JNS Forum World Tour 2018 - Discussion

[Suica]

1 minute ago, gavino200 said:

Suica is off the list due to concerns about German customs. I wonder if this can be avoided with specific "not for children" labelling? Or perhaps we could retool and use a European made wagon with the CE hallmark on it. 

Or have it sent from another European country. Customs are hit or miss. It could go through without a problem at all or there could be charges and in the worst case the package could be denied by customs. The cases of packages from the US or Asia being denied by customs due to safety concerns (CE mark blah blah) have significantly increased since the end of last year. It's stupid and a big topic in German modelling communities.

[gavino200]

1 minute ago, Suica said:

Or have it sent from another European country. Customs are hit or miss. It could go through without a problem at all or there could be charges and in the worst case the package could be denied by customs. The cases of packages from the US or Asia being denied by customs due to safety concerns (CE mark blah blah) have significantly increased since the end of last year. It's stupid and a big topic in German modelling communities.

 

Ok. No intercontinental mail directly to or from Germany? Should I put you back on the list then, Suica?

 

Also, any thought on using a wagon with the CE stamp. I know Jeff already has a wagon prepared. However, if a CE stamp would help, a switch might be an idea. I'm happy to pick up the tab on that.

[Densha]

I am honestly only willing to participate in the world tour if there are enough other people in the Netherlands and nearby countries that want to participate as well. Shipping abroad is really expensive, so I would rather not have to do so.

 

I suggest starting with an Americas tour. At some point we can then ship the car to either Europe or Asia, and then do the remaining continent at the end.

[gavino200]

Ok, Densha off the list due to shipping cost, unless other Dutch members join up. Suice back on for now. Yay!

 

I'm in favor of keeping it a World Tour, even if it only touches on a few global location. I'll also plan the route to ensure that it actually goes 'around' the world.

 

Yavianice - location unknown

Katoftw - location unknown

ianlaw - location unknown

 

Ist - Budapest, Hungary

KVP - Hungary - city unknown

Suica - Berlin, Germany

Pauljag900 - Chester, England

 

 

Cteno4 - Wash DC, USA

Serotta1972 - San Francisco, USA

Khia66 - California, USA

Mry1210 - Pittsburgh, USA

Gavino100 - Omaha, USA

Defor - Baltimore, USA

Chadbag - Utah - no city known, USA

 

JR500 - Singapore

Railsquid - Tokyo, Japan

[gavino200]

FYI, it doesn't matter if you don't currently have a layout. You can just take the wagon to some place local that's railway related. Example, I live near the Union Pacific HQ. I'm planning to take the wagon to meet one of those old "Big Boy" steamers. 

[Pauljag900]

I ve already said I m happy to foot the shipping to one of the far off continents,so bearing these concerns in mind perhaps it could travel to Holland to Germany to uk, would that help these guys out?

[Pauljag900]

20 minutes ago, gavino200 said:

 

Ok. No intercontinental mail directly to or from Germany? Should I put you back on the list then, Suica?

 

Also, any thought on using a wagon with the CE stamp. I know Jeff already has a wagon prepared. However, if a CE stamp would help, a switch might be an idea. I'm happy to pick up the tab on that.

And me👍👍

[Pauljag900]

Another issue here is that Jeff s worked hard and not without problems getting the car ready and I think to start changing things on that front maybe a bit of a big ask, I think we need to accept things as they are now but that’s jeffs call I guess

i m talking about the decals/stickers not the car btw

Edited March 28, 2018 by Pauljag900

[chadbag]

For customs purposes, it should be labeled

"fine scale model accessory, not for children under 14"  (use whatever age works for all countries).   

 

This is rather dumb  to have to do but lots of countries have weird or dumb rules.  Not just Germany.

 

[cteno4]

No way to do any CE registration for this, it’s a tomix car basically. I’ll look on it’s box but I don’t think they have CE registration on them.

 

I think it will need to determine for anyone wanting it sent to their country there are no issues with shipping stuff in. First off it should be shipped for customs as a personal gift and it’s value is like $5 for the car. Some countries may have issues with this in general or have other safety things then we need folks to figure that out from their experience. We can also list countries it may be going to and see if folks on the list have any experience with issues and solutions.

 

We need to just try this and get it going. There is no issues sending between us, Canada, Mexico, Japan, England, Australia and New Zealand in my experience with this sort of things in the last couple of years. I’ve also sent JRM containers (no rail car) from us to a German club maybe 5 years back as gift $5 no issues. But that may have changed for Germany recently.

