[Nathan Rodgers]

I am considering starting a N gauge layout with German/Swiss stock , but i have to problem of buying the stuff. Anybody know any good sites , in English that sell the stuff.

Thank you in advance regards nathan

 

[Dennis David]

There are but then you'll be paying more. I suggest you learn a little German.

You can get English descriptions of German products on most of the manufacturer's websites but to order German/Swiss prototype from a UK shop will make you a poor man.

 

[Nathan Rodgers]

I am doing GCSE german , but sadly we dont learn that sort of jargon in our lessons

Got any links to these sites

 

[Dennis David]

LokShop
German Railway/Technical Terms

There is an English site dedicated to the Railways of Germany but there is not a lot of action on that site. Stay here and we'll take care of you.

A couple of guys model German or Worldwide prototype here. Check out my page from the Nurnberg Toy Fair as well as the Glacier Express. Oh and be sure to click on a lot of the ads.

 

[dwb]

>I am doing GCSE german
I did 'O' level german more years ago than I will admit. What you learn will help you more than you realise. You just have to learn a few extra words like "Dampflok" (Steam loco) "Gleiss" (Track/rail??) and you start to get the picture - and you can tell your folks that surfing german sales sites is revision!

David

 

[Dennis David]

Yes and buying German locomotives is hands on investigation...

 

[Nathan Rodgers]

do you know any in english , i tried the flieschmann site (which has english ) but when you got to the sales list it goes back to german.

Thank you all for your help

 

[111]

QUOTE (Nathan Rodgers @ 6 Sep 2006, 17:52) <{POST_SNAPBACK}>I am considering starting a N gauge layout with German/Swiss stock , but i have to problem of buying the stuff. Anybody know any good sites , in English that sell the stuff.
Thank you in advance regards nathan

Try Gaugemaster

http://www.gaugemaster.co.uk/

 

[70042]

As a person that has spent a fortune on my Swiss layout in the last 2 years may I offer a few pointers?
Fortunately, I work all over Europe and have been in a lot of model shops from Hamburg to Geneva to Budapest (as well as the UK).
UK
1) UK suppliers tend to be very expensive for continental outline but Hattons have (occaisionally) some good offers
2) Guagemaster are good but expensive.

Germany
1) First point is that their VAT will be 20% in January and that there postage rates (driven by DHL/Deuschepost) are much higher than here in the UK.
2)I have found few 'bargains' except some poor second hand models.

Switzeland
1) This is the place to get N Guage models! 7.6 % VAT and hundreds of shops. If you can get there with cash you will always get a deal - excpt at Wabu in Zuerich where you should lock your credit cards up!
2) Try Zuba-Tech they have 3 shops and a website together with a prescence on e-bay. Their prices cannot be beaten they have both German and Swiss models both new and second hand.

I have noticed with continental models that they tend to produce them permanently as 'limited runs' so if you see a model you want you have to buy it immediately, next year it is no longer in production and they have all been sold. Then its a lot of searching/ e-baying to get your collection organised.
Itrust this is of help

 

[Dennis David]

Spot on.

I order from Germany and since I'm from the US I don't need to pay no stinkin' VAT or can get it refunded.

 

[dwb]

I came across this site tonight - AB Modell. They are make Nm scale models of Rhaetian railways stock. Thats N scale running on Z gauge track.

just viewed the price list! Some of the site is in English.

Their PDF catalogue for 2006 also contains a link to this site Swiss Micro Scale models who make the most incredible looking colour light signals. Their price list is in an Excel file so I am spared the shock of finding out how much their stuff costs. The site is almost all available in English as well as German.

Even if you're not buying, the photo gallery is worth a visit. Some of the model photos are very convincing.

Now if only there were UK practice colour light signal models as fine as these; or maybe some one can enlighten me.

David

 

[neil_s_wood]

QUOTE (Nathan Rodgers @ 7 Sep 2006, 02:52) <{POST_SNAPBACK}>I am considering starting a N gauge layout with German/Swiss stock , but i have to problem of buying the stuff. Anybody know any good sites , in English that sell the stuff.
Thank you in advance regards nathan

I mainly deal with these guys I have found them good to deal with and have used them for about three years now.

They are my regular supplier.
Modellbahn Kramm

These guys are also good. There prices aren't as good as Modelbahn Kramm but their command of english is a very good and I have found their customer service to be great. They will also get you Trix/Maerklin club exclusive models without checking if you're a club member.

Modelbahn Hildesheim

I found Lokshop to be arseholes to deal with and determining their payable amount with taking off tax and adding on surcharges is almost incomprehensible.

