Stefan88

Parcel from Italy has been delivered today, 5 days including a weekend, had it been posted a day earlier it would have arrived on Friday (sat in delivery office from just after midnight Friday night).

If you mean loco hauled passenger trains on the mainline, sadly that is likely to change quite soon as the ÖBB have ordered a huge amount of Siemens Desiro ML 'CityJet' EMUs, and more RailJet push-pull sets for long distance services (though the new ones have the drivers cab of a Vectron rather than a Taurus). The large amount of loco hauled services at present, usually with an odd mix of intercity and local 'CityShuttle' coaches, is because of a huge lack of rolling stock the ÖBB are currently experiencing, having scrapped or sold all 'excess' stock around 10 years ago and big reliability issues with existing RailJet sets (these are permanently coupled sets, so if there is a major defect in one coach the entire 7-coach set is out of use). They're hiring anything they can get hold of, hence why you'll see quite a few Swiss SBB coaches on domestic intercity services. They're also resorting to using locos with only 3 (out of 4) working motors in some cases. Where was the 'overgrown BR class 17'? I can only assume you mean a class 2045 like the brown one in my previous post here? I can't think of anywhere between Zell am See and Salzburg where there would be one parked up, with the exception of one in Lienz and another tucked away in Ampflwang the rest are all in the east near Vienna. Was it perhaps an ex-DB 211/212? The Salzburger Lokalbahn (SLB) operate a number of these.

The baggage compartments, like with most similar types of locomotives (there were standard gauge tank engines - class DT1 pre-war, class 3071 post-war, a standard gauge 0-4-0 diesel - class VT70 pre-war, class 5070 post-war, and electric classes 4060 and 4061 - later 1046) were too small to fulfil their purpose, which was to remove the need of having a luggage van, and consequently usually ran a train which had a luggage van anyway. As a result the baggage compartments tended not to be used for such, usually just being used to store tools. 2091.09 had its baggage compartment cut down in size to improve driver visibility out that end, but was the only one that had this done, making it unique in the class. The first series (2091.01-07) only had a single small windshield looking out over the baggage end on the drivers side (in that direction), the second series (2091.08-12) had 2, one on each side, something Liliput sadly did not include with their models of the second series. 2091.09 also had larger (deeper) windshields installed when the baggage compartment was cut down. The 2091 weren't particularly powerful (210PS), they could manage 3 bogie coaches (or 2 bogie coaches and a bogie bicycle van) on the level at the most, 2 bogie coaches uphill. Or twice as many typical Austrian 4-wheelers. Also worth noting 2091.12 first went to the Öchslebahn before being sold to the Döllnitzbahn in 2001 to join 2091.10. 2091.01, 05 & 06 are the only ones to have been scrapped, 06 in 1973 after an engine fire and 05 in 1992 after an accident, but 04 & 07 are now parts donors, 04 at the Bregenzerwaldbahn (BWB) as a parts donor for 2091.08, and 07 at the Waldviertler Schmalspur Verein (WSV) after it suffered a failure. All the others seem to be operational.

I posed the question on an Austrian forum and someone pointed out Happy Model have a branch there: https://www.happymodel.cz/kontakty/#CeskeBudejovice

Does České Budějovice have any decent model shops? Tempted to do a day trip the next time I visit my Mum in Austria as its a 1 hour 20 min drive, or half an hours drive to Gmünd and an hour on the train from there (and only €6.20 each way). Last time I visited I didn't have the time for any border crossing, and the time before that the border was closed because of covid.

The same goes for Plzeň though as they have the Pilsner Urquell brewery, also open to tours and 'sampling'. You'll probably find you're never far from a brewery in any major Czech city or town 😉

Perhaps address it to a Zimo employee specifically and declare it as a gift? Is there an option to declare it as a return? The last time I sent something to Austria (a Peco point) I declared it as a gift to avoid complications, he still had to pay a handling fee to the Österreichische Post but no VAT and it got delivered ok. If you're travelling to Austria (but not going to Vienna) or anywhere else in the EU you could just post it from there. I have a burnt out MX648 or MX649 that I'll just drop off in person the next time I go to Vienna, I keep it with my passport so I won't forget. From what I've read they usually repair it while you wait, or at worst the same day. I seem to recall they are walking distance from Schönbrunn, and Memoba aren't far away either, so no shortages of things to kill time without venturing too far away.

I would imagine České Budějovice would be a good one as there is international traffic particularly to/from Linz (especially freight), or Plzeň with international traffic to/from Germany, with potential from both to travel to nearby satellite stations where lines split.

A surprising expected delivery date for an ebay order from Italy being sent with UPS - Monday 8th April, posted yesterday (3rd April). The reason for my surprise is that the last 2 orders from Italy (a couple of years ago, both with UPS) took over 3 weeks! Previously they sat around in UPS's Carpi facility for over 2 weeks before being sent on to the UK, so if it really does arrive on Monday (or even at any point next week) that will be a welcome development. Cost was a little under €19, by far the cheapest way of getting a parcel out of Italy.

2 things of interest to note lately: My latest Roco spare parts order was delivered by Fedex, previously it was posted with Deutsche Post and delivered by Royal Mail. Total including postage was below the equivalent of £135 so can't comment on the recent possible trend of postage being included in this amount. It took 2 and a half weeks from placing the order to parts arriving - just under 2 weeks from order to parts being posted. I can only assume the spare parts are being warehoused in Slovakia (they seem to have their European distribution centre there) or Romania (last remaining European production facilities) and sent to Germany before then being posted to the customer, hence the relatively long turn-around time. Modellbahn Union seem to have hiked their postage rates to the UK at some point recently - it used to be around 9 Euros for the UPS option, now there is only a DHL option for around 21 Euros. Still not hugely expensive but far from the cheapest now.

I would imagine it is prototypical, the IV Parteitag (4th Party (Communist) day) was in 1954. Druckvariante would refer to it being a variant with writing on it, which would narrow the period down to shortly after the Parteitag. The text itself just states 13% energy saving (i.e. reduced coal and oil consumption) is promised by the railway workforce in support of the IV Parteitag.

Package arrived and nothing on the customs declaration to suggest a reason for the duty. The postage had also been declared higher than what I paid (€26.99 instead of €19). Going to have to do some digging with ebay customer services.

I successfully claimed the VAT back just after the rules came in to force as the order was placed and sent just before they came in to force, took about a month or so to get the cheque from HMRC. This time round will depend on what the customs declaration says, which will all have been automatically generated by ebay.

The letter has arrived and it gives no explanation as to why I've been charged duty, showing the same breakdown as when I paid online, so I'll have to wait for the parcel to come on Monday and see what the customs declaration has stated the product code to be etc.

Also worth mentioning that DB AG completely pulled out of the night train market some years ago, hence why the gaps in the market existed in the first place. There is also some level of cooperation/partnership (though not sure to what extent) from SNCF and SBB, hence why you'll see their logos on the sides of some NightJet liveried rolling stock. Presumably also from NS given that their Vectrons now run the entire route from Amsterdam to Vienna (though these are leased from ELL). Wien Hauptbahnhof 30/08/2023.