What did you order or the post deliver? (Japanese N Gauge)

[Jimbo]

2 hours ago, cteno4 said:

jimbo,

 

that’s really odd. Do you have issues with other mail at your location? I’ve never had a Japanese package go poof in California or here in the dc area and Had many hundreds over the years. Things may be gummed up with covid slowdowns and dropped flights. Sal (economy for plaza) goes on space available on the plane and with few flights and essential cargos taking first priority it may just be stuck at the airport until after the Sal freeze is over.
 

We finally had one local letter a few weeks ago go poof, but I think that’s the first one for many many years.
 

I’ve had a couple of dozen of the cheap ebay 25 cent items go poof over the last decade out of probably thousands, but they go thru some real odd shipping to get here and many are tiny plastic bags basically and I can see some easily getting shredded in the mail sorting machines and also just get lost in the shuffle (some do come shredded and a few empty with a hole). But probably 99%+ come thru despite all that!

 

jeff

ha its not the first time something disappeared it was shipped before the lock down,, as was a order from sunset blue train an that one got here just fine!!

[gavino200]

2 hours ago, cteno4 said:

Nope the smaller triangular building. It was like 40% off (amazon.jp at times has big discounts on a few sankei buildings for short periods, rest are full srp or higher). Got an extra as I want to maybe make a 5 story sometime. Extra bottom story can maybe be a laundromat as I have some picts of a small one story triangular one I ran across while wandering google streetview once.

 

jeff

 

 

That's the one I have. It was my first Sankei. I think it's a real estate office or something. But isn't there an alternate choice to make it a pharmacy. Maybe I'm halucinoremembering that.

 

[cteno4]

Signs are either real estate sales or a learning center it looks like on the fast google translate. There is a sankei pharmacy kit.

 

huffing too much model cement building greenmax structures maybe? PVA fumes don’t usually cause hallucinations!

 

cheers

 

jeff

[gavino200]

28 minutes ago, cteno4 said:

Signs are either real estate sales or a learning center it looks like on the fast google translate. There is a sankei pharmacy kit.

 

huffing too much model cement building greenmax structures maybe? PVA fumes don’t usually cause hallucinations!

 

cheers

 

jeff

 

Clearly it was the fumes. But it's definitely the same building that I have. I bet I own, but haven't assembled the pharmacy kit. 

 

 

Edited April 20, 2020 by gavino200

[railsquid]

5 minutes ago, cteno4 said:

Signs are either real estate sales or a learning center it looks like on the fast google translate. There is a sankei pharmacy kit.

 

The sign on the pictured building is more specifically a cram school (juku).

[gavino200]

18 minutes ago, railsquid said:

 

The sign on the pictured building is more specifically a cram school (juku).

 

I hope I chose the real estate option. Because I've got little pictures of buildings on the walls, and some guys sitting at a desk, in there. 

 

[cteno4]

Thanks squid, the alternate sign is a realestate company.

 

jeff

 

[railsquid]

22 minutes ago, gavino200 said:

 

I hope I chose the real estate option. Because I've got little pictures of buildings on the walls, and some guys sitting at a desk, in there. 

 

 

Yup, you've got "Sankei Real Estate" (さんけい不動産)

[cteno4]

Thanks, fitting!

 

jeff

[mvaron]

14 hours ago, cteno4 said:

Nope the smaller triangular building. It was like 40% off (amazon.jp at times has big discounts on a few sankei buildings for short periods, rest are full srp or higher). Got an extra as I want to maybe make a 5 story sometime. Extra bottom story can maybe be a laundromat as I have some picts of a small one story triangular one I ran across while wandering google streetview once.

 

jeff

 

Do we have a place on the forum where sales can be listed (like the one you mentioned, 40% off) so others can take advantage?

 

- Mauricio

[ranger10178]

Postie brought me 4 x Koki104 wagons! (Bought them second-hand from Rails of Sheffield. They were listing them for £49.50 a pair, which I negotiated to £49.50 for all 4 - They were selling them new on their site for £27 [dowm from £32] a pair...)

 

Means my container train now stands at 6 wagons - 2x Koki110's and 4x Koki104's. I have got another 4x Koki106/7's on order from Plaza Japan, but who knows when I'll see them!

[railsquid]

14 minutes ago, ranger10178 said:

Postie brought me 4 x Koki104 wagons! (Bought them second-hand from Rails of Sheffield. They were listing them for £49.50 a pair,

 

Wow, that was seriously overpriced.

[railsquid]

Still working through a backlog of purchases... Here a Kato EF65 acquired at the same time as the EF81 previously posted:

 

Kato EF65-1000 (EF65-1039) by Rail Squid, on Flickr

 

Was cheap because not in pristine condition because it was "dirty" (weathered), but looks quite well-done weathering to me.

[ranger10178]

35 minutes ago, railsquid said:

 

Wow, that was seriously overpriced.

Yeahh they were - I think they had intended to list them as £49.50 for all four, but someone got carried away...

I was happy to pay £12.38 each for them though, as they are in as new condition, plus they had containers on them (Which usually cost at least £8 a pack). 

 

Nice EF65! I actually quite like the weathering on that too! I've got one (An EF65-2000) on order from Train Trax at the moment, which was £59.60 - not bad considering the cheapest Kato ones on ebay are around £75 from Japan...

 

I also ordered a pair of second hand EF63's from eBay, being the Usai Pass special set with one motorised and one non motorised.

Edited April 21, 2020 by ranger10178

[railsquid]

3 minutes ago, ranger10178 said:

Nice EF65! I actually quite like the weathering on that too! I've got one (An EF65-2000) on order from Train Trax at the moment, which was £59.60 - not bad considering the cheapest Kato ones on ebay are around £75 from Japan...

