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There's far too little data on this thread to be sure. Like I already pointed out, the Swiss name their trains about as often as the British do. I suspect there's going to be significant recall or confirmation bias when discussing such a topic on a British forum in any case.

I think the other half of the reason may be that couriers are - or have been - more focused on B2B. And even for e-commerce to private people most deliveries would have been within-EU therefore with no need for customs. Whereas post offices have already built up all the infrastructure to ensure customs collection prior to delivery since they have dealt with significant volumes of parcels from around the world since forever. Of course Brexit changed things for couriers in the UK because suddenly most as opposed to only some imports need to go past HMRC, but they do tend to design their systems with global use in mind so I'd be surprised if they changed things just for the UK.

There's been a long-standing plan to use There's been a long standing plan to use Capricorn's for the Landquart-Scuol section, to allow (half of) the Landquart-Davos and Landquart-Scuol trains to run as one until Klosters. Latest reports suggest this operation will start end of 2023 https://www.suedostschweiz.ch/ereignisse/ab-dezember-wird-bei-der-rhb-gefluegelt In the meantime - starting 2022, they'll be using Capricorns for Landquart-Klosters-St. Moritz and the other half of the Landquart-Klosters-Davos connections (as one train until Klosters).

Something along the lines of the railjet may also have worked: push-pull, albeit with hybrid locos for the highland sections. And as long as you don't permanently couple the coaches you can still reshuffle depending on season. My primary concern would be loss of platform length, and whether or not a single hybrid would be enough for some of the highland sections - but maybe that can be solved by attaching locos (if need be 2 of them) for one of the highland sections in Edinburgh, while keeping the other sections mostly fixed. In fact that could probably be done with the existing stock - just order some driving trailers from CAF, some more 93s, and figure out the appropriate diagrams. And before someone tells me it won't work - the Swiss sometimes operate push-pull with locos on ends or in the middle for trains of the same length (and on occasion, with some carriages locked out, even longer).

The control systems are all wrong I think - RE460 with EW IV or IC2000 uses UIC18+EP cables, whereas RE420 or NPZ with EW I/II use one of the variants of VST. Mix and match likely wouldn't be possible without adding some cables: the EW IV/IC2000 are missing VST, the EW I/II meanwhile only have UIC 13 and no EP (they could at least be dragged by any locomotive). The upgraded RIC's have gained UIC 18 and EP but there's likely no reason to try shoving them? Although... that's actually only partly true: I've seen an IC2000 consist being pushed by an RE460, with RIC carriages hanging off the back. I've never seen it myself, but I can't see any reason not to do the same with EW I/II. The key part is these specific carriages are not being shoved. But that then makes me wonder: can the Panorama carriages be pushed? These were upgraded to UIC18 and EP like the RIC's (but fairly late I believe), but I've seen some forum posts claiming they're too weak due to the windows which seems plausible but hard to verify - and similarly it's probably not worth the investment to test and certify them.

The only difference is whether they are subtle about their bad behaviours. Same as for any other class of humans though.

Introducing large cabins without bunkbeds certainly didn't help either. There's certainly more flexibility if less comfort in the usual continental models that have 2 or 3 room types total, which can be configured to suit the number of passengers in the room. All that said, the OeBB appears to be reducing density in their latest rolling stock (only 2 levels of bunkbed), but still with more density than many cabins on the Caledonian.

In Switzerland more trains appear to be named than not - including multiple units. Almost all the RE 460s, all the DPZs, ICN's, GTW's - but only some of the Giruno's, Flirts, Dosto's, etc.

I was responding to a post asking about the oddities in Cardiff, where the 800s have to switch to Diesel while remaining under the wires - admittedly neither the quoted section nor my post made that explicit.

That would be an automatic 1 star review for the seller from me. It might not help you but it helps other buyers beware - and gives the seller an incentive to fix their practices. And enough similar reviews might prompt Ebay to step in and give the seller a talking to. (Where I live, the customs receipt includes a link to the full customs calculations, but I don't know how things work in France. They must have this available somewhere, but perhaps not easily available?)

I can only speculate as I haven't seen any explanation of what could go wrong - but I think I can imagine what it might be. I could of course be completely wrong - but I suspect that in that case I may at least rile up someone with better knowledge to provide a better explanation. Suppose you have an electrified double track main line, and a diverging unelectrified branch line - with a double junction as follows: And now suppose you have an electric train running left to right on the bottom mainline (wrong direction for British practice I know), but it has erroneously been routed onto the branch line. And let's assume that there are only two wires - one above each main line. The pantograph will start rising just after the point (A'B'), and collide with the wiring above the Diamond. Depending on how fast the auto-lower mechanism kicks in and depending on the speed of the train this might not happen - but judging by the speeds I see in practice it seems very likely. Is this similar to the situation in Cardiff? I don't know, I'd have to go there to find out.

