N scale has boomed in popular use in my area. There is not enough space to run in O or HO so N offers the best for some.
I occasionally use Ebay but as a sniper within the last 6 seconds only and pre-armed with MSRP minus shipping. USUALLY… not always the hobby shop has the item.
There is money out there and certain items command bidding wars. My feeling is that the hobby isnt too expensive, but more of a problem for those who cannot stand to lose to another with more dollars on the bidding screen.
I’ve been in the Air Force now for almost 12 years; through it I’ve earned my Master’s and am almost done with my PhD (on their dime). And yes, I’ve had to go to war (with the Army, actually), and yes, I was part of the system which resulted in killing people and breaking their stuff. I’m proud of my service. I don’t ask for thanks, but I do ask for a bit of understanding that sometimes killing bad people is what it takes to protect what we love, even if that thing we are protecting is another American in uniform.
You have a right to disagree; you have a right to be self-righteous. Let me leave you with a quote:
"War is an ugly thing, but not the ugliest of things. The decayed and degraded state of moral and patriotic feeling which thinks that nothing is worth war is much worse. The person who has nothing for which he is willing to fight, nothing which is more important than his own personal safety, is a miserable creature and has no chance of being free unless made and kept so by the exertions of better men than himself. "
**[John Stuart Mill](http://www.quotationspage.com/quotes/John_Stuart_Mill/)**
*English economist & philosopher (1806 - 1873)*
Now back to your regularly scheduled discussion of the cost of model railroading…
Hi Dave,
You’ll ALWAYS have understanding from this ex-serviceman, who during one hot summer night In central south Korea on a US tactical missile base, was part of a team th
I have to admit that I got away from the train show circuit, and ordered strictly from on-line dealers. We went to a swap meet last month in Ft Wayne and I was astounded by how much cheaper the prices were there, opposed to on-line shops.
If you go strictly by the Walthers Catalogue, and adds in MR and RMC, I can see where you would get a bit discouraged by the prices, but don’t give up, check out a swap meet.
I’m not talking about the Great Train Show, for me and Amy to run to one in Indy, with admission, parking and a bite to eat, add gas and we have spent around 100$ just going. That pretty well shoots down buying anything. But the local meets, 2-3$ to get in, free parking, etc, and you can still grab up deals. Even if you only make one or two a year, you can get enough stuff to keep you busy for awhile.
I gotta admit, we sure have some deep thinkers on this forum. You guys would have a better chance of getting the economy on track than either pollitical party!
If this is completely true, then why was at least 50% of the booths and audience at the last WGH show I attended Thomas the Tank trains and youngsters under 12 clammoring for Thomas-related items? The show included a low-cost train ride on a train pulled by a Thomas-like loco – and there was a constant line of parents and kids wanting a ride.
Sure it’s not the Lionel or proto-based train sets of the 1950s and 60s, but hey, it’s trains and it seems to be quite popular at WGH train shows I’ve attended. If they’re catering primarily to the 45-64 crowd, they’ve picked the wrong thing to emphasize! If these kids are not considered potential hobbyists by the WGH show powers-that-be, then why the huge emphasis on Thomas?
As to high prices of hobby products, higher prices reflect higher demand for goods, otherwise companies that outprice the market will go out of business. If what you’re suggesting is true, then at some point the prices will begin dropping because the demand will drop.
It’s all just economics – hobby manufacturers seem to have discovered the sweet spot between price and demand. If you do a limited run of an item, you can charge more, keep your expenses to a known fixed amount, and ultimately make a better profit.
If that’s what it takes to keep the manufacturers happy and producing new stuff, then it works for me. Sure I’d love to see it cost less, but
(apologies for being off-topic, but this is educational)
Just in case not everyone knows, the US Army Nike Hercules missiles were air defense weapons with nukes onboard. These were stationed all over the USA (along with their conventional cousins, the Nike Ajax) and several other locations protecting major cities from bomber raids. The system wasn’t very accurate, but then with a nuke, you really don’t have to be. [:)] A friend of mine was a radar operator in Battery C, Philadelphia, and a fellow member of my RR club was in a Battery in the Boston area (where one of the bases is now a condo complex with a nice underground garage).
