Sorry to see this.  Is this

Sorry to see this.  Is this The Caboose, Caboose Hobbies...I would have thought internet sales would have sustained them, but....

Sad to see them go...

As a sporadic customer of the new Caboose, I'm sad to see their store close.

I have a hard time believing that it was only the lockdowns though. I have sought to support them with mail orders and in person visits just prior to COVID. I went in August 2019 to stock up on several hundred dollars worth of supplies in person only to find the store 3/4 empty while they waited on the Christmas stock up. My last visit in November 2019 had them closed on a random Thursday in the middle of the day. I've tried online orders and had issues with the website or the order in every instance. Real estate prices continue to climb out here as well.

I really wanted them to succeed but I felt that they were trying to do too many things at the same time. Seems like a lot of businesses out here that didn't innovate quickly have fallen to the wayside or taken unsafe risks with public health. Hopefully they can get their affairs in order and reopen online. We need Caboose in Colorado! 

Fuzzy Math

So as all other hobby shops see a uptick with online sales etc due to many being ordered to stay home and play with trains this place uses this as an excuse for a already failing business. LOL 

Maybe Chris P will got back to Athearn! 

NOT Covid....

While Covid certainly did not help, Caboose was having serious issues for many months before covid arrived.  The prolonged state of very low inventory was something I still do not understand -- how could I or anyone as a customer support them, when there is nothing there for me to buy?   Then there was the issue with ISE which while I will not re-hash here, seems to have been the tip of the iceberg.  I don't see how a business could have continued under such circumstances.

Very sad, esp. recalling all the enthusiasm when the store re-opened back in Feb 2017.

Ed N.

Caboose was failing long

Caboose was failing long before the China flu hit us. But it sure didn't help their odds of getting back on track.

Maybe their online venture will succeed.

No.......

Caboose did them selves in

Yeah

I have to agree with many of the comments.  If Caboose has had to shut down due to Covid, they weren't in very good shape to begin with.  I know of many hobby shops who have a strong internet presence that have done very well over this time, so blaming Covid seems like a convenient culprit rather than a bigger problem with the business itself.

That’s too bad

Unfortunately, the new Caboose was a pale imitation of Caboose Hobbies.  I was lucky to work for several years about 6 blocks from the original and what a great joy it was to relieve stress from work by going there during lunch.

The new caboose was much closer to my house, but bare shelves and little inventory offered me little reason to shop there anymore.  The last time I stopped by (a month ago), doors were locked. 

Apparently not the same Caboose...

For many years I frequently had business in the Denver area (Broomfield, specifically, where I often got distracted watching BNSF trains disappear into the southwest). I often arranged a stop at Caboose Hobbies and I bought a LOT of stuff from them in the late 90's through the mid-2010's. I always found them to be a good supplier and a good source of information. I left that job in 2015 and I heard from afar that they'd lost their location, the owners had retired and some of the employees had bought (some part of?) the business and re-opened. Again from afar, I haven't heard much good news from there since, and I guess this may be the sad end to what was mostly a great story.

The nostalgia many of us hold

The nostalgia many of us hold for the name “Caboose Hobbies” makes this a sad thing.  But from what I understand this place was an “in name only” place and had nothing like the verity or selection the old store had.

Once again I think the internet has effected our lives.  We used to drive for hours to find a good hobby shop and we used to buy whatever we could get that was close enough,  Today we get online and find a place on the other side of the continent that has not only the Railroad we want and the style of car but the very number we are looking for.  Then we have it shipped.  
None of this drive two hours each way spending half the day searching through dusty shelves just HOPING to discover something we really  can use.

When I was younger my father and I used go out a couple times a year and spend all day Saturday driving yo every hobby shop we knew of but that were otherwise to far from home yo normal visit.  We would be gone at least 8 hours and usually got as far away as 1.5 hours driving time.  Sometimes we would drive 3 or 4 hours just to visit one hobby shop.  And when planning trips out of the state we would research what hobby shops we wanted to visit while we were gone.  
it was a fun part of the hobby but not so much so that I want to go back to it.  As that was also the time when you had to order everything from a hobby shop and hope you would get it.  I think I still have an outstanding order for a stiff leg derik I placed back in 1984...(we’ll not really that shop changed owners in the late 90s so the order was finally cancelled after about 12 years...)

