Stefan88

Another package from my German freight forwarder received without any bother from Parcelforce on Monday, posted with DHL and declared as €150. On another ebay purchase I had it sent directly to me, it was an auction from one of the larger German ebay traders (der.pfiff2010) that regularly puts up new items on auction listings (seems to buy off excess unsold stock from Roco and Liliput on the cheap and puts the items up for 24 hour auctions until they're all gone). With these traders ebay will deduct the German VAT (19%) from the final auction end price if its going to the UK even on auctions and second hand goods as the trader has their VAT set up with ebay. It still puts VAT on to the postage (which will have already had this included, so paying VAT twice on that), and if its below £135 then they will automatically add the UK VAT back on. So a very nice set I won for €365 became €306.71. Postage was €19. I figured paying the UK VAT and handling fee would be more or less the same as having it sent to the German freight forwarder (€8) and then sent to me from them as part of a shipment - it is quite a large box and probably a good 3kg or so, so would have had a significant impact on postage for the shipment from the forwarders (easily another €10-20 increase). Parcelforce is showing it as awaiting customs clearance so now its the waiting game for the VAT invoice to arrive in the post. I did wonder whether this stood a chance of slipping through, but given that it was all processed through ebay its hardly surprising that the UK VAT is being charged - the exact value and declaration will have been done automatically. A spares order from Roco will be next, they deduct the VAT on their website automatically when you start adding things to your cart. Postage to the UK is €9.50, in the past these were sent with Deutsche Post and delivered by Royal Mail.

A class 642/643 diesel electric is available from Moko, no idea on price ~ https://www.moko.si/dura-posebna-ponudba/

You could try Bahnhöfe in Österreich by Mihály Kubinszky, not sure whether there are any plans of standalone goods sheds in there but lots of plans and photos of stations ~ https://www.amazon.co.uk/Bahnhöfe-Österreich-Mihaly-Kubinszky/dp/3854161964 IGRA do quite a lot of different Czech goods sheds that are largely of Austrian heritage, there are others too making decent laser cut card kits. Modellbaumeister Abraham does some narrowgauge sheds that could easily be adapted to standard gauge by building them on a higher base ~ https://www.modellabraham.at/sonderanfertigungen?pgid=lepj6amd-76b7db18-b3dd-415c-abab-9a26aaaf85a3 There are some more here ~ https://www.brennpunkt.cc/Gebaeude-H0?Sortierung=4 KB-Model (Czech) have some ~ https://www.kb-model.eu/mtbmodel/eshop/5-1-Stavby-a-doplnky-laser-cut-H0/2-2-sklady-kulny-zachodky The smallish standalone goods shed in Krimml was available as an injection moulded kit from Faller or Pola I think.

Have you tried emailing them? Their products were being stocked by a retailer in Austria a couple of years ago, but not heard anything about them since 2022. The models did exist, I've seen several being made by a few people.

3D printed kits exist for the narrow gauge 740 diesel and 83 steam in H0e, running gear not included but the 740 is designed to use parts from Halling and the 83 requires a Roco 399 as a donor. Manufacturer is Skapa Model, no website but their brochures are floating on various forums ~ https://www.lokschuppen-dominik.de/Forum/skapa.modell_2021-04.pdf Narrow gauge rolling stock is non-existent both RTR or kit form as far as I'm aware. Standard gauge traction is also pretty poorly served in model form, ACME did a RTR electric loco but this is an Italian-derived loco that ran on the DC network in Slovenia. Someone was making small series models of some of the mainline American-style diesels but I can't recall the name, expensive but not too bad if you consider they are hand-made small series models. Strangely nobody does a model of the license built Swedish Rb which numbered nearly 300 and ran across most of former Yugoslavia as well as in Romania. Standard gauge rolling stock is a bit better served, ACME have done a number of coaches in JZ, HZ & SZ liveries, Roco have done a number of goods wagons in JZ, HZ & SZ liveries, and some other manufacturers have done Yugoslav rolling stock - LS Models once did a bogie goods van in JZ & SZ liveries, Albert Modell do a number of bogie tankers, Klein Modellbahn did a number of 2- & 4-axle open wagons and a 2-axle tanker in HZ livery. Not aware of anything RTR in Bosnian liveries (post-JZ). Web searches will be pretty futile (i.e. googling in english) unless you know more precisely what you're looking for and are searching in Bosnian/Croatian/Serb on search platforms in those languages.

I have 2 identical locos, 1 with an ESU Loksound 5 Micro hooked up to a pair of parallel 15x11x5mm 8ohm speakers in a shared enclosure, and one with a Zimo MS580 hooked up to a single 18x13mm 8ohm Dumbo speaker in a custom 3d printed enclosure. Volume and sound quality there is no real difference, only the quality of the sound file seems to have an effect on these (despite both being from the same provider, Zimo is better in this case). That said a pair of Dumbos in separate large enclosures will be better than a single Dumbo, but a single Dumbo is just as effective as a pair of sugar cubes.

