Tag Archives: Store

BMR Black Friday/Cyber Monday Sale and Store Updates

Hello everyone. It’s that Holiday time of year again. The air is turning colder, strings of lights are going up, and Christmas music is playing somewhere in the distance. Trains and the Holidays were made for each other. We here at Brick Model Railroader are getting into the Holiday spirit, and to start things off, we’re having our annual Black Friday Cyber Monday Weekend Sale! 

We also have some important store updates, so please read until the end.

Black Friday and Cyber Monday Sale

Starting Black Friday, November 26th at 12am save 10% on all our Locomotive, Freight Car, Passenger Car, and Caboose Premium Instructions. All Decals will also be 10% off. The discount will automatically be added to your cart. $10.00 Minimum purchase, sale ends at at 11:59pm Monday November 29th (EST times). Just visit our the BMR Store at the link below and start shopping.

BRICK MODEL RAILROADER STORE

So you want more? Well we have a special bonus for you. The first 50 orders this weekend will receive a free Brick Model Railroader Swag Pack. It’s filled with the following goodies.

  • Brick Model Railroader printed 2×4 Tile (first time we’ve done the 2×4)
  • BMR Pin
  • Special BMR Sticker
  • BMR Refrigerator Magnet

The Swag Pack will not show up in your cart at checkout, we’ll add it to your order afterwards.

We will also have full restocks of all our Premium Instruction Kits.

And did we mention that we offer Gift Cards?

BMR Gift Cards

BMR Shirts are BACK!

You heard that correct. We’ve brought back Brick Model Railroader shirts. We’ve teamed up with Printify, an on demand printing service to bring back BMR shirts. We have two Tees to choose from. First is the Gildan Ultra Cotton. It’s a good quality shirt that’s not too expensive. The second is a Comfort Color shirt. It’s a premium quality shirt, fits great and is super soft and comfortable. I have a few railroad shirts that are Comfort Color and they are by far my favorite make of Tee I own.

And it’s not just T-shirts this time. We also have long sleeve T-shirts, Hoodies, Hat’s Tumblers, and Mugs.

Some shirts colors or sizes may be temporarily out of stock with our printer, so if you don’t see something available, just check back at a later date to see if it’s in stock again.

Premium Instruction Kits Price Increase

As many of you are surely aware, the cost of goods had steadily risen recently. We here at BMR are not immune to this. Many of the components and materials used in making our Premium Instruction Kits have gone up. From the parts used to make our ball bearing wheel sets, to the labels we put on the box, we’ve been paying more this year to produce our products. While we try to keep our retail prices as affordable as we can, we have made some price adjustments recently to keep up with production costs.

However, coming next year, we will likely be seeing our biggest production cost increase. Printing our instruction books.

As some of you may be aware, we have had our instruction book printed through our friends at Brickmania. They have done excellent work for us and have treated us well on printing costs. However starting in January BKM will no longer be taking on outside printing jobs so they can focus on their own printing needs. This means we will be switching printers for our BMR instruction books beginning in 2022. Don’t worry, we have some good contacts and are already 95% certain we have a new printer lined up. What this means though is that our printing costs for our books are very likely to go up. That is just something beyond our control and a reality of our current market.

While we don’t have firm numbers yet, we know that it is inevitable that we will need to raise prices on out Premium Instruction kits to keep up. However there is some good news. Brickmania will still be printing for us through the end of December, so until then, our current prices will stay where they are. If you’ve been on the fence about getting one of our instruction kits, now is a great time to do so, especially with the Black Friday Discount this weekend.

Production Delays

In addition to costs rising as mentioned above, this year has also brought the difficulty of just getting components. Stocks of some parts are non existent, and even when you can get them, they take longer to get. Our book printing has been delayed due to paper shortages. We’ve had to source axles and bearings from other suppliers. Without this stuff we can’t assemble our Premium Instruction Kits. Rest assured that we at BMR are doing everything we can to get what we need to produce our products in a timely manner. But we ask you to be patient with us this Holliday season. If it takes a few extra days, or a week or two to ship your order, it’s not because we’re not trying. We genuinely may not have the product to ship right away because of circumstances beyond our control. But we will ship your order, and do it as soon as we possibly can.