-Doug M

I call it poor management, 

I call it poor management,  The stores that I deal with and talk to have the opposite problem,  They have so much business that they are working doubles & weekends and over time,  Hiring more staff and moving to a larger locations to keep up with the online sales.

That store failed do to poor management,  but lets play the blame game when other stores doing the exact same thing are completely overloaded with sales and business.

From what I'm reading...

* Under-capitalized. (No stock on shelves = no money to purchase said stock.)

* Terrible management. (Didn't utilize online capabilities efficiently/etc.)

No nostalgia concerning what used to be there, so to me it's just another brick n' mortar business gone. I'm used to it. Haven't had a genuine train oriented "hobby shop" in my region in decades. Online is a way of life for my modeling.

Andre

Mispedaling information

The title of the thread is atrocious, as so many others said Covid 19 isn't the reason this shop closed. Poor business management and even worse customer relation (or lack of) skills did them in. I took "What's Neat" advice at the beginning of their shows and seriously checked out Caboose several times. First the prices scared me off, and then it was the bad reviews that sealed it. Over and over the same story from customers, drive to the shop after calling ahead and only to find no stock on basic items and horrible customer service.  Even Iowa Scaled engineering warned others to stay away, that's rare when one business calls out another.

It's these shops that make so many modelers go on-line for their needs, I used to solely shop at the local hobby shop but finding it's almost not worth it any longer except as a novelty when traveling and passing through a community.

I have unfortunately

I have unfortunately encountered a number of hobby shops that the management ran into the ground.

I understand that there are things going on that we don’t know about but... some practices are just bad for business.  
Examples..

No KD couplers in stock.  How can I run that expensive kit without couples?  (Back in the day of kits) 

The manager hiding in the back room so never had time to talk with or get to know the customers.

Minimal to no basic materials and supplies,  

Making a  customer order pretty much everything but. Only placing orders once per. month so adding weeks to the order time.  Even on things that probably should have. Ben in stock.  then not discounting anything.  If I have to order it I can get it faster online,  don’t have to drive out to get it and get it cheeper online.  You can’t make an order harder to place, take longer to get and cost more all at the same time.

When an order arrives not nothing to contact to customer and or putting the order on the shelf.  (I have had both happen to me)

also find it funny that the hobby shops folks talk about the most and love the best are the shops with lots of old stuff sitting on dusty shelves but every hobby shop I know of has a fit if something sits on the shelf for more then a month or two.  And yes I understand WHY that is.  Inventory that is not selling is just a money sink and cost shelf space as well as taxes.  But you have to get folks to want to come in.  So that old kit is sort of “advertising “ or “promotional “ expenses.

Years ago (about 30) I had a customer cancel an order that was almost 1000 (and that was huge back in the day) because the owner waited over three weeks to PLACE the order.  The third time he came in and I had no delivery date because the Oder was not placed he just canceled it.

On the other hand I lost the contract to design two new laser tag places because the owner of the Design firm wouldn’t come out, say hello to the owner of the laser tag place and take the check for the last one we did.  He figured that if the owner couldn’t spend 5 minutes on him and collecting the check and the new project then he didn’t really want his buisness.   So this bad management is not just a hobby shop issue.

Not saying this was what happened to Caboose never having been in the new one, but it is all way way to common.  
 

-Doug M

Chepe said: "The title of the

Chepe said: "The title of the thread is atrocious, as so many others said Covid 19 isn't the reason this shop closed."

I agree. There's no legitimate reason for MRH to perpetrate a fraudulent narrative.

The Title

The title of the thread is merely repeating what CABOOSE THEMSELVES posted. Joe simply posted THEIR WORDS to us in PHOTO FORM, concluding with his personal laments that doesn't contradict or alter the words of Caboose.

Andre

every hobby shop I know of

This is a huge topic of discussion with the shops I work with,  Would you buy this or not is this on the list of something you think people would want etc. etc.  I'm still surprised when we see some orders that sell out in hours etc.  and what should be a good seller never moves.  

Shelf space is money, items that do not sell is money doing nothing etc.  

We also talk about small items to have on hand that can be added to an order,  Do not want to lose a sale over a something as simple as track cleaner or bottle of glue etc.  watched the store spend $1000s to buy one of every item from several small detail parts manufactures.  Again do not want to loose a sale over some fire cracker antenna etc.  

