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

[deathletter]

2 hours ago, ranger10178 said:

https://www.pinterest.co.uk/pin/716564990690014679/

 

So not like this?

Check the last photo in the auction below. The seller also had some passenger cars with the same end label. Originally, the e851 and passenger cars were being sold together and then they were split. 

 

https://www.ebay.com/itm/174230243662

[railsquid]

They've had some odd variations like that over the years; the E851 was originally produced on behalf of Seibu, which may explain the different branding; see e.g.:

https://naop.at.webry.info/201509/article_10.html . I think I've got a Kato US locomotive with a blue inlay somewhere, as another variant.

 

This is not the very early packaging I mentioned.

[railsquid]

22 hours ago, deathletter said:

When I was stationed in Japan in the late 1987/1988, I purchased three Steam Locomotives from a local hobby shop near the base. They had a paper insert like the one on the left in the photo below. The blue and silver label was newer and the dark green and cream labels (far right in the photo) are newer than the blue and silver. The newest labels are all dark green. If someone else has seen something newer than these then please post it here. 🙃

 

 

Just for fun, an even older box type/inlay:

 

[bill937ca]

An order shipped Airmail Small Packet arrived today. It was shipped March 28th. Now when my platform kit that was shipped four days before arrives I can start work on my new station.

Edited May 7, 2020 by bill937ca

[Lawrence]

On 5/6/2020 at 2:27 PM, ranger10178 said:

Well they're billing you. You may well see a "Customs charges revised" as well, I think that's when ParcelFarce add their bill.

Spot on @ranger10178, the latest update

 

7/5/2020  16:21 National Hub Sorted

7/5/2020  14:55 International Hub Revised Customs charges raised

7/5/2020  14:51 International Hub Awaiting Customs clearance

7/5/2020  14:50 International Hub Released from customs

5/5/2020  14:24 International Hub Customs charges raised

[deathletter]

7 hours ago, railsquid said:

 

Just for fun, an even older box type/inlay:

 

I have some passenger cars with that label.🙃

[ranger10178]

2 hours ago, Lawrence said:

Spot on @ranger10178, the latest update

 

7/5/2020  16:21 National Hub Sorted

7/5/2020  14:55 International Hub Revised Customs charges raised

7/5/2020  14:51 International Hub Awaiting Customs clearance

7/5/2020  14:50 International Hub Released from customs

5/5/2020  14:24 International Hub Customs charges raised

The joys... lucky you... You could get ahead of the game and pay the bill by phone tomorrow (If you can get through on a Bank Holiday). All you need is the tracking number, your address, and they may ask you for the Sender's name (Business name is fine usually), then they should be able to deliver on Monday. You'll still get an invoice, probably on Monday, but of course you can ignore this as you'd have already paid. I got my invoice about 2 hours before my package.

[cteno4]

Yaaaay! A 7 week SAL of some sankei from hlj made it here! 
 

jeff

[Martijn Meerts]

Oh, I have that triangle building on the right. Started building it, but wanted to add detail and lighting.. That was about 4 years ago, and it still doesn't have detail and lighting 😄

 

[Yavianice]

Must be a super complicated building to make if it still isn't finished after 4 years 😉 

[Martijn Meerts]

Not at all, I just haven't made the detail or installed the lighting ...

 

I'm guessing the Spirited Away bath house might truly take 4 years to build though 😉

 

[Lawrence]

4 hours ago, cteno4 said:

Yaaaay! A 7 week SAL of some sankei from hlj made it here! 
 

jeff

Now I'm jealous 😧 😄

[Jimbo]

Jeff my sankei items got returned to the seller,,,,   But on a lighter note never did post this but  here is my 'rare' ef lol  I ended up getting for half his asking price,, an I also acquired a ef66

[Jimbo]

I also ordered some more Tomy tec buildings through Hobby linc  U S

[roadstar_na6]

Dispatched on Thursday and arrived today, FedEx is quick 😮

 

 

I was shocked by how big the EH10 case is 😄 The Container-Express is from HobbyLand Pochi via Rakuten and was rated A' and I‘m assuming it was never ever used. There was an A rated one, too and I guess the only difference is that the paper sleeve on the better rated one didn‘t have two small white dots on it..

[Lawrence]

On 5/8/2020 at 12:35 AM, ranger10178 said:

The joys... lucky you... You could get ahead of the game and pay the bill by phone tomorrow (If you can get through on a Bank Holiday). All you need is the tracking number, your address, and they may ask you for the Sender's name (Business name is fine usually), then they should be able to deliver on Monday. You'll still get an invoice, probably on Monday, but of course you can ignore this as you'd have already paid. I got my invoice about 2 hours before my package.

No reply @ranger10178 and it gets better, this is the latest staus:

 

Your parcel has, unfortunately, been sorted to the wrong delivery depot. We will forward it to the correct delivery depot and it will be delivered as soon as possible.

Item tracking history

Date            Time  LocationTracking event

11/5/2020 11:00  North Essex Depot  Received at incorrect delivery depot

7/5/2020    23:58 North Essex Depot  Received at delivery depot

7/5/2020    16:21 National HubSorted

 

🥵

[ranger10178]

48 minutes ago, Lawrence said:

No reply @ranger10178 and it gets better, this is the latest staus:

 

Your parcel has, unfortunately, been sorted to the wrong delivery depot. We will forward it to the correct delivery depot and it will be delivered as soon as possible.

