Running Bear's October 2025 Coffee Shop

[RhB Michael]

If you go back and read what I said, Modellbahn Union is NOT charging me VAT, but their sister company DM-Toys is. That is what surprised me. DM-Toys doesn't subtract the VAT so it surprised me that Modellbahn Union does since they are either two faces of the same company or in some other way related. I did tests today with both and MBU did NOT and DM Toys did. Go. back and read what I wrote in my previous post for more details.

I get it now. Looking at MU and trying to find N scale, it refers me to DM-Toys. Has MU always been like this for N scale?

I did check prices all the way to checkout and DM-Toys still beat MSL by €22 and change. I did not see any mention of VAT being taken off by DM-Toys, but still was cheaper than MSL without VAT (if DM actually had VAT included).

That is all very confusing and I'd certainly email them about it. MSL is usually higher on everything, but sometimes one shop or the other has what I need or want and the other doesn't when I'm ready to buy.

DM and MU are both owned by Muglowski or however his name is spelled.

Sorry for my confusion at first. Being an HO modeler, I had never attempted to purposefully look up an N scale product. What is really strange is why he would isolate N scale from every other scale with a separate company unless for accounting purposes or some other financial reason.

 

[RhB Michael]

So I received my first Walthers Proto engine and I am not impressed. I took it out of the box and saw that the rear, lower, part of the shell was deformed. The coupler is straight, so I know it wasn't dropped. It's going back for a refund. I'll stick with BLI and Rapido.

View attachment 245876

That really does look like it was dropped on the rear quarter and maybe fell over on it's side. Does Walthers test all of their locomotives before shipping like MSL does?

I'd be livid if I received something like that from Germany.

 

[Boris]

I think that these are required Medicare questions now, not questions that the doctor thinks or wants to ask. It's similar to the depression and falling down questions that they began to ask about a decade ago.

I will list my gender at birth, and either mark N/A or not answer. That is why I don't participate in annual Medicare Wellness visits. They are irrelevant. Especially after the first year of Medicare eligibility. Hell a quick look at what they paid out for will tell them everything they need to know. I know, just me.

 

[chadbag]

I get it now. Looking at MU and trying to find N scale, it refers me to DM-Toys. Has MU always been like this for N scale?

Yes it’s always been like that. And Daniel Mug-whatever is the guy. And I emailed him about the VAT and he said he doesn’t take it off but it helps lead to lower shipping costs as he uses the extra money collected for VAT, since it’s not being remitted to the government, as a way to offer cheaper flat rate shipping.

Only doing N scale I never really looked at Modellbahn Union website in more than a passing way so didn’t realize they handled VAT differently. I assumed that since they were sister companies or whatever the exact relationship was that they had the same policies.

I don’t know the whole story but I believe DM-Toys came first with N scale and he expanded later to other scales, which is why there are two brands. DM-Toys is his initials plus -Toys.

In general Lippe is cheaper even with shipping unless you’re just buying one or two items. But there are close outs and sales and stuff and single items, because of the higher Lippe flat rate, can be cheaper anyway shipped. I generally check multiple sources when ordering so try and get the least expensive. My DM-Toys purchases are generally smaller and limited to sales to close outs or special items usually. Like their special versions of the decoders I mentioned.

 

[Marlin39]

That really does look like it was dropped on the rear quarter and maybe fell over on it's side. Does Walthers test all of their locomotives before shipping like MSL does?

I'd be livid if I received something like that from Germany.

It's hard to see, but the entire lower rear panel is folded up underneath. How that happened without damaging the coupler and then getting packed up....

 

[DeaconKC]

Well nuts. Was testing all the switches on my Unitrack layout and one of my Kato controllers crapped out on me. Of course, no spares on hand. So thankfully just got an email from a dealer I use that it's free shipping on orders over $100 on Halloween. But still gonna call my nearest FHS tomorrow to see if they have one in stock and how much it is. Nuts, it's an hour each way plus the gas.

 

[RhB Michael]

It's hard to see, but the entire lower rear panel is folded up underneath. How that happened without damaging the coupler and then getting packed up....