It is a balance of needing to have everything in stock to ship in a 12 hour window or less.  But not having stuff sit on the shelf eating up space for months and years.  

Proper inventory management, know were everything is and realize that you might be in a huge warehouse but each space on every shelf is a small rental for that entire space.  Nickels and Dimes add up, but never lose a large sale do to not having a .50 cent part in stock.  Lots to balance but when you get it done correctly it feeds itself and keeps expanding.  Do it wrong and you are on the path to failure

Their is another (Canada based) on line store that acts as if they have everything in stock etc. or can get every thing.  This store will buy the stock out of the other online shops to fulfill their orders.  Makes me think?  Why the customers are not looking/shopping around?  The initial store does not discount for other hobby shops,  so you pay one stores cost and shipping and then that 2nd stores cost and shipping etc.   odd way to run a business.  It is funny to get the message guess who bought all of our brand new just in (Fill in the Blank).  Are they not properly placing orders for themselves?

The narrative here is complicated

And Joe is operating off a public facing statement that invokes the pandemic.  That's not misleading.  It does appear the owner of the building wanted them out, and may well have used COVID as an excuse.  There is a multi-agency federal center across the street, and that tends to drive both rent increases, and a desire for establishments that cater to the semi-captive federal workforce out on lunch breaks.  When I lived in DC we saw this in spades - a lot of the retail and dining in DC proper around the Capitol and White House and federal HQs runs on a schedule matching occupancy of those buildings and often closes on weekend as a result.

There are management elements as well, and recent change to a public benefit corporation which have also hurt the chances.

None of that is Joe's fault, and we really shouldn't bash him for reporting what he knows and not speculating on what he doesn't know.  That's our job afterall.

I agree.  There have been

I agree.  There have been whispers about the demise of Caboose long before COVID-19, but I guess that was the final nail in the coffin. 

from the start

I moved to northern Colorado in late 2002. After Christmas I made myself a promise to have a train running around the Christmas tree in the upcoming year. I found the Mizell (wall of trains) shop in Westminster (closed in 2012) and Caboose Hobbies in Denver. WOW! Walking into that store the first time was eye opening, engaging, mind boggling, and the true start of my model trains hobby. Helpful employees, stocked shelves of so many different things, competitive pricing, and worth the 50 mile drive to get there. 

Fast forward to 2017. Drove the nearly 50 miles to the new Caboose store. I find poor stock selection, no  signage with product description/PRICING, and scarce less than enthusiatic employees. They were not even close to being ready to open. I waited awhile and returned. Nothing had really changed. Oh, there were more price tags, but MSRP pricing and out of stocks were still prevalent. 

I decided to try their website thinking that I was missing something in the store. It was the most difficult site I've ever tried to use out of hundreds I've been on both in and out of this hobby. That sealed it. DONE!

They were doomed from the start though. And adding a caboose to the parking lot seemed like a poor use of company funds. Yes, they had an uphill battle trying to live up to the iconic Caboose Hobbies decades old reputation but, even with that example to work from, they still came up way short. COVID was the final nail after 3 years of never getting it right to begin with.

And then there were none. And, no, I will not drive to Colorado Springs to see what Roy's has in stock. 

COVID seems to be a convenient excuse

The closure has been circulating around the internet for some days now so I was wondering when it would pop up here.

I agree with many others here.  COVID seems in some cases to be a way to point the finger at something else rather than take responsibility for mismanaging the hobby shop. 

One rather obvious thing that front loaded the shop for failure was the costly purchase and moving of the D&RGW caboose to their parking lot.  Cool as it was, I recall reading the cost was somewhere between $30 and 40 thousand for the caboose.  That money could have been used to restock the shelves rather than running out of money and having little stock to sell to generate operating revenue.

The gentleman who was the former proprieter of Allied Hobbies in southern California once commented that the proprietor of a hobby shop is the secret sauce for success.  I think he was onto something "key" there.  And that is one of the main reasons I have always felt it was disingenuous for Caboose to present themselves as Caboose Hobbies continued with a history dating back to 1938.  No it wasn't.  Caboose was a new shop, with a new/different proprietor doing things his way, and not the way of the former owners of Caboose Hobbies.  The secret sauce was, in hind site, THE missing ingredient.

