News
N scale structures
Those of you who model in N scale will probably recall that we have committed to offering the Touhey Elevator and the GN standard 50,000 gallon wooden water tank and pumphouse in N scale. The vendor advised that we should have Touhey Elevator in the store by mid-February, with water tank 30-60 days later. Happy New Year!
Freight Car Decals
Decals for Great Northern passenger cars are available from Microscale, and they cover the modeler’s needs reasonably well.
Decals for Great Northern freight cars are a much more complex subject.
UK VALUE ADDED TAX FREEZES GNRHS OUT OF THEIR COUNTRY
We recently had an order from a customer in the United Kingdom. Our fulfillment person held the order out of concern over customs/tax issues. To make a long story short, the UK has no minimum escape hatch, requires us to collect and remit a 20% Value Added Tax which we have to hide in our quoted price, and we have to set up an account with the tax man. Treasurer Bill Sornsin tried to set up an account with the following results: "Ok, I just got halfway through the VAT account registration process. Not only do they want me to...
International Shipping
On August 5, 2021, I announced that due to complications around taxes and customs regulations, we can not ship Merchandise, Books, and Apparel beyond the US and Canada. This is to advise that I misunderstood the problem. We can now ship Merchandise and Books anywhere in the world. I was inspired to revisit the issue by a Swiss member who routinely buys items from the US. Questions are good!
GST Car Type Codes
This is a list of car type codes issued by the General Superintendent of Transportation in conjunction with the implementation of the COMPASS computer system circa 1967-68. Both the GN and the NP purchased rights to the system from Southern Pacific, which developed it with IBM at a cost of several million dollars and called it TOPS, Total Operations Processing System. I believe that the Burlington and SP&S adopted it about the same time. By having all components of the proposed Burlington Northern adopt the same software before the merger, the training and learning curve issues associated with the new...