 

The idea of using just one simple tomix car also was that if it gets lost or impounded it’s no huge loss and we can generate a replacement easily and eithe skip the problem destination or change the path to that country that works. I’ve shipped stuff all over the world like this in the last 30 years personally and while a couple of times things got mucked in customs a couple of weeks I’ve never had anything bounce or go poof when all person to person.

 

is the current German issues from stuff shipped from shops or also from a person as a gift? How about coming from uk? If so it could go to Paul then to Germany.

 

jeff

[Yavianice]

My two cents:

 

- Shipping a car between countries from Germany costs maximum 9,50.

- I commute between Germany and Netherlands on a weekly basis so I can be the cost effective bridge (i.e. not costing anything) between these two countries. ordinarily shipping something from NL to Germany costs 10 euro's or whatever because Netherlands does not really do SAL as far as I know.

- As far as I am aware the maximum package value is 45 euro if the package is marked as a gift from outside EU. So shipping a single car to Germany should not be a problem. Netherlands has lower customs allowance, as far as I am aware. So I suggest that the package is shipped to Germany, I take it to NL, they ship it back to me, then it continues onwards in Germany or elsewhere.

Edited March 28, 2018 by Yavianice

[Pauljag900]

Nice one buddy,that could save a whole lot of bother for some👍👍😀

[Martijn Meerts]

I'm in as well.

 

Shipping to the Netherlands should not be an issue at all. Our customs allowance seems a bit random at times, but lower value contents are usually not a problem. I've ordered locomotives and cars from the US before, and never had to pay import taxes on those, even if they weren't marked as a gift. Also, I live very close to Germany.

 

I also wouldn't mind paying some shipping, and, depending on time frame, I might be able to go pick it up in the UK. I'm looking into going there for a long weekend sometime in the near-ish future (still at least a few months off, too busy at work for now ;))

 

[Densha]

Maybe you can put me on a pending list? I live rather close to Martijn, so I can just go pick it up and bring it back personally to him if it ever gets around here.

[cteno4]

I don’t think the customs issue should really bother us with person to person shipping of an inexpensive item as a gift. We will have some time here as it starts the tour to try to plan the most efficient routs and a few of us can kick in some money to help if we have a couple of unexpected high shipping jumps. If we have a disaster I can always makemup annew car and send it out to continue the tour.

 

this is an experiment to see how this works and find practical issues to deal with to perhaps do more and different ones in the future. It’s a complex problem so we are just trying to keep it simple and add easy bits to it to make it fun and different but not be a big deal.

 

cheers

 

jeff

[gavino200]

Updated list 

 

 

1st stage - North America

Cteno4 - Wash DC, USA

Serotta1972 - San Francisco, USA

Khia66 - California, USA

Mry1210 - Pittsburgh, USA

Gavino200 - Omaha, USA

Defor - Baltimore, USA

Chadbag - Utah - no city known, USA

 

2nd stage - Europe

Ist - Budapest, Hungary

KVP - Budapest, Hungary

Coromant - Budapest, Hungary

Suica - Berlin, Germany

Yavianice - location unknown

ianlaw - The Netherlands

Martijn Meerts - Venlo, The Netherlands

Densha - The Netherlands

Pauljag900 - Chester, England

 

3rd Stage - Asia/Pacific

JR500 - Singapore

Railsquid - Tokyo, Japan

Katoftw - Beerwah, Australia

 

 

 

A few details

1. The Hungarian members will coordinate to share one single postal stop in Budapest. They strongly recommend that the package should be sent registered mail to Hungary to avoid the packet getting lost (stolen). Is Hungary fully integrated into the EU? I thought it was but KVPs comment makes me wonder. Do we need any special customs accommodations for Hungary other than registering the packet?

2. As you can see the general outline will be USA --> Europe --> Asia Pacific. I think it should come back to the US then so as to actually circle the planet. I could pay postage for that if necessary. If people think that's dumb, I can drop it. No big deal.

3. It seems like Jeff is providing a sturdy box to pack the item, but he needs to test it. Each person can add a small paper note to the package, and write a little message. 

 

Keep suggestions coming. Either write them here or message me.

