The rather interesting counter-culture around this region is the introduction of the Amish into both service and production. It takes everything you thought you knew about manufacturing and service and sets it on its ear, challenging all assumptions. In this region, farming is next to impossible due to rather poor soils, so the Amish are into 'off the grid' manufacturing of lumber, leather goods, furniture, flowers, any building that can be sold on a truck, metalworking, and yes, even an electrical contractor. The Amish population is growing steadily in the region, unlike any other defined socioeconomic group - land is cheap and so is real estate here. And they are neither dependent on any outside utilities or OSHA regulations as it is family-farm type work. And they are a cash-basis economy. Yes, they pay taxes, and do sales taxes, etc. Until you've seen a fully-functioning precision machine shop run with belts and a natural-gas engine sourced from their own gas well (yes, they can use micrometers and all manner of tools in the production, just not in the home) you can laugh. What I like best is it really challenges your mind as to how much of the manufacturing and sales cycle is done in the 'modern age' and how much that process actually costs. Around here the Amish resource so undercuts virtually anything that can be done with them to the point where the are even doing field work driving out the seasonal Mexican workers in the farms that are here. I'm with Joe on offshoring. I have my own horror stories from my time in manufacturing OEM and aftermarket auto parts. Suffice to say that the US company that was building automobile cooling parts decided to outsource to Mexico, and the resulting quality problems doomed the brand for what was under a dime apiece on net cost savings including transportation. The company and brand no longer exists, from a position of having 25% of the market share nationally. You can't even google it and find it now, the brand 'goodwill' and logo are complete history. And this only goes back 20 years, a truly spectacular fail.
I can't remember if I replied to this thread already or not. Regardless, something happened last night that brought this thread to mind. I'm looking into building a larger, more permanent, layout and I decided to "transfer" my small modified oval over to a subsidiary which my kids could operate more or less exclusively. So, I needed a locomotive for said subsidiary that had knuckle couplers and could reliably switch industries over stock insulated Atlas switches. I have tons of older N scale stuff with Rapidos and tons of newer B&M stuff which I suspect I will need for the operating scheme on my larger layout. So I chose to go online and hunt down a decent locomotive for the kids. I looked at Bachmann first and found only the 44 tonner and 70 tonner remain at entry level prices and those prices were only on eBay from one or two sellers. I know Bachmann raised their prices but now their street price is higher than a lot of Kato and Atlas equipment, I dislike DCC so the decoder is meaningless to me. I looked at a lot of other new motive power and found the Kato F units to be the best price vs. performance option on the new market... still I wanted something more switcher/road switcher and couldn't find anything new in a reasonable price range for a starter locomotive. I ended up buying a nice condition used Atlas GP7 off of eBay well within the "entry level" price range and I suspect it will perform years of service just like my other Atlas GP7/9s. The moral of the story from yesterday is that, even with internet savviness, it is growing impossible to find entry level equipment on the new market for a reasonable price. I have my own views on the reasons for this problem, and they revolve around the hobbyists for the most part, but the hobby is dying despite my best efforts to get people involved. Even adults tell me, "I would love to get into trains but it's just too expensive to get started in and I don't want to just watch the train go around in circles." That pretty much sums things up, for over $100 at this point, you get a starter set with a locomotive which is only slightly better than the stuff from the 1980's I started with, a few cars, and an oval of track. You can't get someone interested in the hobby at that price and putting something similar together out of higher quality stuff is even more expensive. 3D printing will help the existing hobbyists but it wont lower costs in the end, it only makes more specialized stuff more achievable. You will always need donor mechanisms and parts to make 3D printing feasible and those donor components are continuing to rise in price on the new and used markets. The used market is rising due to market pressures from hobbyists looking to grow their rosters in an economically responsible way and from the handful of new people who have taken our advice to "buy used" in order to keep costs down. The new market just seems to be a case of the tail wagging the dog, from the outside, but the reality is that the hardcore of the hobby made demands for more detail but can only afford a smaller number of these more highly detailed models (there is a lot more to it, but this describes the essence of the root problem). It's a shame but at this point a decent R/C car or plane can be had for less than the price of the N scale stuff required to build an okay starter layout. I worked in the hobby industry for years and it was clear to me that the majority kids are going to steer clear of switching expensive tiny freight cars around (something real railroads no longer do in the public eye), they are going to choose the car or plane because those are less work to get into and they're concepts which requires little education from a mentor these days. My recommendation is to find a good shortline in your local area and take youngsters to watch their operations or chase the train, shortline operations look a lot more like the operations of most layouts than modern Class 1's do. Once they have the bug, take them to a swap meet, or jump online, and buy some decent used stuff for them (using your own funds) then help them build their first layout. That isn't going to lower prices for new stuff in the near-term but at least it will help to preserve the hobby long enough for the industry to figure out if they can support both upper-end modelers and entry level hobbyists. If the decision is "yes" then we will hopefully see prices for basic equipment come back down to reasonable levels... something more along the lines of what I kid can afford, a kid who will hopefully grow into being a hobbyist who can pay for the smaller numbers of upper-end stuff at some later point in life.