No, the store we all new and did business with called Caboose Hobbies closed in 2016.  A new shop called Caboose opened, and by all indications with the intentions of replacing Caboose Hobbies and drawing on the nostalgia and history of the store that closed.  And by reading quite a few posts, it appears many have and do consider Caboose to be Caboose Hobbies and are mourning the twice closure.  I guess the spell of nostalgia was strong magic and has worked on some folks.  As we know now, nostalgia and good intentions were not enough to a successful and lasting hobby shop make.

I followed the story of Caboose Hobbies when they announced the lease on the building had been cut and the owners had given Caboose Hobbies a period to vacate.  The owners were basically at retirement age so elected to retire and close the shop.  When I saw news about someone planning to move and re-open Caboose Hobbies, I felt a disturbance in the force when the old website was not taken over, nor the name Caboose Hobbies continued.  Only the fantasy that the legacy dating back to 1938 was being used.  To me, this meant the owners of Caboose Hobbies didn't want to transfer ownership to the original site and shop to someone else; perhaps they felt they had built a reputation and wanted to create a legal separation between their closed shop and the new shop opening.  Frankly, and on hind site, a wise decision.

The new shop opened in 2017 so naturally I browsed their online site.  The first visible indication of a difference between Caboose and Caboose Hobbies were the prices.  Caboose prices were at or near MSRP, where-as Caboose Hobbies had a decent discount price - I used to buy trains from Caboose Hobbies site and knew of their pricing structure.  I didn't find anything I needed at the time and was already buying from a number of reputable vendors for many years.

I still saw a lot of people posting their nostalgic feelings and were very excited to patronize the new shop.  Of course their choice and their money.  By around 2018/2019 there were reports of empty shelves and little stock.  Late last year and earlier this year there have been reports of people paying for items and pre-ordering items and not getting them.  Reports also of calls going unanswered.  April Caboose closed with the excuse that COVID had forced them to temporarily close and they intended to relaunch.  A go-fund-me page was started to raise $50k to relaunch.  As of the last time I checked, only $12xx was raised.

Since last spring I read that Caboose had become an employee owned business; then Chris Palmerez was going to join Caboose to become the general manager.  And here is the real kicker.  Caboose was advertising to hire a Cultural Curator, of all things.  Imean, what were they smoking - I guess wacky tobaccy is legal in Colorado so ...  But talk about pie in the sky ideas for a failing business that could ill afford another salary for a position that would likely bring little to the bottom line, especially with a shop that sold merchandise with a thin margin for profit.

Anyway, I agree with most here, Caboose was already failing before COVID hit.  If anything, the only thing that COVID did was to deliver the coup de grace.  (from the wiki: a  death blow to end the suffering of a severely  wounded person or animal. ^{[1] [2]} It may be a  mercy killing of  mortally wounded civilians or soldiers, friends or enemies, with or without the sufferer's consent.)  But if there was no COVID, it appears the result would have been the same, but maybe taken a few months longer.

In closing, I don't think most hobbyists wish to see a shop closed, but it is a pretty universal thing that the success of a shop relies primarily on the proprietors method of running it.  Model train hobby shops are generally known to be marginal ventures selling products with small profit margins.  A shop has to be run lean and mean, and sell a high volume of product and take advantage of online sales to extend reach customers far beyond their region.  It was fantasy to rely on nostalgia and hopes that profits will be sufficient to pay salaries, pay for purchase and transport of a real caboose, building costs, insurance, and plenty of store stock - that business plan should never have been accepted by a loan officer of a bank, if that happened.

Anyway, Caboose as a brick and mortar shop appears to be gone.  What is very unclear and vague is what the business intends to do in the future.  Caboose calls itself a public benefit corporation, but is that more pie in the ski?  Is Caboose going to continue as an online sales business selling trains like modeltrainstuff or others similar?  I don't have a FB account but I have looked at the Caboose Facebook activity and it appears to be mostly social media meetings among train enthusiasts. 