Sneak Peak at Our Next Premium Instructions

Finally, we’ll leave you with this sneak peak at our latest Primeum Instructions model coming soon. The National Steel Car Co. NWA33 class All-Purpose 3-Unit Well Car designed by Chris Stone. Additional we have instructions coming for the 20ft and 40ft Smooth Side Containers, 53ft Trailers, and 48ft and 53ft Insulated Containers seen loaded on the well car set. Look for more details in the near future for these models.

And with that, we wish every one a Happy Thanksgiving here in the US, and Happy Hollidays to all.

New BMR Store, New Premium Instructions, and Community Updates: June 2020

Today is the big day. Brick Model Railroader is launching our new and improved online store. And we have three band new Premium Instructions for sale along with an array of new decals for each.

Our old store served us well, but we we starting to out grow it. As we added new products, it was increasingly hard to navigate and find what you were looking for. Also the look was growing stale, and our products were not being show off to their fullest potential. So one the last few weeks we’ve been moving our store over to a new platform, one full of shiny new widgets, and hopefully a much better buying experience for you.

Click Here to Check Out the New BMR Online Store

The new BMR store front.

New Premium Instructions

Continue reading New BMR Store, New Premium Instructions, and Community Updates: June 2020

BMR and Community Updates: May 2020

Hello again, LEGO train fans and Brick Model Railroader supporters! We’ve got some great new articles in the works for you, but today we wanted to update you on a few things going on here at Brick Model Railroader. Let’s dive in.

Train Community Roundtable

There will be a Train Community Roundtable for the Brickworld Virtual Event coming up this Saturday, May 16th. Brickworld Virtual features LEGO artists, engineers, and vendors showing their creations via Zoom meeting rooms.  A new twist to the Brickworld public shows will be a presentation room where you can learn from the experts. General details about the Brickworld Virtual Convention can be found on the Brickworld website below.

Brickworld Virtual May 16 Web Page

BMR has been invited to participate along with several other LEGO train community members. The Train Community Roundtable is scheduled for 1:00pm – 2:50pm Central Time. The tentative topic list is as follows.

1. Introduction – LEGO Train Roundtable.

  • –  Bringing the LEGO Train fan community together
  • –  Open conversation and sharing ideas

2. LEGO New Developments

  • –  Powered Up?
  • –  40th Anniversary Train Set
  • –  Ghost Train Express ( # 70424)
  1. Brick Model Railroader Updates
  2. Brick Track Updates
  3. Other Updates
  4. Show off your MOC’s!
  5. Open Forum – Train Talk!

Come join us for two hours of talking trains.

Brick Model Railroader Podcast

We recently posted an article announcing the Brick Model Railroader podcast, a short live-streamed discussion on various Lego and train topics. Our Pilot was hosted by Enrico, and all regular episodes will be hosted live on the Brick Model Railroader Youtube channel. Podcast episode announcements will be posted through our social media outlets a few days in advance.

While primarily hosted on Youtube so we can answer questions from viewers, our podcast episodes will also be shared to and available on Spotify, Stitcher, Google Podcast (pending approval) and iTunes. Just type “Brick Model Railroader” in any of those apps and you should be fine!

New Premium Instructions

The Gunderson 60′ Boxcar, ACF 1958 Cu. Ft. Covered Hopper, and Pacific Fruit Express Reefer.

The BMR model team has been hard at work designing new Premium Instruction Models. Three of which we will be releasing very soon.

Gunderson box cover

The Gunderson 60′ High Cube Plate F Boxcar is our first BMR model designed by Aaron Burnett and  is our most modern freight car to date.

The modern 100 ton, high-cube, 60’ boxcar has become ubiquitous in the modern rail scene. These cars are designed to carry a myriad of loads, from auto parts to forest products and are a fixture to any modern freight train.

ACF Covered Hopper box cover

The American Car & Foundry 70-Ton 1958 Cu. Ft. Covered Hopper is our first BMR model designed by Matt Csenge.