I have a (repaired and still running well) Roco locomotive that took a nose dive off of the RhB tracks when it was standard gauge at about a 5' drop onto carpeting. It damaged the front facia on one corner, took out a buffer, but left the coupler untouched. No pieces cracked completely off, but it reminded me of what your locomotive looks like.

I can't tell which end it was dropped on now unless I get out the magnifying glass.

I don't run two trains on that track unattended anymore no matter how well I think I've matched the speeds.

I hope they take care of you.

 

[chadbag]

I will list my gender at birth, and either mark N/A or not answer. That is why I don't participate in annual Medicare Wellness visits. They are irrelevant. Especially after the first year of Medicare eligibility. Hell a quick look at what they paid out for will tell them everything they need to know. I know, just me.

Actually gender is a socio-political thing. Your "sex" is what matters from a medical/biological perspective.

In fact g ender is a. linguistic term. Things Der/Die/Das in German, or le / la in French or el / la in Spanish.

end of rant for the day

 

[chadbag]

I have one or two locomotives missing pieces because of falls where a small piece that is just pressure fit popped off. It's frustrating but since I can't really do anything about it I just ignore it

I ended up buying a sheet of plexiglass and cutting 4 inch high sections that I mounted all the way around my 4x8 when I had that set up. That way if something were to derail it wouldn't fall off the layout and onto the floor. Concrete has a way of not being very friendly to model trains. (It was in my basement).

 

[RhB Michael]

Actually gender is a socio-political thing. Your "sex" is what matters from a medical/biological perspective.

In fact g ender is a. linguistic term. Things Der/Die/Das in German, or le / la in French or el / la in Spanish.

end of rant for the day

I have a hard time keeping that straight with most objects, subjects, or nouns. I get it right about 50% of the time. Sometimes it sounds natural to use the correct term, and other times I can't tell without cheating. Die, Der, odor Das. Like, "Das ist richtig" just sounds correct to me, while other phrases don't come so easily. "Die Modelleisenbahn ist wundershön." is another that sounds natural to my ear. "Der Kaffee ist heiß", I had to check on, because it doesn't sound right to me.

 

[chadbag]

I have a hard time keeping that straight with most objects, subjects, or nouns. I get it right about 50% of the time. Sometimes it sounds natural to use the correct term, and other times I can't tell without cheating. Die, Der, odor Das. Like, "Das ist richtig" just sounds correct to me, while other phrases don't come so easily. "Die Modelleisenbahn ist wundershön." is another that sounds natural to my ear. "Der Kaffee ist heiß", I had to check on, because it doesn't sound right to me.

Your ear gradually learns what sounds right. But sometimes even Germans don’t agree.

Die Butter is korrektes Hochdeutsch.

But ask an old timer from Stuttgart and it’s

Der Butter.

I know that because I had a German Language professor at the university, a German who served in the Afrika Korps under Rommel and later emigrated to the U.S., who was from Stuttgart. And he swore it was “der Butter” even though he knew the correct high German.

I’m pretty good at hearing the correct gender on most words but am sure I make a lot of mistake. Especially now where I don’t get a lot of exposure and have not been there in 25 years. But after several years in HS, lots of college classes, living “on the economy” in Germany once for almost 22 months and once for about 18 months, reading a ton of literature on college and pop culture / newspapers / magazines, and lots of visits over the years I had a good feel for it.

What’s interesting is that while old Norse, another Germanic language, had 3 genders, the modern Scandinavian languages have devolved to two. Neuter and Common, though some dialects still have 3. My problem is that they don’t match the German equivalents for the same words, and the German is engrained in my head, so I want to cheat and use the gender for a word I know but it’s wrong (car or automobile) German das Auto. Swedish en bil (bilen— they use suffixes for definite articles unless there is an adjective then it’s den vita bilen / the white car). Confuses me to no end. Ett is neuter and en is common. Das in German is neuter.

 

[DeaconKC]

 

[chadbag]

The other day we were talking about class action payouts and the triviality of most of them. I had mentioned I once got a hair over $1000 from some sort of developer program member from Apple, and how I'd gotten supplementary payments from them in the more modest sizes of around $25 and $17 or thereabouts if memory service me correctly. Somewhere in that size.