Perhaps ask the question to Miniatur Wunderland on social media as they have a pretty extensive Mediterranean section? Alternatively I'd suggest posting your question as a topic in a layout-specific area of the forum where more people will see it - there are several coastal layouts on the exhibition circuit, you just want to add more blue rather than grey to your water!

And that was with Parcelforce, and the customs form was filled out correctly? Would be good to know if this is now the norm having had 3 years of the postage rate not being included in the £135. I've just re-checked the customs docs from the storage unit and they put down the postal charges/fees as 0, with the value declared as €150. The only other one I have to hand from a retailer has the postage correctly stated (€13.50) but the value of the goods as €0.01!

This was the Intercity livery used shortly after DB and DR were merged to form DB AG until the ICE white and red pinstripe livery was also adopted for regular Intercity in the 2000s. This livery was then retained on some DB AG owned CityNightLine and Autozug stock.

No none of the JC stuff is designed for overhead operation and most Roco PCBs stopped having that option from the late 1990s/early 2000s onwards. A lot of manufacturers like ACME and Piko are making pantographs out of plastic now anyway, only Roco seem to still make detailed pantographs out of metal, although I think the ones on my Brawa 4023/4024 Talent EMUs are metal too.

The CityJet (4476/4676) is a nice model, mine has had the sound decoder re-blown with a sound file from LeoSoundLab - well worth the €30. It captures all the frequency changes at different speeds perfectly. Its also worth replacing the factory single round ESU speaker with a pair of decent sugar cubes (I used a pair of 15x11x7mm Zimos hidden in the vestibules). And if you want to go really mad some people have also fitted a sound function decoder (Loksound 5 Fx) in the dummy end with another pair of speakers to get sound coming out of both ends. Another thing you might want to do is block up the corridor connections on the ends to stop light bleeding through when the interior lighting is switched on. Jägerndorfer have only moved to PluX22 sockets more recently, previously they used 8 & 21 pin sockets until quite recently so a lot of their models still have these. The 1822 even has both! Unfortunately this means a lot of models have head/tail lights that can't be switched independently. On a twin ÖBB 4020 EMU (1x powered and 1x dummy) I resorted to snipping a couple of wires on each so that the lights where the units are coupled together remain off. For my 1822 I've bought a universal 21 pin PCB from Zimo to attempt to wire it up to allow switchable tail lights, if it wasn't a sound fitted loco I'd have just gone straight to a PluX board and save myself a lot of hassle. The latest release of the 1822 is supposed to have a PluX22 socket now. The class 2068 & 2070 diesels are some of the nicest models I own, the lit instrument panels are a nice touch and can actually be seen on a centre-cab shunter with large windows unlike my Piko 1044 where you really struggle to see them from more than 10cm away. These diesels also have a diecast body so they have a decent weight. One thing to note is that while the JC pantographs are very nicely detailed, they are also very fragile. The Roco pantographs are much more robust for actual running with contact to the OHLE.

Are you sure it was under the £135? With Januarys exchange rate that would have been €156.15. I had no issues when I cleared out my German storage unit and declared the value as €150, postage was €30 so well over the £135 limit if postage is taken in to account. Delivered at the start of January, sent with DHL and handed over to Parcelforce in the UK.

Tillig: H0 ~ https://www.tillig.com/dateien/Unternehmen/LogIn Fachhändler/Prospekte/2024/TILLIG-H0-Neuheiten 2024.pdf Narrow gauge ~ https://www.tillig.com/dateien/Unternehmen/LogIn Fachhändler/Prospekte/2024/TILLIG-Schmalspur-NH 2024.pdf TT ~ https://www.tillig.com/dateien/Unternehmen/LogIn Fachhändler/Prospekte/2024/TILLIG-TT-Neuheiten 2024.pdf

Liliput new items can be downloaded as a PDF from this Italian forum ~ http://www.amiciscalan.com/forum/viewtopic.php?f=83&t=12736&sid=eddef7aaeb80304cb0f844d31c36c570 Apparently this seems to be a leak and wasn't planned to be released until 1st March for what ever reason. Last years catalogue is still valid for 2024 (being a 2023/2024 catalogue) and this is effectively a 2024 new items leaflet.