They are no help when you contact them.

QUOTE I have noticed with continental models that they tend to produce them permanently as 'limited runs' so if you see a model you want you have to buy it immediately, next year it is no longer in production and they have all been sold. Then its a lot of searching/ e-baying to get your collection organised.
Thats so true.

There is a large backlog of models I'm still chasing up and trying to get funds to buy which were limited runs.

QUOTE Germany
1) First point is that their VAT will be 20% in January and that there postage rates (driven by DHL/Deuschepost) are much higher than here in the UK. I get round this by placing bulk orders as it makes little difference whether you order one item or a huge amount. The reason is that they have a basic charge of, for me, 33 Euros and then there is a smaller charge of 3 Euros per kilo there after.

QUOTE 2)I have found few 'bargains' except some poor second hand models.
Unfortunately I am currently residing in a country where the prices are even worse than the UK.

So I have to buy all my stuff by mail order.

The upside is, as Dennis pointed out, I don't pay VAT from any European country.

So they are all bargains compared to what I would pay in the UK or Ozz.

Unfortunately the limited run is here to stay I reckon.

When any model is produced you are going to get your peak sales straight away then they will drop off to the point where it is no longer economically viable to produce. I guess they have done their calculations and have figured the specific number needed to maximise profitablilty.

 

[Goran]

I buy most of my trains from Germany / Austria, and I cant speak or read German at all.
I use babelfish to translate any text I want to read, and you can even use it to translate whole websites.
http://babelfish.altavista.com/translate.dyn

Goran

 

[neil_s_wood]

Google also has a translation facility, however the proble is that both of these translation services often lose the context due to the different way of phrasing things in other languages. So be careful about how you interpret the translation.

 

[70042]

''I buy most of my trains from Germany / Austria, and I cant speak or read German at all.
I use babelfish to translate any text I want to read, and you can even use it to translate whole websites.
http://babelfish.altavista.com/translate.dyn''

Would really like to know if you can make any sense of the gobbledegook I get when I try what you suggest. it never is satisfactory for me

 

[Goran]

Hi 70042,

I admit babelfish is not ideal, but for most topics you are likely to find on a shop's page I find it sufficient enough to allow me to know what I'm buying and to fill out any order information.
You just have to be sensible with it an understand its limits. It has allowed me to buy my trains direct from Germany, and I have probably saved a lot of money (or maybe wasted alot, because I could suddenty buy trains I couldn't even find in English shops

Some tricks you can use: sometimes it is usefull to translate only a few words at a time. Also sometimes in German several words are bundled together into one word which wont translate for some reason. You have to take an educated guess and put a space to split the long word in 2 or 3 and it will translate.

Otherwise, if all words translate into English, it is rarely difficult to unerstand the essence what is being said even if the words are gramatically out of order within the sentence.

If you want, I'll tell you which sites I buy from, they are:
http://www.lokshop.de/
http://www.mala.at/

They both accept on-line credit card payment and I have never had any problems with either site. The items come very well packaged.
Although I'm sure there are plenty of other good sites in Germany.

Regards,

Goran

 

[70042]

Hi Goran

Thanks for the links
Done a couple of calculations on stock I have recently bought and they do indeed seem competitive. Thanks for the links - I in turn suggest as I have said before www.zuba-tech.ch if you are interested in Swiss N scale as I am.

Regards
David (70042)

 

[Dennis David]

Nice to see other people are joining the board who are interested in European N-Gauge. I got the bug from living in Germany for four years how about the rest of you? How is it that you are modeling European prototype?

Plus if you have not already seen my short article on the Nurnberg Toy Fair here is the link: http://ddavid.com/alongdesire/germany5.htm

 

[Goran]

Hi David,

Thanks for the links. I'll check out the shop you suggest. I'm giving up N-gauge for the moment, I'm building up a HO collection. I started off with HO, but decided to try N-gauge because so much more can be achieved in the smaller scale, but in the end I couldnt give up the greater detailing of HO models.

I have one more link, although its got good and bad points:
http://www.reynaulds.com/

If you havent come accross them before, they are a US based shop. The prices can be excellent, they are usually running a discount on a variety of models, and when the dollar is weak the price can be great.
The downside, which is really a shame considering the great prices, is the Import Duty and Parcelforce handling charges that get slapped on once the packet arrives here.
I dont know if there is a way to aviod some of these charges, but sometimes it can be worthwhile if the final cost per model turns out to be cheaper than if ordered from Europe.

Thanks

Goran

 

[Dennis David]

Who's David?