I have a 1956 American Flyer catalog.
A GP-7 cost $25 in 1956.
In 2019 dollars that would be $236.40
“The average yearly American salary was $4,450. The average cost of a new house in 1956 was $11,700, and the average monthly rent was $88.00. In terms of commodities, the average cost of a gallon of automobile gas was 22 cents. A new car cost approximately $2,050. The price of ground coffee per pound was about 85 cents.”
My grandfather bought a Cadillac Fleetwood brand new in 1961 for $5,000.
As a software engineer for decades, I have found that after a long day of computer diddling, working with my hands is very relaxing. It uses entirely different parts of the brain.
The $25 in 1956 bought you a rather crude model with a jerky drive, but the $236.40 buy you a highly detailed, DCC and sound equipped engine with a drive that´s as smooth as silk.
Today´s youth won´t be happy with what we had to be content with back in our days. They are much more tech savvy as we were and need to have that challenge to develop an intetrest in the hobby. Cheap won´t do.
A club member had one of the new Athearn RTR DCC/Sound locomotives, and I was very impressed with it. Sure, I could tell the difference from my Genesis, but it looked good and ran great. They aren’t that expensive, either.
As you might know, Milwaukee’s Trainfest is a huge annual train show BUT has always pretty much shunned the swap meet side of the hobby, so it is lots of layouts, manufacturers, and vendors, but the vendors sell new stuff almost exclusively.
Interestingly one of the high-end manufacturers mentioned to me that Trainfest goes to great lengths to feature activities and opportunities for young people (toddlers to teenage) yet Trainfest has almost no used stuff that a young person could buy and afford if they wanted to get started in the hobby. What struck me is that even this manufacturer understood that their current pricing just is not going to match up well with entry level or exploratory or “he might enjoy it for a year” type of train customers (regardless of age by the way). At least this manufacturer understood that long range he and his firm need and benefit from swap meet trains that create new customers and new demand.
I pointed out to him that Milwaukee is awash in swap meets so that the interest generated by Trainfest can be readily satisifed if “previously enjoyed” trains are the way to go. There is some sort of swap meet in Milwaukee just about every weekend, and never fewer than two a month. The monthly swap meet at the NMRA Divisional meets (the sponsor of Trainfest) is not only free to attend, but nothing is charged for the tables. So we do what we can to stoke the fires that have been lit by Trainfest.
He was surprised that Milwaukee has so much swap meet opportunity. And that does not even include that huge monthly swap meet over the state line in Wheaton IL.
I know many modelers who have purged their collections of their pre-DCC trains, many of them nicely detailed and good runners, top of the line stuff when it was new. Similarly there are bargains to had for prefab track of the sort a beginner might benefit from using, and nice DC power supplies as well.
I just tried to look at the NMRA WISE division upcoming meets and events, and it says the page isn’t working. [sigh]
Mike.
Well, yes, that was pretty much my point.
I know - try instead clicking on the newsletter and checking out the most recent Owl Car newsletter. It gives schedules and activities - including our upcoming bus trip to the Madison show in February
Dave Nelson
That train show at the DuPage County Fairgrounds is one of the reason I’m here.
Before I was married and had my own family, my sister and my young nephew lived with me until they could get on their own. My nephew loved trains. So for Christmas when he was six years old, I got him a Lionel O scale starter train set. We started to build a small O scale layout in a spare bedroom I had. I would take him to that train show as a little kid. You would not believe how many vendors practically gave us stuff after getting to know the story of why we were there.
My sister got married and now has two more sons interested in trains, as does my son. Great family hobby.
Ed
Fantastic show, and probably the best monthly show in the country.
I started playing bass for my church and I’ve missed the last year of shows, but hopefully we’ll have a sub soon and I’ll be able to go back. Definitely worth the early admission fee. I generally arrive, spend all my $ and am walking out with a bag full of deals about the time it opens for general admission.
I got a young boy, little under ten into model railroading. I sent my nephew a 1970’s plastic Lionel 0-027 seet and a bunch of Marx tinplate for his son. They had troubles sometimes with the pins on the track.
They went to a hobby shop and bought a Bachmann HO set which made the boy much happier. He could put it together a lot easier. He can expand in the future. I told him about the Bachmann forums also.
Rich