Railcar Fine Goods — Local services in El Monte

Buyer beware. I wanted to like this company so much, truly, but my experience with them was not good. On 1/16 I ordered a pair of their flight trousers. I could have gotten a similar pant of the same quality elsewhere but I chose them because they claim to offer a free complimentary chain stitch. I went ahead and purchased the pants. The next day I reached out to them to specify the length I want via email.Their response 1/18: "Requesting a custom inseam would make the order final sale and not eligible for exchange or return. Since this appears to be your first order with us we would first like to ensure that the sizing and fit works for you so we would be sending your order out with our regular length inseam. This will give you the flexibility to size up or down if needed. Once you have ensured that the sizing works, we can definitely provide the free hemming service for you for this order as well as any future orders in the same fit." My response 1/18: "No, please send a 31.75 length. If you can't, I understand and I'll accept a refund. Thanks." Their reply 1/19: "Before we proceed with the hemming service, we do want to let you know that pretty often customers who order our size 28 trousers end up needing a size 29 or 30. So we can do the 31.75 inch inseam if you can confirm that you are ok with the trousers being final sale and not eligible for exchange or return, but we would highly recommend trying them on first so that you do not end up with a pair of pants that don't fit you. Given that, would you like us to proceed with the hem or would you like to try them on first? We can always do the hem later." I thought that things would be smooth sailing from there and I would get my pants in a reasonable time. Spoiler alert: that absolutely did not happen. 2/13 arrives and still no pants. I went ahead and sent an email about the status of my order. Their reply 2/15: "I'm not entirely sure on the time frame right now, I just know that your pants are currently in production. I'll try to get you an ETA by the end of this week, I just need to check with the production manager." At this point I was really frustrated with them since their webpage for this product says: "PLEASE NOTE: Sizes 28-29 and 40-46 are cut and sewn when ordered. Please allow extra time for production for these sizes." Emphasis on the "cut and sewn WHEN ORDERED" part. That was untrue. 2 more weeks go by and still no update or ETA. At this point I felt that they were taking advantage of me and had no intention on shipping my product any time soon. I reached out on 2/27 letting them know I would cancel my payment with PayPal. (Thank goodness for paying through PayPal!) That did the trick because they replied on 2/28: "I just checked and your pants are currently in production and they are being put to the front to go out to you by this week. As soon as your order is packed, we will send over an email with the tracking number! Please let me know if you have any questions in the meantime." Funny how that works. My reply 2/29: "If they're not in transit on Friday with tracking I'll escalate my claim with PayPal. At this point you've been dishonest and quite frankly I don't want any of your products." Their reply on 2/29: "We understand, they are packing up the pants right now, just got the hardware on. Thank you again for your patience, you will receive a tracking# in a bit." Guess they weren't about to risk having to give me my money back after giving me the runaround 6 weeks because guess what? I received a tracking # on 2/29! Finally they told the truth! (It's the small wins.) I received my pants today (3/2) and guess what - they fit like all of my other size 28 waist pants. The unit of measurement known as an inch remains constant across companies, go figure. Hope this saves someone from the same frustration that I...

I'd give a 2.5 if it were possible.

The trousers I have are great, and the service on the exchange for those went well.

I've now ordered twice from Railcar, and each time the package has taken more than two weeks to ship. I'm still waiting for the second item, which I ordered 15 days ago. I understand that this is a small business with limited staff, but I don't understand why that should delay shipping of an item which appears to be in stock. Of course, if the items are being purchased prior to production, I would expect to wait weeks, months. I would also expect that fact to be made abundantly clear by the manufacturer.

If it takes several weeks to ship products which are in stock, the website really ought to mention that, and explain why this is the case. I've ordered stocked items from similar operations, and the items are routinely shipped within a few days of ordering. If there is an anticipated delay, the website makes this abundantly clear. Consumers of boutique workwear are willing to pay much more than what the vast majority of blue collar laborers would ever dream on spending, so I think it's fair for the manufacturers to be transparent about their service. The apparent disregard for the customer is more irritating than the time elapsed between purchase and shipment.

Furthermore, it comes off a bit smarmy to get these emails from Railcar featuring a discount coupon which expires before the last order has even shipped out. A coupon that expires?? But yall make stuff that's supposed to last forever. Wouldn't it be better for the customer to have a coupon that is good forever? Oh, and the 5% discount for spending more than $250 wasn't applied. I had to email someone to get the refund. This all adds up to many of the loathsome practices normalized by the big box retailers RFG so fashionably seeks to counter.

I so want to love this company, but am...

I have a pair of Rising Sun denim that needed some darning and to have the size reduced so I could keep wearing them. I also had a couple pairs of 5.11 Tactical Flex jeans that I wanted downsized. I was a little bit embarrassed to ask to get work done on the 5.11 jeans as they are obviously not the type of thing this shop makes or would normally work on. Steven assured me over email that he could do it. When I came into the shop with my wife and son Steven was really kind and helpful and didn't act like it was odd at all that I was bringing in such inferior jeans. He took the time to show us around and gave us a tour of the shop. It was a great experience and really cool to see. I now am able to wear all my jeans again, all the darning and reduction in size was done very well. I will be back here soon to buy a pair from Steven.

Edit: finally made it back in! I brought in a couple of pairs of jeans for the leg tapering service, more on that shortly. I planned on buying a pair of jeans from Railcar but ended up getting a Type 2 jacket in 14oz double black. The jacket is absolutely perfect and I've been wearing it every chance I get. The tapering was also done perfectly. You cannot tell any work was done, just looks like they have always been this way, perfectly tapered. I brought in another pair of 5.11 Tactical jeans and once again they didn't bat an eye in regards to doing work on such inferior "denim". The second pair I brought in was the Rising Suns that I had brought in 4 years prior! Still going strong just wanted a bit more tapering in the legs. I was only slightly nervous about having work like that done on these pants, but I knew from my previous experience that these folks are professionals. Once again I'm more than happy with the work done here, the customer service is next level and once again, I...