murphaph

For generic stuff like craft supplies it makes little sense to gamble with a UK supplier these days and a lot of sense investing some time trying to find a reliable supplier in Ireland or failing that somewhere else in the EU. I can recommend https://www.architekturbedarf.de/versand as a satisfied customer. Shipping to Ireland is a flat €30 it seems so you'd want to get a decent order together to make it worthwhile. The good thing with hobby supplies like this is that you can always find more stuff that you will eventually need to make up a decent order. I am generally easily able to hit an €80 order to get the free shipping inside Germany, just by ordering a second of this or that.

I guess it largely depends on how you run your layout. If you regularly need to take stock off the layout and pack it away for any reason then an easy to separate coupling like the Kadee surely makes sense on all the stock that's affected. If your stock is stored in a fiddle yard then maybe not so much, at least not financially. Horses for courses as Noel says.

As the ballasts basically ran semi-permanently in fixed rakes it may not make a lot of sense to be spending money on Kadees etc. between each wagon in the rake, when a simple fixed coupling bar will do. They weren't really shunted as they were all going to the quarry or work site together usually. When I eventually have a layout, that's how I'll do it. Kadee on the ends of the fixed rake only. Food for thought maybe.

I guess on the mk2's however the buck eye coupling would be closer to the Kadee knuckle coupler than any other functional coupler.

Herzlich willkommen im Forum Andreas! Lovely work. Looking forward to seeing more

@Noel don't you fit Kadees to all your stock? Maybe you can help F4f with that question too. Nice to have you on the forum F4f

This article explains that the HS and TARIC codes are similar but different. The TARIC includes the HS code but also has a further set of digits (2 to 4) and this seems to be the problem in An Post's system. TARIC is an EU thing. HS is pretty much a global standard now. https://www.ecommerce-nation.com/you-dont-know-what-a-taric-code-is-everything-you-need-to-know-about-this-tariff-code/ I guess the user interface or the API An Post uses is simply not fit for purpose and instead of automatically padding out the HS code to the TARIC code by adding some zeros, it just spits out an error message. I bet that the software in use in other countries doesn't have this problem and can handle "simple" HS codes with no user interaction required so it's not prone to error. I didn't know any of this beyond the simple HS code before but An Post and their software supplier should have and maybe they should have. Parcels simply should not be sent back because they "only" have an 8 digit HS code. That's all they need to be classified for customs and if they are gifts they shouldn't even require that. I suspect that before Brexit and the changes to the EU rules, An Post staff in these mails centres had an awful lot less to do because anything coming from GB never went near customs checks and stuff under €22 was waved through (and we know how much stuff was under-declared, especially coming in from China). They are now swamped and every single parcel from GB has to be processed, regardless of value. They probably had to hire a lot of new people and they probably don't all know their way around their seemingly fragile software.

I know it sounds cliched but really the media need to be involved. The likes of Pat Kenny on Newstalk would surely be interested in doing a piece on this in the run up to xmas. There will be tens, possibly hundreds of thousands of gifts arriving into Ireland from outside the EU soon and the vast majority will have no HS codes as they are not required on non-commercial parcels and those that do will almost certainly be of the common or garden 8 digit variety. Are An Post going to basically send all these parcels back??

I think JM mentioned that the An Post system requests a 10 digit TARIC code (looking for the so called TARIC sub-heading perhaps?) despite HS codes generally being 8 digits long, so it throws a silly error if the code is missing some padding/leading zeros or something. The An Post system genuinely seems to be broken or at best extremely fragile and error prone: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/TARIC_code Here's our own favourite product: https://www.tariffnumber.com/2021/95030030 I would (and so would any normal human) fill in 95030030 when asked for the TARIC/HS code. That's the number on Hattons parcels too and the number that I've had on stuff from Switzerland. But from what JM was saying the An Post system requires 10 digits to be entered so seems to be looking for stuff that is not normally included. I have not seen the need for the TARIC sub headings on any parcels I have received. I've only ever seen the 8 digit HS code. In any case, there needs to be a fallback as exists elsewhere, so that parcels aren't returned to the other side of the world for missing paperwork. In fact the German customs do indeed assign a TARIC code by inspecting the item if it comes with no paperwork (rare that there is no paperwork at all to help tell them what it is they are looking at I guess). The magazines thing is just bizarre.