Someone is making a mistake here. This is not supposed to be a double taxation system - it's supposed to be that the seller charges the VAT (or in this case: Ebay on behalf of the seller), put's a sticker on the package and enters a special number in the electronic customs declaration, and customs in the destination country sees that VAT has already been paid. And it's nothing to do with France, it's EU-wide. UK has a similar system, and there's also a more limited version for Switzerland. So you should try to figure out who is doing it wrong: did the seller not read the instructions, or are French customs being lazy? You might be able to check by looking for an IOSS number and IOSS logo on the package - but that's not the most important part - the most important part is that the sender must do an electronic customs registration when preparing the postage label. You should maybe ask your seller if they followed these instructions. If they didn't bother with the electronic part, then customs won't see the prepayment.

I've come across even commercial sellers in the US committing customs fraud, but I'm not a huge fan of the practice. In some countries it leads to delays when customs notice the obvious wrongful declaration, it's never happened to me but ... Back to Rails: I tested their website, and it does deduct British VAT (to the tune of 20% even for used items) when checking out - but it also looks like they don't charge the destination VAT for such sales. So the lack of UK VAT deduction seems to be specific to their Ebay channel (and Ebay also forces the use of IOSS but with Ebay taking care of the paperwork for it). It could be worth asking them about it.

The situation is not as simple as you state. Most likely Ebay is collecting French VAT, which they pay using the IOSS system - which is in fact documented here: https://www.ebay.com/help/selling/selling/vat-obligations-eu?id=4650 So the only question remaining is: what about UK VAT? I presume that Rails do charge VAT on UK orders, so it should really be deducted from the original price prior to applying French VAT. But perhaps they don't want to do so (it's legal but distinctly anti-consumer, as long as they don't lie about it), or perhaps they've misconfigured their Ebay listing, or perhaps the listing already excluded British VAT. // EDIT: I've looked at some other Rails listing on ebay, and they only claim to send to the UK. So the second suggestion seems the most likely - they simply haven't configured their listings appropriately. But things may be even more complex than that - this is a used item, therefore subject to the VAT margin scheme in the UK. In other words, the domestic VAT charged for this item will be less than the UK 20% VAT rate, so there's obviously less than 20% to deduct when selling overseas. The Ebay documentation doesn't appear to even attempt to cover such complex cases, so it's probably fair enough for Rails to simply avoid the topic and charge the same price everywhere: https://export.ebay.com/en/fees-and-payments/taxes-and-accounting/uk-vat/ // EDIT 2: and more likely they'll be using the Global accounting VAT margin scheme as opposed to the normal version, but that makes it near impossible to figure out what the actual tax would've been for any single item. Far easiest to just set a single global price.

Trapezoidal buffers seem to be standard for Eurolight, I suspect they just kept the default for the UK. // EDIT: in fact they seem to have been standard already in the days of the Vossloh Euro which predates the Eurolight.

Ricardo is a very Swiss centric site (and conversely ebay is not much used here). You may have some luck if you ask nicely, but I suspect many will not be willing given the higher costs and complications and risks. Also be aware that international postage is unfortunately rather expensive in comparison to elsewhere (they got rid of the "economy" rates this year), and there's the issue of customs which again adds more risks (some buyers refuse to pay). Oh, and officially Ricardo only list bank transfer and cash on collection as payment method - I suspect sellers won't want to resort to e.g. Paypal because that's more risk and hassle for them, and who knows what Ricardo would do in case of a dispute when not using the official payment methods: https://help.ricardo.ch/hc/de/articles/115000386349-Wie-kann-ich-einen-gekauften-Artikel-bezahlen-

The last one is extremely common I think - similar to the IC921 link above, I've seen plenty of Zurich-Basel trains hauled by an RE460 between at least 2018-2020 (the trains I remember were rather long however - similar to this year's IC 787 with 12 carriages which also matches). And I also found this video of an RE460 picking up the Hamburg-Zurich train in Basel, containing such a panorama carriage (but in an otherwise typical EC consist): https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8UzBTFa1MsU&t=2s Second - I found some more photographic evidence: https://www.bahnbilder.de/bild/schweiz~e-loks~re-460-lokportraits/422396/re-460-036-7-uebernimmt-in-chur.html Perhaps also the 3rd carriage here: https://www.bahnbilder.de/bild/schweiz~e-loks~re-460-werbeloks/497992/bunt-bunter-sbb-so-koennte-man.html First one: I did find this all-panorama train in grey, which arguably doesn't fit your requirements but is much more fun: https://www.ricardo.ch/de/a/sbb-re-460-lok-2000-plakat-poster-1149644344/ Closer to what you wanted - but with some additional domestic carriages: https://www.flickr.com/photos/lastarial/49452137511 The last one is quite interesting, because the middle section is international capable (not sure about the luggage van) - it's as if they wanted to make sure there's always some international capable rescue stock near the southern border in case the ETR470's did their thing.

