This there are plenty of young people who have the purchasing power to buy model trains but chose to spend it other things for whatever reason. Consider what such a person might be spending on video games: $350 for a new console 0r $1000+ for higher end gaming PC $60 each for high profile games Many other games for less than that. Add-on content for anyway from a few dollars to $20 They could easily be spending $100s every year just on video games. Quite enough to put together a small layout if they wanted.
One week ago I didn't know what N Scale was, and I'm 59. I went to an estate sale, and there was a box full of brand new train set items. All new in the box, and with a few buildings assembled, two locomotives, one a drone, and the other considered junk, some track, and a ten dollar price tag. I immediately thought of our awesome neighbor boy, and luckily found this forum looking for information. With the help of two awesome forum members who are helping me put this set together, just to help Nolan get into a hobby that they get SO MUCH out of. They are even donating track, locomotive power that will be reliable, and knowledge gained through years of time spent in this hobby. It takes me back to several winters as a boy combining all of the neighborhood Aurora racetracks. That was a lot of fun. And I'm sure that Nolan will love it. From what I see, You can spend as little or as much as You want, and I'm going to do all that I can to get him a locomotive with sound and all of the cool stuff as soon as I can save up the money. I intend to help him upgrade one piece at a time, and I'm glad that the technology is out there to make it more fun for him as we go. You don't have to upgrade it all this week. One piece at a time will make it more and more fun for him as we progress. And once I get him set up, I know another kid who is interested. And I'll put my own set together one piece at a time. I'll have sound too.
I will comment on this, not n scale related, but hobby related. When the PRC manufacturers (and don't start in with "this is not a thread about China"..because anymore, it is) raise their prices (for whatever reason), including the last Kader 40% across the board, importers aren't going to swallow the cost increase. Then you have conglomerates, like Horizon...no longer stand-alone Athearn, MDC and such...and the loss of Mantua...and suddenly we have most of the stuff coming through a couple of sources, and they, THEY dictate prices. Like some of you, I have all I will ever need, so I am out of the purchasing loop...if I was, I wouldn't be able to afford it. Mention was made early on in this thread about folks demanding higher quality, proper lettering...and that the rest of us were dragged along. Think of them as "activists"...getting their way for the 3.4% of folks they represent. We had this in a larger scale...some "activist" demanded another layer of PRC electronics..."won't cost anything"...nobody listed....the MSRP more than doubled, the enforced MAP made street prices triple. And we get to rip it out anyway. Folks stopped buying, production shrunk, prices increased some more, and now they don't know what to do, as the stuff ain't selling. Give it time. The manufactures will close themselves out of the market if this continues.
As a manufacturer, I know why prices are going the way they are. Materials costs are up for every market segment. Larger price costs in the hobby are a combination of material costs and the tooling needed for the more detailed models. Perhaps the cost for the hopper in question is also a combination of materials and tooling in that the original tooling may have been damaged or it just plain wore out. Hence to new tooling at 8x the cost of the original tooling. Your numbers fail to take so much into account, that they are nonsensical.
"....Larger price costs in the hobby are a combination of material costs and the tooling needed for the more detailed models " One of my many points... What ever happened to the"Modeling" in 'Model Railroading' ????
The counter-wave to this is that the secondhand market has become far, far more efficient. 30+ years ago you'd never find used N scale except 'maybe' at the annual train show or the local NMRA meet, maybe once in a blue moon at garage sales. What got me into N was one of my friends selling me his Aurora / Trix set - used - for $20 back in 1972. Pure luck. But as a teenager, that's how I first got started in N. Now I can search the internet and find almost anything ever made. If I want to get in on the cheap, it's there. Sure, some people absolutely hate the auction sites, but it's also pushed the entry level cost and ease way, way down. While there are collectors prices for some stuff, you can still find liquidations out there - often with assortments of stuff - for a lot less. And the next generation back is more likely to buy electronically than brick and mortar. I do think that the current 'state of the art' production is darn expensive, but I think the growing lack of local hobby shops where people can see and touch the stuff is doing a lot more damage than pricing alone. The counter to that is being visible to the public in train shows, NTRAK, anything you can do. That actually helps grow the market here, its in everybody's interest in N to contribute to that. Seeing N scale operate, not just gather dust, is a more effective marketing tool than anything else we can do.
That is an excellent plan to price yourself out of the market. If you are correct then the manufacturers have signed their own death warrant.
Of course thirty years ago there was no internet so train shows were the only secondary market. So far no one has provided a logicaL explanation as to why a car selling for 7.95-$8.95 25 years ago now sells for $19.95 today with no enhancements, no new detailing added. For those who think that Accumate couplers are an enhancement, they are not.
Wasn't CAD/CAM supposed to radically reduce the time and cost to generate new tooling - or haven't the model RR manufacturers yet made that technological leap?
Kato oval with power pack - $100 Atlas diesel locomotive - $100 Various rolling stock - $50 to $100 Tools, wire, and hardware to mount oval to a board - $50 to $100 Total - $300 to $400 for a plain oval of track, the minimum to get started in the hobby (with good equipment) ...or the price of a state of the art gaming system. Add DCC - $225 to the sky's the limit Scenery - $50 to the sky's the limit Additional track - $100 to the sky's the limit Additional locomotives - $100 to the sky's the limit Rolling stock - $20 to the sky's the limit Misc - $1 to the sky's the limit Are we being priced out of a hobby? Really, what do you think?
