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Uk or USA to buy a Broadway import challenger steam loco


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Interestingly, it's the reverse if you live in the US buying UK prototype. Very few web and almost no brick and mortar retailers bring in UK prototype.  Some Canadian support but then you are going through two sets of customs. Much less expensive to buy  direct from a UK web retailer.  Who knows if this will change in the near future. 

 

BTW Nearly all UK and US model railway RTR products are made in China anyway.

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Model Junction near Slough import Broadway from the US, have a look at their website see what they've got in stock or available for pre-order.

 

Also have a look at Factory Direct Trains website in the US, they do Broadway. I've used them a couple of times to get items that were not available here. Service was great but shipping charges were somewhat high and you have to pay VAT and courier handling charges when the item arrives in the UK.

 

Keith

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5 minutes ago, tetsudofan said:

Model Junction near Slough import Broadway from the US, have a look at their website see what they've got in stock or available for pre-order.

 

Also have a look at Factory Direct Trains website in the US, they do Broadway. I've used them a couple of times to get items that were not available here. Service was great but shipping charges were somewhat high and you have to pay VAT and courier handling charges when the item arrives in the UK.

 

Keith

I suppose asking why may be considered a silly question but living here without such added charges, it seems a bit of a rip off.  Anything I buy from the UK comes without any extra fees.:yes:

 

Brian.

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2 minutes ago, brianusa said:

I suppose asking why may be considered a silly question but living here without such added charges, it seems a bit of a rip off.  Anything I buy from the UK comes without any extra fees.:yes:

 

Brian.

Yep. We don't use the phrase "Rip Off Britain" for nothing. :mad: :shout:

 

 

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A general rule is that number you'll pay in £ in the UK is the same as $ in the US. But exchange rates, shipping and import duty VAT [*] will convert the $ figure to a similar number of £

 

I have bought stuff from the US/Canada before and been subject to ebay's Global Shipping Program - although they may seem excessive, there are no hidden extras such as Parcelforce's "handling fee" for collecting the duty - now that is a licence to print money.

 

One good reason for buying direct in the UK is if there are any problems in the first few months, it can be returned to the UK dealer.

 

Cheers,

Mick

[*] Ta to Tim for the import clarification - there shouldn't be any duty - the customs code is 95030030 for "toy trains"

 

 

Edited by newbryford
import duty removed
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No import duty for model trains. 

What you end up paying is price + shipping + 20% VAT (on price + shipping) + the handling fee, £8 in the case of the Royal Mail.

I don’t mind paying the VAT, but I do find it annoying paying VAT on shipping

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Importing from the USA didn't used to be such a problem a few years ago - shipping was really cheap (at least, USPS 1st was) & VAT was just put on the value of the item. But then suddenly shipping costs went through the roof, & VAT was charged on that as well, & importing became almost unviable for small orders. It's galling when you look at DCC Sound chips; they are so much cheaper in the USA, but all these charges mean you save very little over buying from a UK dealer, who will also have to pay these charges, & try & make a tiny bit of profit too.

Newbryford/Mick makes a very good point though about if the item turns out to be faulty; I knew someone once where this happened with a Bachmann On30 loco he imported; it developed a fault, & no Bachmann dealer here would deal with it, & Bachmann USA or the US dealer expected him to return it to the USA at his expense to be looked at. There then arose the question of how HM Customs might deal with the parcel being 'imported' a second time. He was stuck with a faulty engine.

For a big purchase such as in the OP, I'd play it safe & buy in the UK.

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There’s a thriving market for Harley Davidson aftermarket parts through Rotterdam and Amsterdam. Few of them are actually now made in the USA and the Dutch have the huge container port at Rotterdam as a hub (we could have done this at Southampton, I was amazed at the size of container ships coming in there, but hey-Ho...). I wouldn’t mind betting there was a Dutch supplier if you looked in the right place. 

 

 

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At one time there were quite a few UK retailers who either specialised in US outline models or who kept extensive stocks as part of a much wider range (European and UK outline) but it seems much less so now. I remember MG Sharpe, Victors, the Penguin, Macs Models etc. I think the ease of online ordering combined with the fact that the previously strong pound meant you were generally well ahead even after paying the VAT and handling charge (and at one time it was surprising how many parcels seemed to slip through the net with no fees) meant UK retailers struggled to compete. I think we've seen a similar dynamic with European HO, maybe to a lesser extent.

 

Klein/Modeltrainstuff is a reliable US supplier with a lot of stock, I've ordered a lot from them and never been let down.

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2 hours ago, F-UnitMad said:

Importing from the USA didn't used to be such a problem a few years ago - shipping was really cheap (at least, USPS 1st was) & VAT was just put on the value of the item. But then suddenly shipping costs went through the roof, & VAT was charged on that as well, & importing became almost unviable for small orders. It's galling when you look at DCC Sound chips; they are so much cheaper in the USA, but all these charges mean you save very little over buying from a UK dealer, who will also have to pay these charges, & try & make a tiny bit of profit too.

