Ho American Locos

Hello,
I have bought a few times from across the pond. Some suppliers are unaware there are other countries other than the USA. I asked one for a shipping cost, they replied by saying i would have to get my own quote from UPS, as they were unable to tell me the size or weight of the parcel this would have been impossible, i went eleswhere.
I recently bought a Gaugemaster Prodigy DCC system from the UK. But when it came to adding a second handheld a bought from the US, Digistardcc.com. Uk cost £79, US $75, even when shipping is included i saved money, communication and service was excellent.
A TCS-M1 decoder, UK £18.00, US $23.75, at the exchange rate of 1.75, you would save about £4.50 per decoder, so its like buy 4, get one free.
All the suppliers I have used I contacted by e-mail first, and judged the response as whether to use them or not. but all the things i have bought were good value including the postage.
As with UK models, the quality and detail vary, you get what you pay for, but generally you get a lot more for your money in terms of detail, performance, ligthing etc than a UK model.

I used to buy a fair bit of gear from the US. It can be cheaper but if something goes wrong it can be expensive to get it repaired with the cost of postage in both directions. I usually buy local now and only buy from overseas if the item I want can't be bought locally. I just got a Hornby Northumbrian train pack for A$269 or 113pounds, Hattons price 104pounds. I'd save on vat and that would probably cover the postage but if it gets damaged in the mail, brown paper wrapping doesn't protect very well. The yanks on the other hand do pack things up very well usually in an other larger box filled with poly packing beads and are very prompt at sending things. But things do go amiss. I had an US$1800 brass loco go missing in the mail 3yrs ago. And it's taken that long to recover my money.
The choice is yours.

regards
Ozzie21

Andrew,

The Hattons Bachmann DCC fitted US locos you are looking at are in my opinion fair value for money, one word however, they run reasonably well but are noisy in operation, replacing the fitted circuit board with a better decoder might smooth out the noise. I have on which was bought new from a local toy fair for £23.

A better buy was the same type of loco at £20 and not DCC ready (Toy fair again) I fitted a quality decoder but it does require some surgery on the loco. This one runs very quietly probably due to the 5 pole skew wound motor and brass flywheels.

Also by Bachmann I bought one of their Spectrum grade locos at £35, these are dcc ready and are definitely of a better quality again than the first two.

So there you have the choices, from a reasonably running but noisy loco for £23 to a Spectrum at £35 + £17 for a good decoder.

My latest aquisition is a Broadway US freight loco with sound, this is in a different league to the Bachmann locos but with a price tag to match.

Brian

These Bachmann DCC fitted diesels can be had for a similar price from quite a few retailers. No magic, they are just extremely inexpensive!

60134

Hi folks,
First time posting here, but a long (long long) time Hornby / Triang collector. Although I'm originally from Scotland I'm now living and working in the USA, but still running and collecting LNER steam (you can never have too many A4's )

I'm in the opposite position from most of you in that for the most part I get my Hornby and sometimes Bachman Engines from the UK. I'm eagerly awaiting the Bachman "Evening Star" later this year.

I made my first ever venture into a US Engine at Christmas time and bought a "Life Like Proto-2000 2-8-4 Berkshire" This is the engine featured in the "Polar Express".

The amount of detail in this Engine is truly amazing, and at times I'm afraid to handle it for fear of something falling off. The motor has a great slow speed, and the thing is almost silent. It's about a third longer than my A4's and is almost double the weight. It comes DCC ready, and has the 8 pin connector already prewired in the tender.

If anyone would like some assistance with pricing or shipping from the Colonies let me know, I'd be glad to help.

I had 6 of these and of the six only two of them ran worth a damn after they were fitted with DCC decoders. Running under straight DC they seemed fine but with a decoder they were hesitant and rough running. I bought mine from three different runs just to be sure it wasn't a fault of mine. No such luck! I put it down to very poor mechanism reminiscent of a 30yr old Bachmann. Indeed the gear teeth profile is very similar to Bachmann Consolidation I have and with the gears driving the front axle , Proto used the same sort of design with the gears sandwiched between the split frame. Ohh and if you have a problem with the loco don't try a take it apart as it's not designed to come apart. Most of it is actually glued together and you can destroy the valve gear as it's support bracket is glued into the frame and onto the boiler. I had wrecked one before I read the fine print" Return to manufacturer, not designed to come apart." And they make the same model no matter what road number it has. I had four C&O locos and two Nickel Plate locos. All were Alco built when the roadnumbers indicated that three of then were Lima built and there should have been certain quite visible detail differences between the two builders. That's P2K accuracy for you. I don't have any now apart from a couple of PFM brass ones that are a lot more accurate even if the do lack a backhead.

Ozzie21

QUOTE (thx1955 @ 15 Feb 2006, 15:58)Hi folks,
First time posting here, but a long (long long) time Hornby / Triang collector. Although I'm originally from Scotland I'm now living and working in the USA, but still running and collecting LNER steam (you can never have too many A4's )

I'm in the opposite position from most of you in that for the most part I get my Hornby and sometimes Bachman Engines from the UK. I'm eagerly awaiting the Bachman "Evening Star" later this year.

I made my first ever venture into a US Engine at Christmas time and bought a "Life Like Proto-2000 2-8-4 Berkshire" This is the engine featured in the "Polar Express".

The amount of detail in this Engine is truly amazing, and at times I'm afraid to handle it for fear of something falling off. The motor has a great slow speed, and the thing is almost silent. It's about a third longer than my A4's and is almost double the weight. It comes DCC ready, and has the 8 pin connector already prewired in the tender.

If anyone would like some assistance with pricing or shipping from the Colonies let me know, I'd be glad to help.


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