One thing I have pointed out in previous similar topics- We can talk the hobby to death through constant repetition of how 'the hobby is dying!' I have been hearing and reading this now for decades. Guess what? It has not happened, nor has it even come close! Yet, outsiders looking in and seeing this continual drum beating can, and will walk away. Repeatedly saying that it is on the way out, is similar to (brainwashing) conditioning. Eventually enough people will believe it. And this is also quite akin to shooting oneself in the foot, then doing that same to the other foot, just to be certain it really did hurt. It's just not the smart thing to do. Folks need to get out of their one forum only lock-in. We have a new member introduction forum, and are constantly seeing that active with hobby newbies. Administrators here can also see and read the new member comments when people sign aboard. Many newbies and just as important, returnees. No. Don't challenge me here. Per conditions of my job, I am not allowed to make public any of that information.
The new entries to the hobby are your kids. Go to a train show, buy a loco for $40 and a dozen old cars for $3 each....
Well I can only speak to what I witnessed over a decade of experience in both brick and mortar and online hobby retail, most of it centered around all gauges of model railroading. That was all with one company so perhaps I have missed a greater movement in the hobby, but that company had a fairly significant global presence so I feel like I got a decent amount of exposure to the market. I suspect, with people being more internet savvy, the majority of people entering into new hobbies turn towards forums aimed at those hobbies to get more information and get their toe in the door. I'm fairly certain the number of new sign ups and comments from new members of any internet forum have a built in bias versus the remainder of the public because people who are not interested in trains are also not likely to sign up on a train related forum (even 100 new board members per day would be a drop in the bucket towards the overall global population of people entering into a hobby on a daily basis). Just a thought, I really have no idea what the hard numbers are, but I can speak to what I saw and heard from a broad segment of the hobby buying public and my own frustrations which are often echoed here by other members on Trainboard. What I witnessed were sharp declines in the overall numbers of purchasers, increasing ages of what purchasers remained, and smaller numbers of items being purchased. I outlined the various reasons those customers often gave in my post above. There will always be people into model railroading, when I speak of the hobby dying I am speaking more in terms of the traditional ease of access which really gets the buying public into hobbies in the first place. R/C has done everything it can to make access easy, easy to the point of being almost like expensive toys rather than true hobbies/past-times in the traditional sense. There are hard economic realities out there and the buying public has decreasing disposable income, I saw the spending balance shift away sharply from trains and towards R/C before I exited the hobby industry. No the hobby won't "die" in the strictest sense, but I watched it whither and lose a significant number of potential people largely due to sharply increasing costs, not all people are willing to roll the dice on used equipment and not all people have the skill to make faulty used equipment work again. I don't want to be seen as hooting and hollering about the untimely demise of model railroading because, as I've said above, I believe there will always be a hobby for people willing to spend the money, buy used, or roll their own, I'm just reporting what I saw in the industry and what I've noticed as a consumer. On the other end of things, I am doing everything I have time and money for to get new people interested in trains and model railroads by extension... thankfully older equipment can still be had at reasonable prices. No worries, but the thread did seem to be about the rising cost of new equipment and that is what I was speaking to (for the most part).
Bumthum, when your local hobby shop is 50+ miles from home, and the internet is at your fingertips, the brick and mortar business will suffer. If I have to drive 50 miles to see if they have a set of Southern Pacific MOW decals, order them, and drive back next week, it is now easier to buy online. My time and 200 miles on my car is the main concern.
As I said, the company I worked for had a major global presence and a huge portion of our business was online (the bulk of our train sales). I worked variously in sales, account management, shipping, and customer service for both the brick and mortar stores (several) and the broad web presence involving multiple websites, eBay, Amazon, and other sales vectors, so my views are based on that experience rather than just brick and mortar. You are correct however, brick and mortar suffers from market pressures in many ways and hobby shops which are adapting instead of failing are using the stores as a venue for hands-on introduction to hobbies and service centers (as well as keeping the old timers who dislike credit cards and the internet happy).
