Nigel Emery

You’ve been lucky then, I use MSL a lot and if the value is over the £135 then I’ve always received the VAT bill from FedEx after delivery has taken place. Usually the bill comes first by txt message, then by email and eventually by snail mail. It’s been mentioned a few times in this thread but worth repeating. You don’t need to wait for the letter to arrive from ParcelForce. Once you can see on the tracking that the parcel is in the local depot you can ring ParcelForce who will translate the tracking number into the payment number allowing you to pay online (and usefully pick a delivery date that suits you). You were unlucky to get charged on a €100 item, that doesn’t normally happen although as this thread constantly proves the rules aren’t always applied correctly!

Once you see the letter I’d be interested to know what the Duty element is for! I’ve got another interesting one ongoing at the moment. About a month ago PF unexpectedly delivered a parcel without waiting for me to pay. The parcel even had a big label “not to be delivered until charges paid”. A few days later the normal letter arrived which I placed in my pending file! We’re now roughly at the date when if I hadn’t paid the parcel would be returned to sender. I’m intrigued to see what happens next!

I don’t think there’s much main line missing but there’s multiple shunters that have never been done. Lots that could be improved though and top of my wish list would be what n modellers have got this year. A decent Re4/4 IV. An updated Re6/6 including 11601/2 would be good as well. I have a feeling that might come from Piko as a Swiss Special with pricing even higher than the admittedly rather good Ae6/6.

FedEx usually bill retrospectively, first by txt and email which I usually ignore and then a couple of weeks later by letter which is when I pay!

Good to see the 3 rivets / bolt heads on the nose that were missing from the first batch have appeared. Good improvement!

I think there’s only one limited edition for Hornby Magazine / Key and therefore it’s Q3/24

At the time of writing Arcadia in Shaw (01706 882900) still have 37027, 37409 and 37606 (all non sound). No online ordering so you’ll need to ring and speak to Tim or Karen.

I don’t think we’ll know the answer to that until they arrive. Despite being the same part number 97447 (2 Rail non sound) has a different spec on the Piko US website to that on the piko.de website. If I get one it will probably come from Germany as I resent paying Gaugemaster prices. I’d like a US spec one but not at the cost of having to fly one across the Atlantic!

Assuming A&H models in Brackley are still the Lenz importer then they can upgrade your command station and throttle to the latest software version which allows access to the higher functions. When I had mine done before the pandemic it wasn’t too expensive. That said Lenz have gone from market leaders to a bit of dead end in 20 years. At some point you’re probably going to have to bite the bullet and change to a more modern / user friendly system.

Looks like Arcadia still have 425 (and 419). There’re closed on Tuesdays so the next chance is to phone at 9.30am on Wednesday.

As may Arcadia in Shaw but you’ll need to ring to check.

Good to see the 3 nose end rivets (or whatever they are) on the CAD. Hope they make it into the finished model. From talking to the team I understand the reason for their omission on the original batch is a bit unclear!

No problem, mine was ordered before I posted here, I wasn’t taking any chances 🤣

Apologies, I posted the shop link rather than the announcement link, try this: https://hubs.ly/Q01DlwD10

This just appeared in my twitter feed: https://hubs.ly/Q01DlwD10