 

Edited March 28, 2018 by gavino200

[IST]

28 minutes ago, gavino200 said:

1. The Hungarian members will coordinate to share one single postal stop in Budapest. They strongly recommend that the package should be sent registered mail to Hungary to avoid the packet getting lost (stolen). Is Hungary fully integrated into the EU? I thought it was but KVPs comment makes me wonder. Do we need any special customs accommodations for Hungary other than registering the packet?

 

 

Hungary fully integrated into the EU without the Euro. So not fully. :-)

There is no special rule, just the usual customs fee plus VAT (which is the highest in the EU), but considering that this is only one car it won't be a huge amount (I know this is not a purchase but our tax and customs office will not believe me). Within Hungary we can give each other the package, so we do not have to post it. I have some bad experience with the Hungarian Post, so registered mail is a good idea, although I have got all of my unregistered SAL package from HS until now.

[chadbag]

Several have said they can donate to the shipping cause...   Let's set up a mechanism for that before we need it???  Any left over funds could go to the server maintenance donations.

 

 

 

[cteno4]

We will work on the mech for help subsidize the expensive jumps. I’ll check with Martijn if doing marked donations to his JNS paypal is an option and he could paypal the folks doing expensive jumps if needed. I don’t know what limits are currently on his paypal or if he has the time and energy to do this (he is a very busy Boy). If not maybe someone else can volunteer to be a little escrow to do this via paypal (probably the most universal method) and then move anything left over to the forum.

 

Also we will try to figure out the best method to do big jumps that may trip customs and such for the destination. We can do this as it gets scheduled out. Jump by big jump, we will have some time here as it goes on. 

 

Jeff

[Pauljag900]

Gents,

in principal it s a good idea,as chadbag said there s a few that have said they re more than willing to help,so does it need to be that complicated? If someone needs help towards postage costs can t they just say and then between us just forward to that individual via paypal?

i m pretty sure we ve all got paypal accounts.It would be a lot simpler and avoid any issues for Matijn and the Jns account.

just an option gents.

[chadbag]

45 minutes ago, Pauljag900 said:

Gents,

in principal it s a good idea,as chadbag said there s a few that have said they re more than willing to help,so does it need to be that complicated? If someone needs help towards postage costs can t they just say and then between us just forward to that individual via paypal?

i m pretty sure we ve all got paypal accounts.It would be a lot simpler and avoid any issues for Matijn and the Jns account.

just an option gents.

 

I was just thinking that "discretion is the better part of valor" and that any help needed by anyone, or requests, etc. are made in private to Gavin or someone in charge of coordinating so that no one else, including the donators, know where or if it is being requested / used.

[Pauljag900]

I agree totally chadbag,the problem is in trying to keep it simple.

maybe we can come up with a simpler solution over the next few days.

paul

[Martijn Meerts]

It's definitely an option to use the JNS donations PayPal for the shipping costs as well. I believe you can add a comment when donating, so adding forum username and that it's for shipping would be enough. The account should be fine unless we receive hundreds of dollars worth of shipping donations :)

 

I should have time for it at least. Will still be very busy for the coming 1-2 months, but after that things should slow down a little work wise.

[gavino200]

Regarding subsidies. Let's not get ahead of ourselves with this. Densha should be fine, as there are now three Dutch guys. We can fit him in the middle, so he'll only pay local postage. 

 

We don't know how many other people will have issues. I'll post the route. Then if anyone thinks they will have problems with money, they can message me confidentially. I'll then find a solution. I think Chad, Paul, and myself said they'd be interested in helping if necessary. Anyone else, that's interested in helping can message me and I'll keep you in mind, if there is a need. So let's let that issue lie for now. 

 

 

[chadbag]

15 minutes ago, gavino200 said:

Regarding subsidies. Let's not get ahead of ourselves with this. Densha should be fine, as there are now three Dutch guys. We can fit him in the middle, so he'll only pay local postage. 

 

We don't know how many other people will have issues. I'll post the route. Then if anyone thinks they will have problems with money, they can message me confidentially. I'll then find a solution. I think Chad, Paul, and myself said they'd be interested in helping if necessary. Anyone else, that's interested in helping can message me and I'll keep you in mind, if there is a need. So let's let that issue lie for now. 

 

 

 

Yeah as long as we have a plan beforehand, we are good.  The exact details can be worked on when and if needed.   Just so everyone knows there is the possibility so that those who would like to participate but maybe the cost stretches their budget can still participate -- they know a way is open for them.

 

Carry on!