While there are new people coming into the hobby the sad fact is that membership is getting older with a significant number either in or approaching senior citizen status. That is the post WWII baby boomers who are in their late 60's. Retirement means a lot of things most notably a reduction in income. Even if you plan well some things are just out of your control. I find a larger percentage of my income going for necessities such as taxes, food, utilities., etc. Seems like everyone has a hard luck story as to why they have to increase prices yet most pensions (if you are lucky enough to have one) don't have COLA's and few IRA's provide a steady stream of money that can be counted on year after year. So faced with rising prices most senior modelers have had to call a halt to their discretionary spending. Add in the fact that obsolescence, at least among rolling stock, is virtually nil and we can get by with what we currently own. So a large segment of the hobby has been sidetracked (pun intended) and no longer can be counted on to buy the product to support the industry. Will the hobby die? Probably not. Instead of going the route of the dinosaurs it will probably go the route of the slot cars. They are still around but just not in the numbers they used to be.
As a disabled senior, soon to be signing on to medicare, I am well aware of the cash flow situation faced. As with many seniors, youths aren't often endowed with a lot of excess cash to make purchases. Which is one reason they don't start. And one darned good reason for discussing costs, here. Yet if people continue, start, or resume being a part of this hobby as retirees, they are just as important as someone who starts as a youth. Seniors count as one in the tally of participants, just as much as someone younger. When a manufacturer "X" box car sells to some one aged 13, it has the same effect for them and that retailer as selling to someone age 35, or 72. Getting people started in this hobby, at any age, is important. Fixation on just youth misses a whole lot of potential, which we need to keep this fun going. It's that working population segment, post-education and pre-retirement, which needs to be spending. If we lose them, we lose it all. That is what has brought us to this topic.
But there is a tremendous re-sale market otherwise known as Ebay. That boxcar bought by a 13 year old will probably stay off the market a lot longer than the one bought by the 72 year old. Ebay has manufacturers in the unenviable position of competing with their own products and doing so at a disadvantage, pricewise. Those estate liquidation sales (from mostly that 72 year old crowd) will undersell any manufacturer. That Atlas 90 ton hopper I used as an example in my earlier posts (which currently retails for $19.95) can be found on Ebay for as low as $4.95 + shipping.
I don't really buy the "too expensive " thing, especially among the working adults and the kids. It is a matter of priorities and interest. "Too expensive" is an excuse when we don't want to admit that we'd rather be spending our money on other things like video games, golf greens fees, ski trips, boats, vacations and football tickets. I work and live around fairly solidly middle class working people and the amount of money they spend without batting an eye on other hobbies would easily fund a thriving MRR hobby. Heck, the cost of a SINGLE week vacation at Disney World would fund my entire spare bedroom layout start to finish, and I know people -- NOT lawyer/Doctor/banker types -- who make that trip at least annually..
I just spent 5 minutes looking through a search of "90 ton hoppers" on the n scale side of Ebay. That consisted of the first 6-7 pages of listings of who knows how many. So hardly a scientific sample. But then again those pages did not have much in the way of deviations from each other so I have no expectation that the rest were much if at all different. I found one listing that had must have had a starting bid lower then $4.95 as the bidding was up to $3.75 after 3 bids. Shipping was $6.95. On a EL hopper out of production that the EL actually NEVER owned. If that matters to oneself. Without writing down or otherwise adding up numbers the average starting bid looked to be in the $8.99 to $12.99 range with a few exceptions. Buy It Now pricing seems to start at the $13.00 mark with the obligatory exceptions. Shipping ranges from $6.95 and up but the norm looks to be in the $7 to 9 dollar range. I'm guessing flat rate box here. So after shipping and a few days of bidding your not far from the car that retails for $19.95. Which is a current release and can be purchased at my LHS for $17.99 if I remember correctly. I didn't need any of the last release so I gave it a real quick glance. So while you can still most likely find a $4.95 pre-owned car that actually costs $11.90 after shipping on a car that may have cost less than that $11.90 new, they are not as common as they used to be on Ebay. Ebay seems to be slowly evolving into one big online retail shop. Of course if your purchasing a new release from an online dealer, I've seen that $19.95 hopper for as low as $13.95 with the same $7-$9 shipping so it still $20 bucks for a new current release and not that far away from the average ebay priced hopper. There can be quite a difference in the MSRP price and what something actually sells for. Although there are those on Ebay trying to actually sell these cars for $19.95 then add shipping. And there's a thread for these listings an others like it.