Well, today I got an email from PayPal, announcing receipt of another supplementary payment from this class action. This one to the tune of $1.17

It looks like this gravy train is almost dried up.

 

[KriegslokBR52]

Curious minds want to know, how did you answer.

The wife got asked the very same questions at a visit about 2 years ago.

I would...have fun with that, but thankfully this nonsense hasn't reached me yet. The very fact that some group came up with the idea of asking the obvious, shows how quickly the younger generations are sliding down on maturity level.

 

[traiNscale]

Instead of spending money on static grass applicator, i made one out of a fly zapper, $20.

i understand and respect that, everyone like he wants.
i just would say, with a dedicated product the result is different then with a diy product. but thats totally okay also.

 

[KriegslokBR52]

Your ear gradually learns what sounds right. But sometimes even Germans don’t agree.

Die Butter is korrektes Hochdeutsch.

But ask an old timer from Stuttgart and it’s

Der Butter.

I know that because I had a German Language professor at the university, a German who served in the Afrika Korps under Rommel and later emigrated to the U.S., who was from Stuttgart. And he swore it was “der Butter” even though he knew the correct high German.

I’m pretty good at hearing the correct gender on most words but am sure I make a lot of mistake. Especially now where I don’t get a lot of exposure and have not been there in 25 years. But after several years in HS, lots of college classes, living “on the economy” in Germany once for almost 22 months and once for about 18 months, reading a ton of literature on college and pop culture / newspapers / magazines, and lots of visits over the years I had a good feel for it.

What’s interesting is that while old Norse, another Germanic language, had 3 genders, the modern Scandinavian languages have devolved to two. Neuter and Common, though some dialects still have 3. My problem is that they don’t match the German equivalents for the same words, and the German is engrained in my head, so I want to cheat and use the gender for a word I know but it’s wrong (car or automobile) German das Auto. Swedish en bil (bilen— they use suffixes for definite articles unless there is an adjective then it’s den vita bilen / the white car). Confuses me to no end. Ett is neuter and en is common. Das in German is neuter.

As much as there are certain accepted forms in any language, i personally think it's subjective in many cases. Being raised in Lower Silesia of Poland, growing up we dealt with German phrases because that region was part of Germany before WW II. As example "potatoes" in Polish is "ziemniaki", but growing up where i was, term Kartofle was used, which is modified form straight from German language. I went to Warsaw few times a year to visit some relatives of my grandmother, she grew up in Warsaw before the war. One time i used the word "kartofle" and one of her friends chewed my ass out. And as a child, i'm thinking, what did i do wrong? I'm just speaking in the natural language which i'm familiar with and everyone around me back home speaks it. But with some people that logic just didn't register in their heads.

 

[traiNscale]

so just out of curiosity.
if i would send lets say a RTS Greenkeeper to one of you in the US. You still would have to pay for VAT and Taxes and so?
Because, i have a good connection to RTS-Switzerland. So maybe i could get a good prize for a greenkeeper and then send it over to the us?
Or is this still the same, with everything that comes into the US?

 

[chadbag]

so just out of curiosity.
if i would send lets say a RTS Greenkeeper to one of you in the US. You still would have to pay for VAT and Taxes and so?
Because, i have a good connection to RTS-Switzerland. So maybe i could get a good prize for a greenkeeper and then send it over to the us?
Or is this still the same, with everything that comes into the US?

U.S. doesn’t a have VAT so no VAT would be collected. Each state has its own sales tax (same effect as VAT but technically much different) but that’s at the state level so the U.S. customs service doesn’t collect it. It’s up to you to report it and pay it to your own state. Tariffs I assume would still apply.

 

[Bill Tidler Jr.]

Good morning! It's Wednesday, 46°F and cloudy.
Have a good day!

 

[Kusojiji]

I could put a large inflatable beach ball in before putting the cover on. But I do want a limited amount of water on top to keep it from billowing up in the wind, which can cause damage.

Yeah, that would be easier! Yup, understand about the wind issue.