The trunk service offered by Hattons is very attractive to an awful lot of customers who buy (or would buy) a lot of smaller bits and pieces. I wish more retailers would offer it. Does Marks sell any second hand stuff online or is it only in the bricks and mortar store?

Taric codes aren't required for gifts coming into the EU either. Disgraceful stuff but at least you are getting more information. Much more pressure needs to be brought to bear on them from above.

Was just browsing some 90's pics and came across an exterior shot of Daly Station with an 80 Class lurking in the background. It doesn't get much more nineties than this, lotto sign, green bus stops, Telecom Eireann phone boxes. http://catalogue.nli.ie/Record/vtls000355470

If it's anything like the large sorting offices here you won't get past the gate.

That's simply unforgivable. The parcel doesn't even make it out of the mails centre and gets sent back?! I think people in Ireland need to start documenting these incidents and making formal complaints to Comreg and/or the responsible minister. What about setting up a Facebook group for affected customers to post their experiences and shame the company into doing what it should be doing as a matter of course?

Interesting use of what appears to be a barrier wagon. I wonder what that is there for.

I wonder were the openings originally serviced by a siding. The station was what, 100 years old already by the time the photo was taken? I guess tracks could have been lifted to make way for the rodding?

Lovely. What was the structure in the first picture? It looks like a cattle loading ramp but there's no track there.

These wagons doubled as spoils wagons and could be seen elsewhere on the network on weekends. They could come up to Dublin on a Saturday morning do some track works and then head back to Limerick on Sunday evening to be ready for the mine's operations on Monday morning. There's a picture of them arriving into the gullet in the Traction book. I have another question that's slightly related.... John mentioned a rotary tippler at Foynes. I was unaware of any zinc mining in that area. Did they use the shale wagons for the zinc? Could the Foynes rotary tippler handle the Tara Mines wagons? Indeed, didn't Tara initially export through Foynes in the very beginning?

An Post appear very quick to just send stuff back to sender. That's not good enough at all for a postal service where the recipient is actually known and all that needs to be established is the value. That really only happens here if they attempt a delivery and I am not at home and don't bother going to pick it up. Even if a parcel arrives in to Germany with zero paperwork, it will not be sent back. They will divert the parcel to the recipient's local customs office and send the recipient a letter informing them of this fact. The recipient then goes to the customs office with some proof of the value and opens the parcel in front of a local customs officer who gives you the total due if anything. An Post need a fallback for incorrect or missing paperwork that doesn't include shipping the parcel back to the sender.

Those guys could barely contain their excitement. Great stuff. I have a copy of the magazine winging its way to me too for that review!

Yep pretty common. There is one in East Berlin (Wuhlheide Parkeisenbahn) and an extensive one in Budapest, both of which I've had the pleasure of going on.

I'm not defending the delays but the €3.50 charge is very much on the low side compared to other countries. It's €6 here and much much more in some places like Denmark. From reading some Amazon (UK) seller forums it seems there's a lot of room for error when creating the shipping entities in the Royal Mail system. It can appear that everything is correct but the data has not been transmitted electronically to An Post (etc.) so the parcel gets stopped for customs.

Why would a parcel destined for somewhere not in the EU have an IOSS logo on it I wonder?

The monthly update is nice to have John, even if there's not a lot to report due to circumstances well beyond your control

I assume it should tell them that the retailer has availed of the EU's import one stop shop and has therefore already paid the VAT to one of the member states. But I honestly don't know if it's there for the carrier or customs or anybody. In different countries, the carrier is responsible for determining and collecting the VAT and in others (like here in Germany) there are customs officials working in the mails centres and they determine the VAT and duties due and put a sticker on the parcels. It's still a pretty new facility. I guess some officials are still not looking for it, though you'd imagine if it was important it would be much more visible?