My impression is the activity was mainly a way to keep some sort of interest up for the shop and to bide time until Caboose could relaunch.  As a brick and mortar shop, that relaunch is not going to happen.  What ever else happens isn't clear.  I assume since money makes the world go round, they will need to generate income.  And from a post by Iowa Scaled Engineering (maker of Protothrottles), they are owed a few thousand dollars and have gotten only crickets from Caboose.  Likely there are others owed money or refunds, and the turnip has little blood to give.  Even the go-fund-me money isn't enough to pay Iowa Scaled Engineering that they are owed.

Time will tell.

Wholesale business

Why don't Caboose become a solely wholesale business like what M.B. Klein did? Montgomery Ward went strictly wholesale years after filing bankruptcy and going out of business.

Wendell

Layouts that are 16 square feet or less

http://www.model-railroad-hobbyist.com/node/30394

 The title of the thread is

xx

Maybe, but the plain reading of the title of the topic is that Caboose succumbed (closed) due to COVID.  And by the reading of responses, it appears that readers may have taken it that MRH was tacitly saying it was so also.  The problem with a simple regurgitation of something without any qualifier may cause a mis-impression.

Probably, a better, more careful wording of the title would have been something like: Caboose reports that they succumbed due to COVID and are closing.  That gives readers a more accurate understanding that MRH isn't reporting Cabooses demise is due to COVID, but rather this is what Caboose claims about themselves.

From Iowa Scale Engineering - COVID is not an excuse.

Here is a post from October by Iowa Scaled Engineering who makes Proto Throttle for what it's worth:

Cheers,
Jim

"Iowa Scaled Engineering

As small business owners, we hate to disparage other small businesses in the hobby – and within model railroading, most everything qualifies as a small business. We’re all trying to make a few dollars while providing products and services our fellow modelers want. However, we hit the breaking point a couple weeks ago. Let me get straight to the issue:

Do not do business with  Caboose in Lakewood, CO. They don’t pay manufacturers, they don’t fulfill customer pre-orders (or refund down payments), and they don’t communicate.

We have a rather unique arrangement with our dealers, since there’s not the margin in products like the ProtoThrottle to give the usual dealer discount from manufacturers (typically ~60% of MSRP). The arrangement is that we carry the inventory so no payment needs to be made until an item sells. Once the item sells and the dealer has cash in hand, we invoice them for a cost that roughly splits the profits. Once we’ve been paid, we’ll ship them more product.   It’s a win-win – we get greater sales and the dealer makes money with no cost of inventory. 

Or rather, it’s a win-win until some dealer sells the product and decides to just pocket the cash rather than paying up.

Enter Caboose.Last summer (2019), they sold 4 regular ProtoThrottles, 1 black ProtoThrottle, 2 NCE receivers, and 4 ESU/WiThrottle receivers. We invoiced them on September 6 for a total of $2598. Attached is the invoice if you’re curious (edited so we don’t quite reveal our dealer pricing). We then contacted them again in late September 2019, visited in person in October 2019 to deliver a paper invoice, and then continued to send certified mail, email and call them in March, June, September, and twice in October 2020. We have been far beyond reasonably patient with them. The only acknowledgement we have received to our last three queries was a single cryptic sentence last week. While it didn’t address any of the issues, it did confirm they are receiving and ignoring our communication.

COVID is not an excuse. These items were sold and they had the cash in hand for them six months before the pandemic even emerged from China.It’s not just manufacturers experiencing Caboose’s unethical behavior – it’s customers as well. I personally pre-ordered 5x N scale Rapido 8-40CMs from them on October 10, 2018, putting down a $292.45 down payment. At the time, I wanted to support them as a local model railroad shop. Neither the 8-40CMs nor a refund on the down payment has ever shown up, and the ones I ordered through other sources arrived a month ago (Sept 2020). Emails go unreturned. My assumption is that they never received the product to sell, and given our experience with them as a manufacturer, I certainly have a guess as to why. My assumption is also that my down payment money is long gone, and there’s nothing in the coffers to refund it.

A normal business would take them to a court of law. Michael, Scott, and I have day jobs that actually pay the bills, the amount is relatively small, and there’s an old adage about blood and turnips that applies here. So instead, we’re taking our case first to the court of public opinion – our fellow modelers. If Caboose pays their year-late invoice in full and either refunds my down payment or delivers my 8-40CMs, I will post an update to this story. In the meantime, please share this with your friends."