, you will find two computers usually in the return department. If you lose a cash register receipt, you can look up any receipt (but no rebate) you get at Menards on these computers. Then you can print the receipt again. A very smart idea is to keep a small notebook and jot down the date and price on the cash register receipt. plus the items you bought that day is on the receipt. This will be very helpful for a person who buys a lot of merchandise at Menards and you are looking for the item(s) on one of those receipts.
Sincerely yours, railbear601 no one paid me to write this blog.
