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Stefan88

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Everything posted by Stefan88

  1. Took a full 2 weeks to get my order from MSL, delivered on Tuesday after FedEx decided they couldn't deliver on Monday even though the parcel had been in the UK since the early hours of Saturday morning. The shipment from my German storage unit was picked up on Monday and delivered today without any fuss by FedEx.
  2. Exactly the same as when I hear people in Austria complaining about their public transport, they really don't know how good they have it! Vienna has one of the best public transport systems I've ever been on, and an annual pass is €365!!! I then promptly tell them how much the equivalent pass would be in Birmingham or London... Regarding the earlier comment about the state of stations in Vienna - I strongly disagree, not since the early 90s has anything been particularly dark and dirty, my experience of the last 20+ years has been that they're generally all relatively clean and well lit, and security presence be it police or public transport bouncers is pretty high. Graffiti is a problem everywhere but Vienna is a long way off Belgium or Germany. Rolling stock seems to get targeted about as much as anywhere else.
  3. Sound projects are available from Zimo for MX and MS decoders and from ESU for Loksound 4 and 5 decoders, most retailers should be able to load those with the purchase of a decoder. A premium sound project (that costs additionally) is available from LeoSoundLab for either decoders. If it is definitely a 1216 and not a 1016/1116 then I'd go for the free Zimo project on an MS Decoder or a second hand MX if you can find one cheap, if it is a 1016/1116 then it's worth paying the extra for the LeoSoundLab project as they get the frequency changes and other noises like the brake release exactly right.
  4. I picked up an MTB 852 003 a few years ago when an Austrian retailer had one on offer at a price that put it just under the £135 limit, seems like a pretty decent model. Unfortunately its just sat in its box since I got it so not had a look in to its innards, but the website for Jacek shows a sound install ~ https://www.jacek-modely.cz/m-296-1-od-mtb-svetla-zvuk/#more-6871 Personally I'd look at replacing the 2 large battery boxes with a pair of sugar cubes, keeping the external side facades. A shallow sugar cube would probably slot in there, but I'd rather eek out the extra 1-2mm by removing the bottom of the battery boxes. Alternatively is there much meat to the ballast block over the motor, or any space inside it?
  5. Found it unusual as my experience with most other German traders has been that they send by the next working day at the latest if everything is in stock, often same day if the order is in by around 1-2pm UK time. Not fussed as none of it is urgent, only ordered as they notified me that the YaMoRC YD9401 upgrade module for a Digikeijs DR5000 was in stock and reserved for me for 3 days so I snapped it up as these sell out immediately. Chucked in a 21 pin Loksound 5 and a heavily reduced Liliput wagon to bring me just under the magic £135 (€153). On another note in case its not commonly known in the UK - Roco are changing over their IT system so direct ordering is down until likely mid-June, and by the sounds of it ordering through traders for anything not in stock with the trader might also be difficult if not impossible (including spare parts). And on the subject of spares - ordering spares from Piko seems to be taking an eternity - I've ordered some as part of a wider order with a different German trader and the parts (showing as in stock on the Piko website) have been on order with them for over a month now. Same goes for some parts from PMT, but as they're a small series manufacturer that one is a bit more understandable. Not had any issues getting parts from either of them in the past, all be it directly from Piko and through a different trader for PMT, both several years ago now.
  6. Placed my first ever order with MSL and not overly impressed so far - it has taken a full week for my order of 3 in-stock items to be posted, granted there was a single bank holiday in there but it seems a little slow for such a large well-reviewed outfit, especially considering my recent ebay order from Italy that was bought, sent and delivered in the same timeframe. Also just had the contents of my storage box at the German freight forwarder MyGermany combined and shipped after 2 months of ebay shopping. This is the first time I've really gone for it since the brexit rules came in to force having up to now just combined a handful of orders (before the rules change I'd usually combine 10-20 orders), this time consisting of 13 orders for a total weight of 8.3kg, costing €28 to ship with Fedex. DHL shipping would have been €35. Mostly things bought in Germany, but also a loco from a French seller and another loco from a Spanish trader. Was somewhat concerned this morning after they flagged my last order to arrive as 'dangerous goods' because it had a small pack of aluminium capacitors that they had classed as lithium batteries, but this seems to have been sorted out at their end after I emailed them telling them they are not batteries, have no lithium in them and are not restricted/dangerous goods. Hopefully it'll get out of the doors today before 2 days of bank holidays in Germany starting tomorrow, but realistically it'll probably be picked up on Monday.
  7. Happens in other countries too, usually when there is a shortage of stock. In Austria for example they mix double deck stock with old single deck stock to allow some element of the train to have platform level entry as there isn't enough double deck stock (which has platform level entries) to meet demand, these formations are locally known as a camel. In this case though it looks like the matching double deck centre coaches are out of use for what ever reason, unless they have been repurposed for other uses? Still looks very unusual though given that it is an EMU formation.
  8. Hornby had a few shelves of random stock for sale at Warley 2022, I remember as I spent a lot of time thinking whether or not to buy a discounted Rivarossi Austrian class 1040 electric loco with sound (in the end not). I'd imagine a good chunk of the stockpile will be European H0 - their RRPs are mad. The aforementioned Rivarossi Austrian class 1040 is about 30 years old and was part of the Lima assets, all that has been changed is a new PCB with LEDs instead of bulbs. It's still a usable model but some of the detailing isn't up to today's standards anymore. The RRP for a basic analogue model was near the price of some DCC Sound equipped models to a much higher standard of detail from competitors. Needless to say the only ones I've picked up were returns auctioned off on ebay by a UK trader, winning them for less than half the RRP.
  9. 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).
  10. 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.
  11. 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.
  12. I posed the question on an Austrian forum and someone pointed out Happy Model have a branch there: https://www.happymodel.cz/kontakty/#CeskeBudejovice
  13. 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.
  14. 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 😉
  15. 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.
  16. 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.
  17. 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.
  18. 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.
  19. 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.
  20. 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.
  21. 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.
  22. 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.
  23. 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.
  24. Finally been able to call up, get my code and pay, took 2 days for it to clear customs and travel across Coventry from the international hub to the delivery centre, and being a Friday naturally the next available delivery day isn't until Monday. Something new - I'm being charged duty on this one! I'll await the letter but I think I'll be putting in a claim on this one as model railways shouldn't be attracting any duty, I'm curious to see what code they have put it under. I'll also see if I can get back the VAT for the postage element - this already had VAT included, then eBay put on another 20% and the total VAT charged is for the item AND the postage, so I have paid VAT 3 times on that! It only accounts for £3.90 of the VAT charged but still... I'd have been better off sending this to my freight forwarder and combined it with the 5 other items I had consolidated and shipped this morning. After working everything out with the exchange rates etc it has cost me about £20-23 more than had I gone down this route, pending any refunds on charges. Had I had it forwarded straight on to me from them (i.e. not consolidating it with anything else) then this gets more or less wiped out and there would be no difference. That said, £364 all in for something which had an RRP of €600 (now €660 with Rocos 2024 price increases!), and the lowest price I saw for it was £425 from a UK trader while it was briefly on sale (and quickly sold), its still not bad in the grand scheme of things and more or less bang on what I personally valued the set as (£200 for a loco with DCC sound and £150 for 3 coaches and a baggage van).
  25. Thanks for the tip, unfortunately I can't even do that yet as its still not been assessed by customs, only when the tracking shows it has arrived at the delivery depot can I call up and get the customs number. So far its been sat in customs for 30 hours according to the tracking...
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