As someone in my mid 50's, I have curtailed most of my purchasing because I have too much already. So I am letting some go so I can have a more manageable inventory. There is also the common sense factor, a 90 ton hopper more than $12 is just a no go for me. One way to keep money is to not spend it frivolously. And only when the perceived value justifies the price, then you make the purchase.
True. But what we are talking about here is keeping the hobby going. That requires manufacturing and retailing new items. Without those initial purchases of new equipment, you have nothing. All that will remain is fighting over remaining used stuff, much like vultures picking at a carcass. Without those people I noted, most in the 18 to 65 year range, buying new items, it's over. They are the people we need to be concentrating upon. Once that market for new items is gone, so are we, plain and simple. Only a few clinging on will continue- just like a near ghost town. We are already seeing too much discussion of and by people in the 18 to 65 year range, losing their buying power. As prices climb, most likely that group will grow in size to a place where the whole thing collapses. Those who can't see (buy) it, are likely too insulated from real lives of others.
How about this one? http://www.ebay.com/itm/Atlas-N-Sca...349072?hash=item2819ba9110:g:RkEAAOSwqBJXU0-p Shipping is only $3.50.
I don't disagree with you but there has to be product for people to buy. If all we have is pre-orders with no inventory for people to choose from then where does that leave us? Inventory has become a proverbial 'four letter word' anymore but it did have a purpose and maybe the accountants can't see it but marketing people sure can. Making the product both affordable and available would go a long way to easing the problem of attracting new people to the hobby. The pre-order system does neither.
I'm no fan of pre-orders. After placing orders which sit for years,.... There is one company which announced a product in May of 2011. I promptly ordered. Three and one half years later, I cancelled. Last week I was looking at their near stale web site and begin to wonder if they are still in business.
I personally dislike the pre-order system, unless it is something special and the manufacturer wants to make sure the market is there. These days, pre-orders are used for everything and runs are often cancelled for lack of pre-orders which, of course, rules out any future interests of hobbyists not quite in the position to buy during the arbitrary period the manufacturer sets. Atlas has been doing a good job of keeping a steady flow of products coming that I am both interested in and that I didn't have to buy ahead of time, good on them. I know what retailers were spending for product until fairly recently, most have wiggle room but are trying to cover a measureable percent of their overhead with each sale (no matter how small). That 90 ton hopper is not full retail to me, and I suspect most consumers, and that same product can be found for a much better deal on eBay if one looks hard enough. The pricing issue isn't just manufacturers, its the retailers as well, and as others have pointed out the retailers and manufacturers have to compete against older equipment on the secondary market. Regardless, most e-tailers will charge $6.95-$12.95 for shipping (due to a method of spreading the overall costs of shipping across every product sold) that isn't really different than eBay sellers. New freight cars may not be the best thing to buy on eBay (I buy from online retailers) but used and new locomotives can normally be found for significantly less on eBay than at retail (check out Bachmann 44 and 70 tonners, some good prices on eBay), online or brick and mortar, and used rolling stock is realistically as matter of what the market will support.
I stopped doing the whole pre-order thing after the cab forward release. I ordered from my then LHS and ended up moving two duty stations before it finally came in. Luckily I kept in contact with the store and they were able to ship it to me. I've resorted to watching the releases and ordering when the products hit the shelves. This almost bit me when WOT released their 60ft baggage cars in daylight. I called 4 stores and finally found a set. Don't get me started on the BLI M-1 release debacle.
Did we switch the subject to the other horse we've beat to death. Someone call the glue factory! Please. Look I'm out of the running for Pre-Order, New Products as they've managed to price themselves out of my marketability. I'm just a poor $#!+ and that's not an exaggeration. I did my best to plan for the future but it never happened. Not like some of you who were well prepared. So, I will get back to enjoying what I have, keep my work shop open and restoring those oldies but Goldies and watch the home club driven swap meets for those illusive and hard to find deals. They are gone from those exclusive auction web sites. So, go ahead and beat this dead horse some more and see if you can make a difference in today's world of model railroading and toy trains. By the way their all just toy trains. Think about it.