American Car & Foundry recognized the need for a mass-produced covered hopper car to transport goods and bulk flowable commodities that needed protection from the weather. In 1936 ACF began building this 70-Ton 1958 cu. ft. capacity covered hopper for task. The cars quickly gained wide-spread appeal, with 59 railroads and 16 private and leasing companies purchasing them throughout their lifetime. Many of these car lasted well into the 1970’s, some even into the 1980’s in revenue service. Some of these cars are even still used today in maintenance-of-way service.

Pacific Fruit Express Reefer box cover.

Designed by Cale Leiphart, The Pacific Fruit Express R-30-9 and R-40-9 Reefer is a classic wood reefer from the golden age of ice cooled railroad refrigerator cars.

In 1936, Pacific Fruit Express began a program to recondition a large part of its aging wood refrigerator car fleet. These cars had their entire wood superstructure rebuilt above the frame sill, giving them another 10 to 15 years of service life. These cars became the R-30-9 and R-40-9 class cars on the PFE. Around 7,000 cars would go through this reconditioning program and many lasted into the 1950’s with the last being retired in 1966.

As usual, we have a wide range of decal sets lined up for our new models. Final release date for these cars is still pending. We are currently waiting for the new train wheels from Bricktracks before setting the release date.

The three cars talked about above are not all we’ve been working on. Here is a sneak peak at two more models coming later this year.

EMD SD40-2 diesel locomotive designed by Chris Stone.
Budd Rail Diesel Car by Matt Csenge. (yes, SIX variants!)

Coming Soon, The New BMR Online Store

New store front page.

Speaking of things on the Brick Model Railroader storefront, we will be debuting a new online store for Brick Model Railroader soon. While it’s served us well, we’ve outgrown the old store design. The new store will be much nicer to look at and easier to navigate. We’re still putting the finishing touches on things, but we plan to have the new store ready to go by the time the new Premium Instructions are released. In the meantime the current store is still up and running with all our current products.

Preview of the PCF decal section for the new store.

New Bricktracks Products

Lastly, we have two brief updates from our friends at BrickTracks, everyone’s favorite injection-molded track supplier.

The final mold for the R104 turnouts is in the process of being made. The last details have been tuned and we are closer than ever to having these turnouts on our layouts.

The second update regards the new replacement wheels for bearing wheel sets. The first batch of wheels has been produced and is en route to BrickTracks’ home base. However, the shipment is on the proverbial (or perhaps literal) “slow boat from China”, to quote BrickTracks.

There is certainly plenty to look forward to for fans of LEGO trains.

Thank you for reading.

Premium Instruction Restocks and New Decals Added to the BMR Store

Premium Instruction Restocks

Many have been asking when we will be restocking our first four Premium Instruction Kits, and we’ve been listening. Previously, we’ve made a batch of kits to sell, and when they’ve sold out, you would have to wait until we could restock again. We’re going to do things a little different this time though. Since it’s hard for us to gauge demand for each kit, this time we are going to do a pre-order run. So we are opening up pre-orders today, February 5th and will keep it open until March 5th, and how ever many orders we have for each kit is how many we will produce. Once orders are closed, we will need a little time to get the instruction books in from the printer, parts for the wheel sets, and assemble kits. We hope to start shipping orders in mid to late March.

We are doing this for two reasons. Firstly, we hope by doing this that every one who has not had a chance to buy one or all of the cars yet will be able to get them. Second, as we are looking to produce new Premium Instructions for 2018, we want to focus most of our energy toward those new projects, so we are hoping we can do one last big run of the four original cars before diving headlong into new ones. Don’t worry, the original four won’t be gone for good by any means. We hope you’ll agree with us when we want to offer more exciting and new stuff, ideas for which are more than plentiful.

You can find the Pullman PS-1 Box Car, USRA 55ton Hopper, ACF Type 27 Tank Car, and AAR 70ton 53ft Flat Car in our online store.

Brick Model Railroader Store

Continue reading Premium Instruction Restocks and New Decals Added to the BMR Store