Now, here is a good deal. For a mere $200, you can get the diner.
Not a bad idea. I would add one stat - - the average distance that you are hitting that club. I like the way you think, Douglas. [Y]
Rich
As for extra features, apparently manufacturers who offer same models with less features and those with extra, such as DCC sound etc, they say the extra features models tend to sell the best. I’m guessing that is why we are seeing this trend (market driven). That does mean less availability of lower cost versoins of models, but the market does tend to drive products.
For $200, that diner needs not only lights and sound but also smells.
I wanna sniff that wonderful Amtrak cooking as the diner passes by.
Please pass the worcestershire sauce! [dinner]
Rich
Sales from 10 people providing a company with $1,000 profit is better than sale from 30 people providing a company with $900 profit. But that’s not the same thing as selling “the best”.
But Athearn plays in several markets. My guess is that passenger cars sell to the really old side of our hobby customers (sorry) who have more money to spend on hobbies.
Also, there are different levels of electronic “features” in models. Sound in a loco is a natural evolution. Sill lighting (Rapido), cab chatter (Tsunami), and the sounds in these passenger cars is probably not really a market driven thing. JMO.
These passenger cars have been asked for on other forums by modelers for a long time. To be honest, I thought Kato would pull the plug and do these as I think their HO scale passenger cars are far superior to Walthers or others out there. So kudos to Athearn on announcing these cars. Time will tell if they’re successful.
Many manufacturers can’t please everyone, so they try to please as many as they can.
Just an example on ways Athearn (Horizon) is trying to make things affordable. They recently announced in the Roundhouse line GP38-2 engines in both DC and DCC equipped - no sound! I had wanted to get one but the last experience with trying to install a decoder in this series of engines was a major disappointment, PLUS you had to take the engine shell off the frame to change the couplers! This run has an NCE decoder in it, AND you can change the couplers without taking off the shell. It’s about time! One of their retailers was having a sale on these engines, and I bought one! Runs great. Is it detailed like a Genesis or other higher end engines? Nope. Does is suit my needs? Yes. It looks good, and will get a workout on my layout during operating sessions.
JMHO. Everyone has one…
Neal
PS. No, I am not buying any Surfliners at this time, unless my nephew thinks he would want to run them on my layout, then I will buy them. Hey, I’m the uncle and can spoil the kid!
Neal,
Maybe Kato did pull the plug…because Walthers pulled the trigger? [;)]
Tom
Just thinking here.
Maybe the Surfliner cars appeal to a smaller fan base that have higher demands than the general population of model railroaders.
Offering high end, high detail, high feature passenger cars to a small and demanding group sounds like the proper approach.
-Kevin
Okay, it’s too early for the wording here. I need a few more Diet Cokes. Yes, Kato would pull the trigger…
Neal (Heading out for more Diet Coke)
I think that’s a good way to put it.
Rich’s concern seems to be a broader comment on the hobby trending as a whole. I’m not into passenger cars, so I don’t know the availability of lower end products.
Look at it from automobiles.
How the industry offers products has changed. Back in 1970, you could take a base Chevy Impala and basically pick any option and add it to your order. You could have a base model, with two premium features and nothing else.
I’ll use modern Honda as a comparison. The LX is base, the EX, the EXL, and the Touring, etc. Each phase is basically a cluster of options grouped together as a package added to the trim level below.
If I want better intermittent wipers, I have to by the EX, which also comes with things I don’t want. Leather?, even more. Navigation?
That would be like in 1970, having to order the chrome side moulding, upgraded floor mats, four speaker radio; just to go from the six cylinder to a v8.
Said another way, you have to buy a bunch of stuff you dont want first, then they’ll let you buy the stuff you do want.
Back in 2000, I bought a Chevy Camaro (great car actually). It was a base with no power windows or power locks, or cruise control. Because I was single, I could simply lock the only other door to the car by myself. The issue was that cruise only came with the option of PW and PL package. The dealer balked at adding cruise until he found out from the mechanics that all camaros had all of the wiring i
Maybe the pre-Amtrak or early Amtrak passenger cars. But “really old” customers don’t strike me as the core customers who would be interested in the Surfliner cars.
And the “really old” ones would mostly be retired and many on a fixed income. I imagine there are a lot people who are in the age range that are interested in the Surfliners and well off enough to afford them.
Yeah, I’ve rethought that comment. I couldn’t speculate about passenger cars.
In the specific topic about features driving the market, I think for decades modelers have always wanted certain things that they ended up having to install or build themselves.
They shaved off molded on details to install their own metal details. Stripped paint and air brushed better paint jobs, installed underframe rigging, etc.
So when producers built models with these features, it was offering the market something they had been clearly striving for for years. Whether it was RTR or home-built, the end product is about the same.
There have been layout sound systems over the years, so the desire for sound, and onboard locomotive sounds was not a new thing.
As far as these passenger cars, I don’t think the market has really been demanding over the years for many of the features being offered.
