Larry, you don’t have a clue, the increase in cost for installing a Kadee Whisker coupler is about 50 cents. The labor to install the coupler or an Accubreak or McJunkey is the same, so no increase in costs. All there is in the difference in price between the Kadee and the Cheap Plastic imitation coupler, which is about 50 cents. Freight is immaterial as the shipping of a container back to China is about free, the container is going back empty anyways so a little cost to fill it with couplers is a give away by the shipping companies to at least break even on that (for example you have to pay air to ship to Alaska but we only had to pay ground to ship back to the lower 48 since UPS did not want to fly empty planes back).
So therefore the cost to install Kadee’s on RTR cars shoud be no more than $1.00 giving the importer profit on the sale of the Kadee’s with their boxcar.
Every car I build or buy, if it doesn’t have Kadees, I put Kadees on before it turns a wheel. My experience too has been that none of the knockoffs works as well, so I simply don’t use them. Some people don’t mind the other brands - I don’t toss them, I keep them seperated by brand in containers. What I should do is package them up in sets of say 10 pair and sell them on ebay so they stop taking up space in my storage boxes.
The problem it seems to me is the whole psychology of the situation. Back when nearly everything came with X2F/horn-hook couplers installed, it was just second nature, indeed an automatic and nearly unconscious act, to swap them out the Kadees, carefully checking against the Kadee coupler height gauge etc. It had to be done.
Now the stuff comes with couplers that look just fine. We know they will mate OK with our Kadee-equipped equipment, so on the layout they go. It is fighting human nature to remove a KD knock off and install the real thing. And I do not know that all of the available KD knock-offs are equally subpar. I assume some of them are actually OK. And perhaps it is that faint hope of OK-ness that causes us to use them until they fail us, as in Howard Zane’s tale.
But frankly I am grateful that the horn-hook era for better quality goods came to an end. It was an absurd situation, as if the first thing we’d have to do with brand new dress shoes is replace the shoelaces.
We heard the same fifty cents argument before over detail parts(remember?) and it didn’t wash then and it won’t wash now as we found out with the added details.
Somebody will pay the cost of the coupler the added labor and shipping costs to China-since KDs are still made here.
I believe they would use the 5s or 58s not the 148s for one reason…The #5s still seems to rule the coupler world.
Larry, that is correct for the added details, as they were not added to the model previously there is now additional labor to add those details.
There is NO added labor costs to install a Kadee in a RTR car as the labor to install the Accubreak, McJunky, Protomax or whatever has already been included for installing those other couplers. And the Accubreak probably costs more as it is a two piece coupler rather than a one piece Kadee.
Freight costs are minimal to China even for 10,000 couplers on air freight (doesn’t take up a lot of room or weight for those couplers. Non-Factor!!!
Larry, I am a cost accountant and figure this stuff out all the time!
By the way, Exact rails do not come with No 5’s, they come with No. 158 Scale Head Whisker Couplers.
Rick,I doubt if 50 cents would cover the coupler from KD.Of course we know the prices would be jacked to help cover shipping which isn’t free-truckers will want their share too as well as the other carrier and of course the labor.
Fifty cents? Not likely.When the dust settles we will see a price increase to cover the cost-maybe new coupler box tooling cost as well----maybe not that far but,who knows?[(-D]
Again, ExactRail, Intermountain already have them and are they too high? Is it adding $7-10 on to the model to simply drop in a pair of KD"s at the factory? I doubt it. If ER and Intermountain can, and Walthers metal proto max aren’t making their cars too expensive, Genesis should be able to dump their ez brake and compete with the former. To me it’s still a no brainer.
Wow, and I thought this particular issue had died along with the Atlas Forum! I mean honestly, this issue comes up at least once a year, and the same arguments pro and con are raised, and people end up splicing and dicing their interpretations of model manufacturing economics, and so on and so forth… and the situation remains the same.
Bottom line appears to be that the manufacturers’ accountants simply don’t think it adds up, particularly when (1) not everyone wants a standard KD but might prefer an alternative such as a scale coupler or a short-shank or a long-shank; and (2) there are many model train purchasers (note I don’t say modelers) who don’t give a hoot about KDs so long as the train comes together at Christmas time or when the grandkids are visiting, but who would care about the extra $$ per car and locomotive for KDs.
We whine all day long about the loss of modeling skills due to RTR and all that other nonsense, but can’t stomach a simple coupler replacement!? Come on!
Here is the thing, the prices are never going to stop going up until the world comes to an end. Per the upteen other topics on “high cost of the hobby” that keep getting locked, need I mention yet again there are plenty of cheap kits out there at shows, swap meets, HOI and fleabay if you the RTR stuff is too expensive. The “hobby is too expensive” argument had been beaten to death ad-infinitivem. I mean my parents told me when they were kids in the great depression, a movie was 5 cents. Yes, box cars may eventually top $100 or 130 given time, but salaries will be higher too.