For the best book on the subject that I’ve ever heard of, try “Rings of Supersonic Steel” at:
BTW, TheK4Kid (and not taking anything away from your scary experience), you should hear my dad talk about the time he was TDY from the 4126th Strat. Aero. Wing (Beale AFB, CA) to Eielson AFB (Fairbanks, Alaska) during the Fall of 1962 (the Cuban Missile Crisis). That’s DEFCON 2 at an Alaskan B-52 base…yikes. [8][xx(]
Let me remind you also of a character from literature by the name of Pollyanna, whose afliction was only being able to see an unrealistically bright side to every situation, no matter how bad it really was.
In the real world such folks generally react from a position lacking in actual knowledge of a given situation, yet an obsessive need for things not to alter their outlook or position. This thread is a fine example. Numbers are thrown about willy-nilly without regard to what they represent, their actual meaning, or how comparable or representative they really are…just so long as they are upbeat. As long as the posted “facts and figures” suggest things are going well, they are accepted as 100% correct and accurate. However, let the numbers tend to indicate perhaps everything isn’t perfect and they immediately become invalid, were taken out of context, anything, just so long as they can be disregarded. And then the poster of any possibly more reliable information is publicly insulted in hopes of discrediting him. Such a stance reflects a position more of posters’ desperation of being unable to accept change, that things MUST remain status quo, rather than from intelligently evaluating what information is available and reaching an unfettered conclusion from th
If this is completely true, then why was at least 50% of the booths and audience at the last WGH show I attended Thomas the Tank trains and youngsters under 12 clammoring for Thomas-related items? The show included a low-cost train ride on a train pulled by a Thomas-like loco – and there was a constant line of parents and kids wanting a ride.
Sure it’s not the Lionel or proto-based train sets of the 1950s and 60s, but hey, it’s trains and it seems to be quite popular at WGH train shows I’ve attended. If they’re catering primarily to the 45-64 crowd, they’ve picked the wrong thing to emphasize! If these kids are not considered potential hobbyists by the WGH show powers-that-be, then why the huge emphasis on Thomas?
As to high prices of hobby products, higher prices reflect higher demand for goods, otherwise companies that outprice the market will go out of business. If what you’re suggesting is true, then at some point the prices will begin dropping because the demand will drop.
It’s all just economics – hobby manufacturers seem to have discovered the sweet spot between price and demand. If you do a limited run of an item, you can charge more, keep your expenses to a known fixed amount, and ultimately make a better profit.
If that’s what it takes to keep the manufacturers happy and producing new stuff, then it works for me. Sure I’d l
This will be my one and only post to this thread. The price of a subscription to MR is quite high compared to other magazines. I couldn’t believe the price for a years subscription. It is two to three times higher than other magazines I subscribe to.
It’s a specialty mag. They’re always more than Time, Newsweek, and general interest stuff. MR isn’t too bad. The Transformers Collectors’ Club magazine (which I don’t get) costs $50 a year and it’s not nearly as full of vitamins and minerals (granted, the club rag comes with a free exclusive-usually ugly-colorscheme figure in the $7 size every year, which, again, does not motivate me to shell out that much cash).
As for quality of MR, I think it’s been pretty good lately, but that’s a discussion for another time and a full coffee pot.
Instead of worrying and arguing about this stuff, why don’t we all come up with new and economical ways of doing things? Remember how E. L. Moore kept low price in front of the reader, and gleefully quoted the cheap costs of his scratchbuilt structures? That was a rare thing back then, actually; most people didn’t mention cost - although I see it a lot in the 1930s magazines, and MR did have that “dollar car” series.
Complaining gets us nowhere. Figuring out how to do stuff cheaply does. Moore was only one man, and he wasn’t rich, and he was no spring chicken when he started writing articles – but he was clever, and thrifty. Look at how much influence he had. What if he had just decided that the hobby was outside his income limits, as well as outside his space limits (as it apparently was), and complained?
Like the saying goes, there’s lies, damned lies, and there’s statistics.
Not all the statistics agree with the gloom and doom view. Some statistics support hobby growth/stasis/good health.
And then there’s interpreting the facts. We could be wrong you know. None of us is all-knowing, and that’s the point of bringing up predictions made 40 years ago about the health of the hobby. They were wrong then, and we could be wrong now.