Something else that just occurred to me, tunnels and viaducts used to have names and length on blue signs like the older station signs at each end next to the track. Here is an example on the Mariazellerbahn ~ http://worldofrailways.net/gallery/displayimage.php?album=101&pid=3942 Perhaps 'Wolfsgraben Viaduct'? You'd need to name your tunnels too then 😉

You can get moveable ones from Weinert. There used to be several people making them in Austria but not so much any more I think - Heless used to do them a long time ago I think. Perhaps Ferro Train do some? MSE did some but I think they were dummies. Ferro Train seem to do some, it says moveable but I'm not sure whether there is a mechanism to link it to the points, it is €5 more expensive than the dummy but the latter is made from resin and the moveable one cast in brass. As for loading gauge indicators, if they are the same as the Austrian ones then there are several options ranging from 3D printed to painted. Ferro Train do some ~ unpainted or painted or in bulk painted on the sprue. I can't recall where I saw the 3D printed ones, possibly on shapeways, they're called a 'Grenzmarke' in Austria.

Re. 3-track loops - historically the line directly next to the station buildings would be for goods traffic at the station, with a goods shed either built on to the end of the station building or a little adjacent to it. The other loops would then be directional, it would be very rare for a passenger train to stop on the line next to the station building or for a non-stopping train to use it as a through-line. In modern times with the decline of local goods traffic such loops have largely been removed, but on mountainous routes like the Semmering they are retained to allow slower trains to be overtaken, i.e. an intercity/express train or even a goods train overtaking a local stopping service. On the Arlberg line they have even been retained at stations that have been closed to allow the overtaking given that that route is still largely single-track. Glad you've got all your signals Craig, now that Alpha Modell no longer exists it could become more expensive to get hold of Austrian signals, there are still other providers but Alpha were relatively cheap and easy to get hold of from many shops. Not sure if you have any, but 4 tiny details you could consider for your station - a sideways lollipop style bus stop sign for the Postbus (either DIY with a printer or VK Modelle do them as an accessory), an Austrian Postbox mounted on the side of the station building (Noch, Busch and others do these but easy enough to make DIY out of some card), a couple of typical Austrian public dustbins and an Austrian style phone box (ready made from Krois or Ferro Train or there are 3D prints).

Very sad to learn of this, been going every year since returning to the hobby 8 years ago and previously went several years in a row while at school with likeminded school friends taking the train up. It was only last year that I finally 'mastered' the parking situation, parking for free at Hampton in Arden station and getting a return on the train for the 1.5 miles to International for a couple of quid. Previously I'd always just parked in the International station long stay carpark for £9. I had intended to take my daughter to her first Warley last year, originally planning on doing it all by myself in the morning to allow me to do the rounds through all the trade stands without a 2 year old on my shoulders, then popping back home early afternoon and returning with her for a leisurely round of the layouts and displays until the end of the day. But unfortunately she became sick and started vomiting later that morning (just as well I didn't take her with me first thing!) and the trains stopped towards Coventry for around 3 hours in the afternoon anyway with no realistic other way to get back to Hampton until they got running again, so I just went back in and did a few more rounds of the layouts. So that was that and for me the saddest thing about all this is that I won't be able to share an NEC Warley with my daughter. The show has legendary status not just in the UK but also internationally. The show is very well known on an Austrian model railway forum I frequent and the other members were always amazed by my poor quality mobile phone photos every year. Most years I notice plenty of foreign visitors at Warley, last year I noticed some Dutch and German visitors from overhearing people in the trade and continental sections, and I've heard Italian and Slavic languages in the past.

If buying new go for ACME, vastly more detailed than the old Roco and much simpler Piko offerings, the Roco and Piko RRPs are absurd for what they are and you may as well spend the extra few quid on the ACME offerings. Second hand I wouldn't spend more than £30 per coach, £25 is about right, that's what I've paid for Roco offerings before and sold some at. The Piko coaches tend to have a pathetically simple interior for what are relatively newly tooled models. The Roco coaches are very similar (arguably slightly better interiors in some cases) but considerably older. Re. coach types I'd suggest some mixing and matching depending on the service you're trying to replicate, I think it is only in the more recent years that older types have been withdrawn/cascaded to regional operations leaving more homogenous train formations of newer stock (i.e. only newer types with plugging doors), it used to be quite common to have mixes of type-Z coaches with plugging doors and type-X coaches with folding doors and externally visible steps. And if you want to go back to the late 1990s/early 2000s then you can put different liveries in to the mix.

Same goes for the Yugoslav stuff, a combination of differing stock, usually in several different colour schemes, that travelled through Austria and most of West Germany, as well as some through Switzerland and on to France, usually picked up some local stock (Kurswagen) along the way through said countries, and ran behind just about every mainline locomotive imaginable at one stage or another. The ACME Hellas-Istanbul Express is probably the most colourful of these with its brightly coloured Turkish TCDD coaches, though the yellow/orange/red JZ liveried coaches ACME are to release will give it a good run for that title.