It only makes sense for RTR cars to be truly RTR, so lets just go with the gold standard and put KD’s on all RTR stuff. It might add a dollar or two but it totally makes sense. We don’t buy RTR stuff to have to change something basic out like couplers. That is still a no brainer - common sense. Half the RTR industry has embraced this, the other half need to smell the coffee.
[quote user=“JuanCarlosFdez”]
Bottom line appears to be that the manufacturers’ accountants simply don’t think it adds up, particularly when (1) not everyone wants a standard KD but might prefer an alternative such as a scale coupler or a short-shank or a long-shank; and (2) there are many model train purchasers (note I don’t say modelers) who don’t give a hoot about KDs so long as the train comes together at Christmas time or when the grandkids are visiting, but who would care about the extra $$ per car and locomotive for KDs.
We whine all day long about the loss of modeling skills due to RTR and all that other nonsense, but can’t stomach a s
I always love these cost analysis threads. I’ll add my 2 cents here.
I don’t remember any of the economy lines ever including KD’s. I may be wrong, but I don’t think KD’s were standard on any plastic cars until Kadee started it’s own line of cars, which were considered expensive.
Cars with KD couplers all seem to be in the $30-$40 range or more.
I don’t know what Kadee would charge other companies for bulk purchases of their couplers, but for those companies already making their own knuckle couplers, the difference is probably more than 50 cents to use KD’s.
Everybody in the food chain bumps the price based on the cost to them not the original cost to the manufacturer. If the markup is 100% and doubles 3 times, your 50 cents is $4 for the consumer.
Yes, I did see the previous comments regarding enlightened manufacturers (and I, too, would like to see more of them include KDs - I just don’t think it will happen). And I will concede that “whine” is too strong a word, and I certainly would not characterize the OP as such - poor choice on my part. But my key point remains valid - the economics of cheap couplers assume a larger customer base than those who are as picky about couplers as we are, and even that subset would be deeply divided in their preferences.
I have to agree with riogrande, it does make sense for high end RTR to have the best couplers - BUT - I don’t want semi scale couplers - so what are the maufacturers to do about that? I would end up taking them out anyway and installing regular head Kadees.
If it was up to me, all these high end RTR cars would come with sprung, equalized metal trucks too - talk about adding to the cost. I spend about $8 a freight car to do that myself now - to the tune of about 800 freight cars.
I buy a little bit of high end RTR, and a fair amount of “mid range” RTR like Athearn “Ready to Roll”. And they all get regular head Kadee couplers, and Kadee trucks with Intermountain wheelsets.
I suspect the unit cost of many of the generic couples is less than 10% ofthe cost of Kadee couplers - before shipping, etc.
As I mentioned in my first post, at one time Kadee would not sell direct to the manufactuers, and the manufacturers were not willing to buy them from distributors and install them in their products. That has changed, BUT, I suspect Kadee still holds theline on the price and does not sell them any cheaper than they their standard wholesale price, possibly minus some small additional discount for bulk packaging.
So I suspect that the average pair of factory installed Kadee couplers costs the car manufacturer every bit of $0.75 - I supect the average “McHenry” or whatever is 1/10 of that.
But since I don’t depend on “RTR” to be in this hobby, I really don’t have a dog in this fight.
Not quite economy line but Kar-Line back in the 70’s and 80’s included Kadee Coupler with their cars which were essentially Athearn Cars painted and decaled with Champ decals for railroads not offered by Athearn in their line back then.
Considering what it would cost to paint a decal a car their price was less than what I charged for the same service.
Remember, McHenry and Athearn are under the same corporate umbrella. You aren’t likely to see Athearn equipment coming with Kadees as long as McHenry still exists, unless Horizon divests itself of the McHenry line.
Plastic couplers are fine if your layout is a 4 x 8 and you only run five car trains. Why should the owners of such layouts pay extra for couplers they could easily do without?
Frank,True enough but,do we need more topics on the price of the hobby?
With KDs the price would go up since manufacturers would past the price of KD couplers,shipment to China and the involved labor to the consumer.
Would it be nice for cars and locomotives to be equipped with KDs? You betcha but,I don’t want the added price for what I can do in five minutes.
The simple blue box kit car comes assembled at 3 times the price.Add more for KDs if the cars was to be factory equipped…Another fine example is Walthers decades old cars that comes equipped with Protomax II couplers.
The solution is simple…One needs to learn to change out the wannabes for KD or Walther’s Protomax II coupler- a simple 5 minute job.