Hi Mark,

Everyone has their favourite dealers. The decision to buy “local” is a personal choice. However your purchasing may be dictated by availability of the particular item that you want. There are a number of big German dealers on the Internet. Everyone has their own favourite. If you want more details on this let me know and I will send you a PM.

IMHO the only HO Semaphore signals worth purchasing are Viessmann (http://www.viessmann-modell.com/) In terms of colour light signals both Viessmann and Marklins do look good.

Miba (http://www.miba.de/) produce a number of books that are worthwhile but they are in German.

There is a wealth of material on this site, and reading some of the threads should answer a lot of your questions. If not, post the question and hopefully someone will be able to help.

Have you decided on an Epoch or a region?

Regards from New Zealand

John