Hornby DCC with SOUND!!!!?????

In message , MW writes

Well, I would buy that NSW Garratt if I didn't have to import it personally.

"Jane Sullivan" wrote

Yup, me too.

John.

I see that BLI are intruducing an unchipped version of models and without sound and the difference in price is quite small. So its seems to me if it is offered then you might aswell get it.

Kevin

To run on a NSW layout, as an overseas visitor to your British layout or to convert to a British Garratt? Or as an example of what British models could be like but aren't...

What's the problem with importing it personally? I regularly buy stuff from Hattons and bring it into Australia all the time. I would have thought it would be less of a problem going the other way given the exchange rate favours your end (ie Customs limits before they get too concerned about tax and customs duty - here $400 although I heard it has recently gone up)

(My original point still stands that it seems odd the colonials are producing better models for a much smaller market than UK companies catering for a much larger market)

In many ways a small market is easier to produce for, as your not taking on a larger company whose petty cash can buy your entire enterprise, but whose volume and distribution means they can undersell you at will.

In the smaller market most of the manufacturers bottom lines are pretty much the same, and no one outside it is much interested, whereas say Hornby who have had a good few years with rising shareprice and holding profits could become a target of say Hasbro simply as they wished to lose a million from the cash column into the assets column.

Personnally I would love the Garratt, and the DMU they produce looks nice as well, sigh. Time to get saving.

One could quite easily run a model of a NSWGR Beyer-Garratt on a British railway, if allowing for modeller's licence that it was a preserved example repatriated to the UK. They were, after all built by Beyer-Peacock in Manchester and some were erected and test steamed inside the works in the UK. It will be such an impressive loco and big compared with UK steam, so the difference in scale between HO and OO probably won't matter as much.

The interesting contrast between what the manufacturers of Australian model railway models such as Eureka and TrainoRama produce and mainstream UK Bachmann and Hornby is that the Aussies seem to offer so many number and livery variations when first releasing the models onto the market. Plus they offer a choice of weathered or non weathered.

I think I would need to hear sound equipped models of locos whose prototype is familiar to me before commenting on the effectiveness of sound.

In message , MW writes

To run on my garden layout, as an overseas visitor, and also as an example....

This has been discussed before. Basically the post orifice and the customs devolve the collection of customs duties to some other organization that charges some exorbitant fee for the privilege. You do not have the same problems.

"Jane Sullivan" wrote

Aye, I was charged over GBP100.00 for importing two USA outline steam locos from America. Whilst we have the vagaries of the British Post Office and the rip-off with import duty etc, I'll only in future buy from the UK - at least that way I'll know in advance precisely what expenditure I committing to.

John.

In message , John Turner writes

Precisely.

Now if some kind soul can arrange for me to obtain one of these Garratts (not really bothered which number) with DCC and sound in the UK for an all-inclusive price, I shall buy one.

"Jane Sullivan" wrote Now if some kind soul can arrange for me to obtain one of these Garratts (not really bothered which number) with DCC and sound in the UK for an all-inclusive price, I shall buy one.

Andy, it's nothing to do with the carriers, it's all to do with Customs regulations. You can have goods shipped in to a bonded warehouse at Heathrow, then go and deal with HM Customs yourself, pay the duties, and pick the goods up, just like bringing in stuff when you come back from holiday. Except that the storage charges will accrue while you wrestle with the paperwork.

However, most people want things delivered to their door, and in those cases the Royal Mail or other carriers are acting at the Customs point as *your* agent. And are perfectly entitled to charge you a fee for so doing.

I really don't understand why anyone has an issue over this. Of course, there are considerations of efficiency and value for money in the provision of the agency service, just as with any service you choose to purchase, but the principle of Customs duties and their collection cannot be laid at the feet of the carriers, Royal Mail or otherwise.

Cheers, Steve

We have an issue because the application is capricious and unpredictable, we don't get to choose the agent and hence have no control over his fees which often have a minimum out of all proportion to the duty to be collected or the value of the item. If it happens to arrive by Royal Mail I have found it OK, if it happens to land with Parcel Force its a pain. If its DHL etc. expect to really pay. Keith

On balance I'd say the private couriers are marginally worse, in that they tend to charge even more in the way of administration fees for collecting the import duty and VAT.

John.

"Keith" wrote

I think that's a fair appraisal. Parcel Force recently charged me a fee in excess of GBP7.00 to collect import duty and VAT totalling GBP4.00, which is of course an extreme example, but it illustrates the way we get ripped off.

John.

"John Turner" wrote in news:dh23t6$3uq$ snipped-for-privacy@newsreaderg1.core.theplanet.net:

I'm not sure how many people here could use this dodge but up until fairly recently I used to get software sent to me from the US on a very regular basis ... it was always marked as "Commercial Samples" and as such I never had to pay any duties on it - because of course a commercial sample has no financial value.

The application is unpredictable because the Customs work on a sampling basis only of items that appear to have low value. That means some items escape from assessment. I presume that studies have been done which will show that 100% enforcement on low duty items will cost more than the recoverable duty, so the sampling basis will remain, but that is hardly the fault of the carriers. My personal view is that the larger and more rigid the box, the more likely it is to get caught for duty.

You *do* get to choose the agent. When you treat with the overseas seller, part of the negotiations will concern the shipping. You can ask that the goods are collected by yourself or a carrier of your choice. The seller may or may not agree to this, and thus you can choose whether to enter into his contract to sell, or not.

You *do* have control over the fees. As I said, you can have the goods shipped in to a bonded warehouse and do the Customs entry work yourself, or appoint your own agent.

There is a minimum business cost to processing any Customs entry. The "value" of the item is presumably your need to have it! The minimum transaction fee in the commercial world would be about £80, even when the goods have *no* dutiable value.

Just to illustrate the other side of the equation, last year I returned some goods to the USA for alteration. When sending them back this year, the seller didn't send them back here the right way, and I was assessed for several hundreds of pounds of duty for the *second* time round. The carrier (UPS) was extremely good about helping me to assert to the Customs that no duties were payable this time. It ended up with no duties to Customs and no fees to UPS.

I do agree there is not enough forewarning for the unwary about the way these charges work.

Cheers, Steve

You don't say either way, but presumably it was marked as "Commercial Samples" because it *was* Commercial Samples, and therefore, as you rightly say, no duties would be payable (up to a point).

On the other hand, if it *wasn't* Commercial Samples, then marking it as such and sending it to the UK, and you knowingly accepting it as such, is a conspiracy to evade duties (presuming its value is above the dutiable threshold). I doubt if many sellers would run the risk of the draconian penalties for deliberate misdeclaration.

Cheers, Steve

"Steve W" wrote

You can negotiate to choose the shipper in the country from which the goods are exported. That shipper then will have an agency agreement with a UK based organisation (Post Office or courier) which will complete the shipment over here. The UK side of the equation can and does change, sometime from shipment-to-shipment and that's half the problem.

John.

Australians must be lucky then. If they import model railway equipment privately and the value of the goods plus postage is below a certain amount, and this results in the Australian taxes (their equivalent of VAT is Goods and Services Tax or GST = 10%) comes to less than $A50, then the Australian Customs Service lets the item go through to the recipient without collecting anything. Presumably the administrative effort and overheads of collecing less than $50 aren't worth while. Items posted to Australia through a postal system - eg British Post Office and below the threshold to import duty/GST etc are then delivered to the recipient by Australia Post. No commercial agents or fees applied - they have been paid by the UK retailer when they lodge the parcel.

Pity if it is so hard then to import privately to the UK. Eureka Models may need to consider establishing an agent in the UK if they want to espand the market for their superb looking Garratt.