I offer counter arguments not because I’m sticking my head in the sand as you suggest, but to point out you also are biased and are chosing to ignore data that doesn’t support your view.
My honest view is the reality is somewhere in the middle – it’s not as awful as you suggest, nor does it have a rosey future of great growth ahead of it some are hoping.
I do believe the hobby is destined to shrink somewhat in the decades ahead, but not nearly as rapidly as some fear – the huge interest in Thomas and Polar Express shows there is still a huge fascinat
Just this morning I was doing some internet shopping for the following products. I’m not sure where all these places are, some are in California and on in Wyoming, but most of the shipping charges was about $7-9 give or take. Here’s what I was looking for and who had what prices. Please add more if you know some place for less.
Items: All Nickel Silver except the roadbed of course.
3 Atlas #6 Left Code 100
1 Atlas #6 Right Code 100
1 Atlas #4 Left Code 100
25pc Midwest Cork Roadbed
5 3’ Altas Superflex flex track
NHS hobbies had the best price over all: $76.26 Some items on sale
Atlas.com was second with: $82.45 But would not calculate shipping until order was placed.
Local LHS Gene’s Trains: $86.04 This of course has no shipping because it’s local.
Cherry Creek Hobbies: $103.00 This had the highest shipping at $9.75
And last was Go Hobbies. Inc. $108.34 Just a little too pricy.
I know there’s probably a dozen other places that I missed or just did not list. One thing I will say though is that it seemed that for as big as Wathers is they were the most expensive. I would think that the bigger or more popular companies would be able to sell at better prices just do to shear product movement.
I take the one and only post comment back. Most magazines, whether specialized or not, run between $12 and $20. I almost fell over when I saw $43 for twelve magazines. You can’t tell me that doesn’t sound a little high.
With all due respect, I’m not aware of too many glossy magazines with subscription rates of 12 to 20 dollars per year for 12 issues. I don’t know what postage alone would be, but I am assuming it would have to be at least 50 cents per issue. Any examples?
I get my PC Gamer Magazine for $19.95 a year, but that is also the teaser price. Cover price on the things are $8.95 ea. And you can find subscriptions to MR and things cheaper if you browse the net. MR’s website subscription is $42, but I found a clearing house selling the subscription for $24. I can easily stomach that.
Home theater, GQ, Powder, Details, Esquires, Field and stream, Motor Trend, Guns and Ammo, etc. All of these magazines are between ten and twenty-two dollars for twelve issues. I havn’t found one that is over twenty-five dollars.
I used to subscribe to PC gamer and Computer Games, PCG was about $25/yr and CG was $40ish (but they had a CD than came with every issue of all the “latest” demos). My MR subscription was in the $30-$40 range. I’d say that’s pretty fair, especially considering the “exclusive” online content for subscribers… I can only compare this to the mid-90’s but the price hasn’t gone up too much to the point of being “out of line”.
As far as everything else goes, I would love to be able to buy the $4000 brass BLI locos, or even the $400 ones from BLI/P2K/etc… but that’s just not in the cards. So I’m going to settle for the $150 Bowser kits that start out at “pretty close” and go from there…
Additional 2 cents from me. My father owned a fair number of brass HO locos. He got them mail order and at swap meets. I don’t think very many of them were NEW, slightly used I believe. Some of them were really pretty some of them less so. And almost none of them he had were ever painted. But the bottomline I’m getting to is, they all ran like crap, if they ran at all. Dad seemed to think they were too expensive to paint, but who wants to run the metallic & No name railroad?
So in my humble opinion for the price I would always go with quality plastic over brass. The only reason I even look at brass is to try and find a model of locomotive I can’t find in plastic.
I would really like a EL SDP45 or 2. But with the price of even plastic models today I am horribly afriad to trust my dubious kitbashing skills.
MR is higher than magazines in other fields. Many of these want high circulation for higher advertsing rates so they keep their subscription rates low. There’s a lot more folks playing computer games than building model railroads so that works for PCGamer and others. Personally, I enjoy MR and get more out of it than I do PCGamer.
S Gaugian is $36 a year for 6 issues each a lot smaller than MR. It also has a much smaller circulation than MR. But it’s all S so it’s worth it to me.