Newbryford/Mick makes a very good point though about if the item turns out to be faulty; I knew someone once where this happened with a Bachmann On30 loco he imported; it developed a fault, & no Bachmann dealer here would deal with it, & Bachmann USA or the US dealer expected him to return it to the USA at his expense to be looked at. There then arose the question of how HM Customs might deal with the parcel being 'imported' a second time. He was stuck with a faulty engine.

For a big purchase such as in the OP, I'd play it safe & buy in the UK.

There are provisions for re-importing items sent back to a country outside the EU for repairs, although I haven’t needed to use them myself and have no idea just how much red tape is involved.

 

Local postie told me that once upon a time, parcels coming in from outside the EU were selected randomly for scanning, but that things tightened up post the September 2001 bombings, and more and more parcels were scanned until it rapidly became all of them. At which point, some bright spark suggested checking them for VAT, but Royal Mail told HMRC that they weren’t going to devote resources to collecting fees on someone else’s behalf, so the “handling fee” got slapped on.

 

Anyone who thinks terrorism, or at least the threat of terrorism, has no effect on model railways is sadly wrong: it is through these little effects that terrorists cause maximum effect.

 

The other benefit of using ebay’s GSP is that goods are not delayed once they have arrived in the U.K. I have known items going via USPS/Royal Mail take 2 days to get to this country, and 2 weeks to get to my door. Some couriers offer a similar service, with no extra fee.

 

In the USA, sales tax is deemed to be a local (i.e. state) source of income, and if you buy via mail order you are exempt if you live in another state as you have not used the originating state’s infrastructure. Not sure what happens in-store if you can prove you come from another state, but that’s just a side issue. In the EU, VAT is part of each member state’s general revenue, and recognised as such within the Union, so no further tax can be imposed within the EFTA (which includes Norway, etc) but it is applied to purchases from outside the free trade area.

 

Buy direct if you have no other choice or you accept that warranty repairs will be well-nigh impossible. Don’t buy direct if you are trying to save money: unless there is a massive discount, you won’t save much.

For everything else, make a judgement call, but if you continually buy direct, don’t complain about the loss of U.K. hobby shops!

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3 hours ago, Regularity said:

In the USA, sales tax is deemed to be a local (i.e. state) source of income, and if you buy via mail order you are exempt if you live in another state as you have not used the originating state’s infrastructure.

 

Was only sort of true, and is no longer true.

 

It used to be that as long as an Internet retailer did not have a physical presence in the State that they did not have to collect a sales tax - though the law in many States (rather obviously ignored) was the buyer was required to pay the equivalent of the sales tax anyway.

 

However a Supreme Court decision last year eliminated that loophole and Internet sellers are now subject to collecting sales tax whether the person/company has a physical presence in the State or not (and given the mess that the sales tax system in the US is this is not a trivial undertaking).

 

 

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17 hours ago, brianusa said:

I suppose asking why may be considered a silly question but living here without such added charges, it seems a bit of a rip off.  Anything I buy from the UK comes without any extra fees.:yes:

 

 

Simple answer, it provides your local businesses (retail or otherwise) more of a level playing field while also fighting tax evasion.

 

As for your purchases from the UK, that is only true if they are duty/tariff free and don't have any other restrictions on them(*), and if you don't pay the local sales tax equivalent to your State (if your State requires that as many do).  You may, thanks to the way the US is set up, get away without having taxes collected on imports but that isn't the same as living without such added charges.

 

* US Customs has this page for American thinking of importing items, with some dangers listed https://www.cbp.gov/trade/basic-import-export/internet-purchases

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4 hours ago, Regularity said:

There are provisions for re-importing items sent back to a country outside the EU for repairs, although I haven’t needed to use them myself and have no idea just how much red tape is involved.

 

I did it a couple of times about 6 years ago, I completed the CN41 Customs Declaration with the description "faulty item for warranty repair"  following the advice of our local post office. The companies used the description "Item returned after warranty repair" and the goods were received without payment of import VAT or duties.

 

As an aside, when Badger and NCE say "lifetime warranty"; they mean it!

 

Nick

 

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1 hour ago, 43078shildoncountydurham said:

I probably should of asked first, has anybody got one, are they any good? 

 

Regards

 

Craig

I bought one while on holiday in the USA last November and all I can say is - fantastic!

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I've brought a lot of stuff in from the US over the years & many times evaded the duty, but over the last couple of years the RM / PF  ransom note has dropped on the mat every time, only recent time where one got through was an O scale brass wagon model from Canada, no VAT, no handling charge, perhaps we should all import from Canada in future? Or could be I was just lucky.  

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11 hours ago, 40019 said:

I've brought a lot of stuff in from the US over the years & many times evaded the duty, but over the last couple of years the RM / PF  ransom note has dropped on the mat every time, only recent time where one got through was an O scale brass wagon model from Canada, no VAT, no handling charge, perhaps we should all import from Canada in future? Or could be I was just lucky.  

That will be the EU-Canada trade agreement, which reduced or removed most trade tariffs, so there shouldn’t be any issues.

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56 minutes ago, Regularity said:

That will be the EU-Canada trade agreement, which reduced or removed most trade tariffs, so there shouldn’t be any issues.

 

I got charged VAT and the Parcelforce ransom when I bought a loco from Canada last year...….

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