August 20, 2010 -- Desktop Solutions of Pennsylvania, Inc., parent company of Merchandise Service, will be closing its doors as of December 31, 2010. Merchandise Service, therefore, will be closing as well. Jerry Britton, majority stockholder of the corporation, will be pursuing other interests.

The corporation remains fiscally sound, so customers still doing business with Desktop Solutions/Merchandise Service should not be concerned. This has been planned since August 2009! The decision was made to end the business as of the end of a calendar year for tax purposes, and there was not enough time to plan accordingly for a December 2009 closure.

The issues with our internet service provider in May was unrelated, but untimely. Untimely, as we obviously want to liquidate remaining stock and it is not worth the investment to migrate the eStore to a new provider. Hence, there has not been a functional online presence since that time.

We will continue to serve customers locally through the end of the year and will likely vend at several train shows, including Timonium. Maybe we will see you there!

There are a few manufacturer projects for which there are absolutely no ETA's. Reservations for these projects will be cancelled and customers will be notified by e-mail over the coming weeks. There are a handful of reservations with deposits. We will be processing refunds over the next few weeks as well.

Finally, our sincere thanks to all of our loyal customers who have been along for the ride since 1987. We have shipped product all over the globe, including Canada, Chile, France, Belgium, Germany, United Kingdom, and Australia. We have made many lasting friends and will look forward to meeting up in the future. Thank you!

P.S. Keystone Crossings and The Alphabet Route sites will continue to serve. They were moved to an off-site data center in preparation for this time. The discontinuance of PRR-talk, Conrail-talk, and Reading-talk were all in anticipation of this closure.