Item tracking history

Date            Time  LocationTracking event

11/5/2020 11:00  North Essex Depot  Received at incorrect delivery depot

7/5/2020    23:58 North Essex Depot  Received at delivery depot

7/5/2020    16:21 National HubSorted

 

🥵

When the 'you have a fee' letter arrives, contact them and ask them to forget about the £13.50 charge due to this error. It's quite possible that they may well accept!

[railsquid]

From the pile of speculatively acquired "junk" awaiting my tentacly attention, this MicroAce E231-1000 series (here 5 of the 10 cars in the set):
 

MicroAce E231-1000 series by Rail Squid, on Flickr

 

Acquired for a ridiculously low sum of yen, due to a) the motor sounding like it was full of gravel, and b) a multitude of "modifications" by the previous owner, including what can only be described as "social distancing for train cars":

 

MicroAce E231-1000 series by Rail Squid, on Flickr

 

as well as some cosmetic "improvements" such as door lining evidently drawn with a felt-tipped pen. On the plus side, the side destination indicator LED stickers are fitted quite well.

 

Anyway motor is easy enough to fix, excess felt-tip pen can be removed fairly easily and closer couplings make it look more social:

 

MicroAce E231-1000 series by Rail Squid, on Flickr

[disturbman]

The previous owner also added a touch of weathering.

[railsquid]

7 hours ago, disturbman said:

The previous owner also added a touch of weathering.

 

Yeah, some sort of brownish gunk, doesn't look too bad in the photo but to the naked eye looks more like a series of glue accidents. Oh yes, and there's a little baggie in the case with bits of chassis detail which have fallen off. But overall looks fine trundling round the layout.

[Cat]

Whoops, posted in the wrong thread late last night....

Just brought the ZenMarket FedEx package up from the basement and decanted it.  They very nicely included a complimentary mask with the order.

The first style of Girls und Panzer bus usually fetches a too steep price; this was a pair of very slightly dinged ones offered for far less than a single good one (you really have to know what your looking for and squint up close to find the dings).  Little Sambar pickup trucks are like Elvis, they are everywhere.  The 1990's HiAce police van will get a cat face and become a tour bus for Shonen Knife.  The green taxis I think are older model cars, but hey, Green Taxi can use them.  The blue Hino Poncho with flowers is perfect for the Aozora Smile buses in Katsuta.  And with the NHK TV truck, Japan Railway Journal will be busy filming around Ibaraki Shorty!

[ranger10178]

29 minutes ago, Cat said:

Whoops, posted in the wrong thread late last night....

Just brought the ZenMarket FedEx package up from the basement and decanted it.  They very nicely included a complimentary mask with the order.

The first style of Girls und Panzer bus usually fetches a too steep price; this was a pair of very slightly dinged ones offered for far less than a single good one (you really have to know what your looking for and squint up close to find the dings).  Little Sambar pickup trucks are like Elvis, they are everywhere.  The 1990's HiAce police van will get a cat face and become a tour bus for Shonen Knife.  The green taxis I think are older model cars, but hey, Green Taxi can use them.  The blue Hino Poncho with flowers is perfect for the Aozora Smile buses in Katsuta.  And with the NHK TV truck, Japan Railway Journal will be busy filming around Ibaraki Shorty!

That's an awesome selection of stuff!

[gavino200]

1 hour ago, Cat said:

Just brought the ZenMarket FedEx package up from the basement and decanted it.  They very nicely included a complimentary mask with the order.

 

Awesome haul there! That must have been fun to open. I'm getting curiouser and curiouser about what you're building. Can't wait to see it once you put all this stuff together. 

 

1 hour ago, Cat said:

The 1990's HiAce police van will get a cat face and become a tour bus for Shonen Knife. 

 

I love it!!

 

1 hour ago, Cat said:

And with the NHK TV truck, Japan Railway Journal will be busy filming around Ibaraki Shorty!

 

I have a few of these. They're very nice. That satellite dish sure is delicate though. Be careful with it. 

 

I also love buying and (slightly) customizing the tomytec buildings. I noticed that a while ago you bought the Tomytec Downtown skyscraper. 

https://www.1999.co.jp/eng/10340737

I have this too. But it may be the Tomytec building that I've been least happy with. It looks great in the picture but terribly fake in person. And you can't light it much as it's just a blue solid plastic front. I've thought of hacking off the blue face and kitbashing a face with windows. Or maybe I'll leave it as is and put it somewhere at the back of the layout. I was wondering what you thought of the skyscraper and if you have any plans to modify it. 

 

[Cat]

It makes for a very pleasant evening sitting down together and opening all the little bundles of bubble wrap!

Yes, the skyscraper will be quite heavily modified.  It will provide the front face of the Docomo Mito building.

https://www.google.com/maps/@36.3710277,140.4727515,3a,75y,100.54h,117.14t/data=!3m6!1e1!3m4!1sF2Ri5gfkgjQGksNeaMdAJg!2e0!7i16384!8i8192?hl=en

 

We're not planing on lighting structures for this layout.  Our primary goal is to get things up and running and presentable as quickly as possible.  Also in that vein,, we're trying to keep kit-bashing to a minimum for landmark buildings and shooting for visual approximations more than actual scale models.  Since we're building on Shorty scale scene-compression, that helps us keep on target for looks close enough for recognition.  Since Docomo with the cell tower on top is the tallest building building in Mito and right by the station, it's getting the full landmark treatment that the stations are.

[cteno4]

Ha! I’m Gollum here in my house with my packages! My wife doesn’t really care about my trains I get so I’m there in the corner with my precious purchase! Yessss my precioussss!
 

jeff