These kinds of combinations are surprisingly common, I suspect they were short of one of the double-deck Bt's but I haven't found much information about it.

Trapezoidal shapes have been around for quite a bit longer than those two - for example the Swiss IC2000 and EW IV stock (although both of those have an additional cut on the outer side). Mk5a's have it too... all to do with push-pull operation I suspect? Having done some further investigation, the oldest trapezoidal version I've found might be this train from 1971 although its unclear whether it had those buffers at time of construction (I suspect they did since I can't find any photos with other buffers): https://de.wikipedia.org/wiki/Doppelstockwagen#/media/Datei:Bf_Rochlitz,_Doppelstockgliederzug.jpg

I found this which suggests it's being repaired: https://www.flickr.com/photos/rickskateboard/52311018377/in/photostream/

Even in 2019 (maybe even early 2020), RE460's would occasionally appear on trains with a mix of Bpm/EC/EW IV/sometimes panorama carriages (such as the Luzern-Zurich via Enge rush-hour trains). Similarly for consists with one or more Eurofirma carriages. In other words, they'd occasionally be used on trains usually operated by an RE420, but also seemed to be a firm fixture on the Zurich-Basel loco hauled trains in the 2018-2020 timeframe which were a real hodgepodge of stock (thanks to the eternally delayed Twindexx). I also had one at the front of the Berlin/Hamburg Nightjet for the Zurich-Basel portion (this had a couple of SBB seated carriages on the front which I believe were left behind in Basel). As has been pointed out upthread they could appear on domestic Gotthard trains, I'm pretty sure I've occasionally seen them on Basel-Lugano/Locarno trains at random points in time certainly between 2005 and 2018 or 19 - at the beginning of that time range the trains were still a mix of EC, EW IV, Bpm and EW I or II (not sure which anymore), and luggage van - more recently EW IV and EC and Bpm (to be finally replaced by Giruno and Traverso).j

As long as you don't operate in push mode, no one has any right to complain (at least I'm assuming they have UIC plugs, if they don't then just don't pretend to carry passengers - but surely they must keep UIC for ROLA usage?). Of course, even in push mode no one has any right to complain either, they can only quibble about accuracy. After all I've been on IC 2000 stock being dragged by a Re420 before.

I have a little sympathy for the shops who do this: orders outside the UK cost more effort to the company (customs paperwork primarily, but also more work to figure out the postage prices for such customers in the first place), and they're likely higher risk - in part because customs can and do send packages back in some countries - or the buyer can refuse to pay customs with the package being sent back similarly. Is that effort and risk equivalent to the price of UK postage? I don't know, but I find it hard to quibble personally (also when I'm buying British model railway parts I don't really have much choice in suppliers : ) ). All that said, I have noticed that a British coffee roaster that I sometimes buy from does indeed appear to factor in the free domestic shipping... because they only charge me just over GBP 3 postage for a 1.5kg parcel (which would usually cost GBP 12 from Royal Mail, minus whatever bulk discounts might apply). But they have a lot more volume and experience than I suspect most model railway sellers do. What I find much more jarring is if a shop doesn't deduct domestic VAT (or in other words, adds a 20% surcharge for foreign orders to replace the VAT). It's rare, but some shops do it (and I'm talking about VAT registered outfits).

Very clever - and certainly less work than the conversion kit :) http://www.phd-design-etchings.co.uk/index.php?route=product/product&path=25_28_64&product_id=104

Perhaps not the most modern, but likely to be relevant for pricing: Brittania Pacific build a range of EMUs (Mk1/Mk2, and a few others, and only the 442 from the Mk3 - list here), and pricing seems to be a touch over GBP 200 per carriage. They're effectively making their own kit, and building it from you - so paying for someone to build an existing kit might be a bit cheaper if you already have the kit - but I suppose it depends on what the builder thinks about the kit itself and the difficulty of buildin git. Hornby appears to charge about half as much per carriage for EMUs, but they obviously have the benefit of production at scale. Unless a given EMU generates a big enough market to attract a big manufacturer, you'd be stuck with the higher pricing of the small scale specialty manufacturers.