It has. Look at Micro-trains or Kato, and how many new products they introduce. But they own their own means of production- something quite rare nowadays. The reason the efficiency of computer design is not apparent across the board is that most other manufacturers are a few large conglomerates in China. The companies that WERE manufacturers 30 years ago, are now just importers- they no longer own the factories, and do not control design and production schedules as they once did. They may design the tooling on CAD in the US, but the tooling is made at the production facility in China. Once made, samples get shipped back and forth for approval, there is retooling, company officials from the US visit for final approvals (and they only do this once or twice a year, it is pretty expensive) and only once the tooling is approved does the production get scheduled. Additionally, as we have seen recently with the Rapido baggage car, the North American company is just not going to authorize the production run until they get a certain minimum number of pre-orders- until that happens, no production. That is not intended as a knock against Rapido, they are just a whole lot more honest with us than most companies. All of those factors mean that time to market can be longer, even if the actual design to tooling time is shorter.
Regarding the notion that fewer and fewer people are into or joining the hobby, my last trip to a train show a couple months ago seemed to indicate otherwise. Massive line out front (and I mean massive....maybe 75 - 100 yards) and more people than I've ever seen inside at any train show...ever. Couldn't believe it.
Oh contare my good man It is your explanation that is nonsensical and in addition is speculative. You say, "...original tooling may have been damaged or it just plain wore out." But you don't know that is the case. That is pure unadulterated speculation. But even if the tooling was redone that still doesn't account for the 220-250% price increase. Remember new tooling is involved in the new locomotives we got in the last 25 years and those prices only increased 20-25% not the 220-250% for the hopper. As for material costs there is more plastic in a locomotive than in a coal hopper. So that explanation is nonsensical as well.
Once again I'm dragging in toward the rear of this discussion. Day late and many dollars short. May I second all previous remarks, motions and add mine as well. From a historical perspective. When I first started out in the hobby it was pretty much a rich man's hobby. What quality you could buy was extremely expensive and or you had to hire someone of experience to build you layout. Uh-humm to hand lay track. Prefab track and train equipment was pretty much a thing of the future. Quality did suffer and basically a whole lot of toy train stuff was made. Great for kids and a great caricature of the real deal. Today, although the quality is welcomed and I no longer have to worry about detailing out a caricature to resemble the real deal. The cost of today's train equipment is prohibitive. I won't be buying any new equipment and will watch the swap-meets, train shows and assorted websites for those hauntingly absent good deals. We have done this to ourselves but that's to long a story for here and now. I've got better things to do then point fingers. Sigh!
There are so many costs in manufacturing and distribution that there is no simple way to say that the price on a hopper is too high. I mentioned the tooling issue because that has come up before with Atlas and the Code 55 track, and that fact that all tooling wears out and needs to either be reworked or replaced which cause the price to increase. As a manufacturer myself, I see all the costs and know them well. From the non-recurring engineering to the payroll to the utilities, all which have gone up over time. Just comparing a price today versus 20 years ago is just plain silly. It does not cost the same to manufacture an item today as it did 20 years ago. So running numbers and tossing out percentages without knowing the costs involved is flat out silly.
That still doesn't explain why a newly tooled locomotive sells for only 20-25% more today than 20 years ago while a hopper car with old tooling costs 200-250% more. Seems to me that if costs go up for the hopper they go up for the locomotive too. That locomotive is far more complex than that hopper. The locomotive requires assembly of many parts while the hopper is basically one piece construction. Should not the complexity actually compel a higher percentage increase? Or at the very minimum a corresponding percentage? Can you give us a definitive reason why it doesn't?
This my opinion. I'm so very glad that I don't seem to need to play the same model trains game that so many here do. I just don't need the latest highly detailed piece of rolling stock. I run industrial switching transfer line with no need for high detailed, newly retailed high priced cars. I just don't get any extra joy from having them. A $8 tank car with thick ladders and no fine details to break off, represents the real thing just fine, if it is of the type I need. Since I started it 2005 I don't care at all what the cost of model rail items were before that, or 20 years ago. It has no bearing on any thing I now buy. Just the same as what a automobile cost in 1965 as to what my first cost me in 1972. I'm sure this applies to many, many who are in to the hobby.
I don't know. My 1950 Ford cost about $1,950 when new...I bought it 47 years ago for $125, and it's still running just fine. My 1911 still works as new, my XP still works, my reel-to-reel works perfectly....and my 32 channel 8-bus ANALOG mixer still outperforms (sound-wise) the latest "gotta have it now" technology. Look at the cost of the vehicle. In 1950 dollars, what would it be today? Adjusted for inflation, $19,267.94 Try to find something that big, comfortable, and reliable for twice that new. Oh..last mileage check...with overdrive engaged, 26 MPG. $125 for a 19 year old car...maybe you could find one today for inflation-adjusted $1235. But not likely. Look at the cost of Lionel trains when new from that era...and look at the new stuff...mostly made elsewhere, with all sorts of electronics...yet my ZW via E-Units still work fine.