In that context, I agree with Rich that it could be frustrating if producers, who have a limited window to produce things, are going to sort of try out new products with features that
I spent many nights installing grain of wheat bulbs when I was young in Rivarossi and Con-Cor passenger cars to have a lighted interior. Many people at the club I was a member of in the late 90’s did the same. Rapido has offered a lighting kit for its earlier cars, and their newer passenger cars come with it installed. It seems as though the model community IS demanding lighted passenger cars.
$1535 for a set of 13 cars. You can add the DC section (3 cars) for $380. I reserved one 13 car set, plus a bunch of head end cars. I bet they sell a lot of these sets.
Yeah, that is a good way to put it, consumer acceptance, not consumer driven.
In a sense, modelers are passively bullied by manufacturers. OK, you want an Amtrak Surfliner, well here it is with sound and lighting for as much as $200. Take it or leave it.
It is not only the Surfliner. I mentioned my reluctance to spend $85 per car to buy Rapido’s Monon coach car.
I am not into the argument that the hobby is getting expensive. I can still buy structure kits, ballast, ground cover, and track (including turnouts) and even electronics at “reasonable” prices. My beef is with the price of locos and rolling stock, specifically passenger cars. I set price limits in my mind. I am not going to spend more than $200 for a locomotive or $75 for a passenger car.
I am bored by the costs of production lectures as well. Without digging into the economics, I cannot accept the argument that a manufacturer cannot produce a locomotive for $200 or a passenger car for $75.
[quote user=“riogrande5761”]
Doughless
A few random thoughts…
All generalizations about what people, of what age, model what eras, and notions that we model the “trains of our youth”, or have interest in what types of railroading, were soundly disprooved a few months ago in a thread about “what era do you model”.
My freight trains (except for switching locals) are typically 40 cars long, or about 20 actual feet. My passenger trains are from 6 cars to 15 cars, so they range from about 7 actual feet to 16 feet, making them smaller than my freight trains. They do “require” larger curves, but I would choose the larger curves with or without passenger trains…
I for one model a time from before I was born, and WAY before Surfliners…
There are people who buy model trains (rolling stock), there are people who build model trains (rolling stock) from kits, scratch or kitbash, there are people who do both. There are people willing and able to buy expensive high detail high feature models, there are those who would rather not pay that much. They are all model railroaders.
I think many of you are giving the manufacturers too much credit in the “clever” or “premeditation” department. We are not talking about Apple, or John Deere, recently found to be making it harder for peolple to fix their own tractors.
We are mostly talking about guys trying to make a living in the hobby they love.
A hobby where the reasonable profit has been squeezed to the minimum by various market pressures.
I don’t have dog in this fight, I’m not interested in Surfliners, I’m not interested in any $100, or $200 passenger cars when the manufacturers can’t even solve the close coupling diaphragm question. I have all the passenger cars I need, many only cost $5 or $10… until I add a bunch of stuff to them and rebuild them…
I have no issue with what other people will or will not spend, I have my own limits and ideas on the subject.<
OK, I’ll give you that. Maybe not much greed or scheming, but consider this. The manufacturer could stop with a well detailed passenger car. But, the add-ons like lighting and sound are likely where they make their money. Common sense tells me that.
Take Douglas’ automobile extras as an example. My wife just bought a new car and wanted a moon roof. To get it, she had to accept a “package” which included a 22-way massaging front seat. I tried it once and it was like going to a chiropractor. The moon roof cost $1,200 and the 22-way seat cost $900. What is that all about?
C’mon, Sheldon, you know that is irrelevant. You don’t have to create a product, build a prototype, set up a manufacturing process, and bring a product to market to sense whether the pricing of an MR passenger car is outrageous or not.
Rich
I remember seeing jlwii2000’s (James Wright) video of when he visited Rapido Trains HQ in Toronto a few years back, and when visiting the meeting room with the other Rapido staff, Jason Shron, the founder and president said that, it was not like they are well dressed buiness people sitting at a meeting ssmoking cigars and counting piles of money, but just regular guys in the industry that just sit down and discuss what new or unproduced models they could do to bring or introduce into the model railroading market.
My view does not think companies are being greedy. When a company plays in the high end product space, the natural progression is to try to continuously out-do the other guys who are also playing in that space. If you sell your product as being more sophisticated than the other guys’, well, you have to keep finding ways to show it. Its the business they’ve chosen.
Nice paint, wire details, smooth motors are no longer the features of just high end products; so it kind of looks like they are trying to come up with ideas about features that modelers never really have expressed an interest in before.
That’s why I say that I don’t think what we see in product lineups can be explained as being market driven. JMO.
I continue to agree with you on this issue. Consumer acceptance, not consumer driven.
Others keep taking this down a rabbit hole over whether the manufacturers are greedy and profit driven. I am not making that argument. My point is that manufacturers are driving the pricing to the point of outrageousness by loading up a model with unnecessarily luxurious features - - - a Lamborghini when a Maybach will do.
Rich