In 2015 me and the missus did a ~2 week trip to Prague and Vienna, flying in to Prague, then later getting to Vienna by train and flying home from there. Whilst I didn't take a huge amount of photos of railway related stuff there were a lot of the tram museums in Prague and Vienna. But before that a few of the handful of non-museum photos. In Prague we took a trip up the Prague Semmering. At that time the 'Esko' S65 route still began on the temporary platform north of the main Smichov station called Praha-Smíchov Na Knížecí, on the site of a former terminus station. Being before using google maps and having gotten off the Metro at Andel a few blocks further north, it was not so easy to find despite being next to a tram stop, but we got there in the end and rode it up to the top and got off at Praha-Zličín to switch on to the oncoming train back down. All run on single unit 810 railcars and still is today as far as I'm aware. At Zličín there is a siding to a loading ramp to allow loading/unloading of tram vehicles from railway transporter wagons (not easy to take from a moving train with a cheap phone from 10 years ago!). Another great thing about Prague is the tram route 91 - a museum route that runs around all the old touristy bits of Prague in a big loop starting and ending at the tram museum, at the time a single cost about the equivalent of £1! En route to the tram museum we saw a film set in the street, I assume it was something about the assassination of Heydrich. In Vienna we stayed in a new hotel next to the newly constructed Hauptbahnhof, at this point only the nearest 2 platforms were in use and the station wasn't yet fully open. The EC Sobieski is seen behind a CD class 380 waiting to depart to Warsaw. One day trip was to the Roman ruins in Carnuntum followed by the nearby town of Hainburg an der Donau, both reached by S-bahn line S7. In Hainburg the line runs on a raised section that doubles up as flood defences for the town (the gaps are filled in) before curving towards Bratislava (which it no longer reaches) and heading through part of the medieval town wall.

Both were untapped markets with RTR, the Czechs have been making their own resin and brass kits for decades but were poorly served by RTR at normal prices until the likes of MTB came along. Roco seem to have clocked on to some extent a while ago but have historically always failed to meet demand across the board - there are so many models they've made over the years which go for mad prices because they didn't make anywhere near enough. For example the Roco DB Wittenberger driving trailers used to go for ridiculous prices until ESU, Piko and Brawa joined the party. The Roco ÖBB CityShuttle push-pull sets are another, a 3 coach set still goes for €200+ on ebay, some individual coaches for €100+, CSD Type Y/B (particularly the 2nd/luggage) also tend to sell well over RRP. They really need to employ someone to trawl through ebay and forums to see which of their existing models are in demand, they really are missing a trick there, especially considering their financial issues over the last few years and being owned by a bank. Piko seem to have cornered the Polish market some time ago and its clearly a strong growth area for them hence why they're bringing out more Polish stuff. Not really surprising given that its one of the larger EU countries population-wise and incomes there have grown rapidly since joining the EU. Outside of the respective countries I'm sure plenty of people find them interesting as they haven't replaced all passenger services with identical multiple units and nothing but container trains and block hopper trains on the freight side, so quite interesting topics to model both historically and currently. One wider area still relatively poorly served are the Balkans - former Yugoslavia has a lot of potential. ACME does well with their Yugoslav themed coach sets, these always sell out quickly and go for high prices second hand. They seem to have clocked on to this with another bunch of new JZ coach sets planned but there is still a lot more demand out there, they would do well with further releases of SZ & HZ type-Z international coaches, and another release of the Slovenian electric locos they once did. I'm particularly surprised no RTR model of the license built Swedish Rb, JZ class 441, exist, given that these ran across Croatia, Bosnia, Serbia and Macedonia, as well as Romania and Turkey, with nearly 300 built.

Yes another M152 in original livery over a livery they haven't done yet seems daft, perhaps the first one sold so well that it justified doing another run with a new number? The PCB has changed too, these now have an MS decoder in a PluX22 socket instead of the MX-based on board sound PCB in the older releases.

I don't understand why they've done yet another plain red CSD T679.1, thats the third in a row now. Either a late CSD with some yellow as a 781 or a colourful CD 781 is what I'd want to round out my limited Czech collection. Looking forward to the newly tooled DB 144, finally something that is considerably more detailed than the old one but not as expensive as the Brawa model. Its going to get expensive with the Austrian narrow gauge, the Ybbstalbahn set with the 2095 diesel and the Pinzgauer Lokalbahn rolling stock will be must-haves. Perhaps also the standard gauge 2043 & 2062 diesels if the price is right. Then a whole bunch of other stuff that I'll get if they land in the sales at the end of the year!

That particular double decker was converted to a single decker type K in 1930 and lasted all the way to 28/12/1971 when it was withdrawn ~ https://www.strassenbahnjournal.at/wiki/index.php/Type_E_(1913-1930) There was also another type that had a low floor centre entrance and raised drivers cabs over bogies on the ends ~ https://www.strassenbahnjournal.at/wiki/index.php?title=Type_F_(1915-1939)