 

Keith the Train Trax guy is quite highly spoken of (do check out the UK N Gauge Forum if you weren't already aware of it).

 

Personally I never pay more than about £25 (even at the current exchange rate) for my EF65s, but I do live in Japan...

[roadstar_na6]

My first container car set is still with ZenMarket combined with the fitting loco and will be shipped out as soon as my bank account allows it next week or the week after 😄 I‘m pretty excited even tho I know I paid a little too much for it 😄

[ranger10178]

3 hours ago, railsquid said:

 

Keith the Train Trax guy is quite highly spoken of (do check out the UK N Gauge Forum if you weren't already aware of it).

 

Personally I never pay more than about £25 (even at the current exchange rate) for my EF65s, but I do live in Japan...

Keith is fantastic! I've ordered quite a lot through him in the past. Whenever there's an issue with the order, he always sorts it out really quickly! I'm worried to join the UK N gauge forum as I've heard some negative things about it... Especially with regards to how welcoming they can be to younger modellers like myself...

 

(Generally the case with anything to do with railways in the UK indeed. You find most older 'trainspotters' don't want to associate with younger spotters, likewise the same occurs on heritage railways - where the older people aren't giving younger people the opportunity to progress and learn.)

Edited April 21, 2020 by ranger10178
Removing politics!

[Welshbloke]

Rails have some creative ideas regarding the value of used items. I think the most spectacular were the damaged Kato station set for more than a brand new one delivered from Japan, and the ancient 110v Kato controllers they wanted £25 each for a few years ago.

 

Traintrax are excellent, I buy what I can from there as by the time you take account of VAT and collection fees their prices are comparable to ordering from Japan.

[ranger10178]

18 minutes ago, Welshbloke said:

Rails have some creative ideas regarding the value of used items. I think the most spectacular were the damaged Kato station set for more than a brand new one delivered from Japan, and the ancient 110v Kato controllers they wanted £25 each for a few years ago.

 

Traintrax are excellent, I buy what I can from there as by the time you take account of VAT and collection fees their prices are comparable to ordering from Japan.

Yes that's my experience with Rails of Sheffield too! Usually they're pretty good when you make an offer though!

 

I buy all my new Kato stuff from TrainTrax, I've gotta do my part keeping him in business! 🤣

 

Shame Keith doesn't sell Tomix and Greenmax kits!

[railsquid]

5 hours ago, ranger10178 said:

 I'm worried to join the UK N gauge forum as I've heard some negative things about it... Especially with regards to how welcoming they can be to younger modellers like myself...

 

Eek, sounds like you might be confusing it with RMweb? The NGF like any pretty much forum has a few Proper Modellers (of all ages) who had their humour removed at birth, but mostly it's pretty laid back (disclaimer: I'm one of the mods there). Do feel free to look in, and on the offchance anyone is less than friendly, they will face the wrath of an enraged cephalopod.

[ranger10178]

1 minute ago, railsquid said:

 

Eek, sounds like you might be confusing it with RMweb? The NGF like any pretty much forum has a few Proper Modellers (of all ages) who had their humour removed at birth, but mostly it's pretty laid back (disclaimer: I'm one of the mods there). Do feel free to look in, and on the offchance anyone is less than friendly, they will face the wrath of an enraged cephalopod.

Quite possibly am mixing it up! I'll check it out when I get some time (tomorrow)! It's 0120 here haha - I should really go to bed!

[chadbag]

4 hours ago, ranger10178 said:

Yes that's my experience with Rails of Sheffield too! Usually they're pretty good when you make an offer though!

 

I got a German locomotive form them on eBay (shipped to the US).  I had made an offer which they accepted and the shipping was reasonably priced but the eBay sponsored shipping took a lot longer than it should (receiving stuff from Germany the same time this was purchased, but receiving a week or two earlier).  This is not blaming Rails per se, just their stupid eBay shipping.

 

[ranger10178]

51 minutes ago, chadbag said:

 

I got a German locomotive form them on eBay (shipped to the US).  I had made an offer which they accepted and the shipping was reasonably priced but the eBay sponsored shipping took a lot longer than it should (receiving stuff from Germany the same time this was purchased, but receiving a week or two earlier).  This is not blaming Rails per se, just their stupid eBay shipping.

 

Rails of Sheffield sometimes take forever to despatch stuff - My last package took 11 days to arrive...

 

It was shipped with Royal Mail 48 (which strangely states 2-3 working days, when you'd think it'd be within 48 hours...), but it wasn't till around 7 days after purchasing that it actually got posted...

[Pauljag900]

I ve used most of the mentioned Uk sellers over the years with similar experiences of the mentioned issues.

i find rails over priced for second hand stuff aNd slow dispatch/ delivery,I bought two controllers from them which took 16 days to arrive.

Train Trax also took about a week to deliver a four car train set.

I now use Top slots and trains and have done for a few years.The guy is an absoloutely gent and if he has nt got it he ll do his best to get it.

Postage is a one cost of £3.99 no matter what size the order is and if ordered before 2 pm it arrives the next morning.

Yesterday I ordered £330 worth of building kits and I guarantee they ll be here today before 12.

worth a look tho I will say he does nt have the same choice as train trax but will get it if he can,he s also the cheapest I ve found over here,helped by the cheap postage.

 

 

 

[chadbag]

In my case I was complaining about the special eBay run shipping system that eBay offers to UK sellers.  This was over a year ago and I don't remember the details, but I remember that it seemed to be run by eBay (or in the name of eBay) and was not normal post or a normal courier (UPS/Fedex/DHL/etc).  It ultimately went by post for the hop across the pond I think and was delivered on this side by USPS.  But inside the UL it went through a separate system until it hit the post for the exit from the country.