News

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...

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!

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...

I had a question from a customer today about how many of a just introduced rail car the store had in stock. He was thinking that he may want more than than the one he bought to support a model industry. I explained how this supplier works, which seems to be typical. They take reservations for various cars. After many months, they decide that they either have enough reservations or not. If they decide to proceed, then they do design work, then order, then wait for the boat from China. Finally they fill the orders based on the reservations they...

We have two cement car models in the store. One is 70 ton ACF designed and built cement cars. These models by Intermountain are a very accurate rendering of a lot of 25 cars the Great Northern bought in 1946. They were painted mineral red when delivered, as is the model, which is available with six car numbers. The railway would go on to acquire 405 cars of this design. We also offer models of the 100 ton ACF center flow cars the Great Northern bought for cement service in 1966 and 1967. The railway acquired 200 of these cars...