I saw with some months of delay the October 2021 new product announcement from Walthers and I was surprised by the price of a particular passenger car.
The Pullman-Standard Bi-Level commuter cars.
For a standard car the price is 89.98 dollars and for a lighted cars it is 99.98 dollars.
If you want to have a decent train with minimum 5 cars this will cost you 499.90 dollars in the lighted version and this without a locomotive.
What was the price of these cars when Walthers released them for the first time?
I guess that these price will kill the model train hobby for a lot of people.
We as model train enthusiast has also contributed to this evolution by asking more and more details on our models with the consequence of higher prices of the models. And as a result of this urge of more realism with details hanging beneath the cars are that those cars are limited to run on a minimum radius of 24 inches.
Did we as model train enthusiast shoot ourselves in the foot, 10 or 20 years ago by asking (no we demanded) more and more details?
I think that model manufactures are crossing a red line by asking those prices?
Will model trains in the future only for the “rich people”?<
I feel much the same. Most of my freight cars are Athern “blue box” kits. Much cheaper in terms of hours to be worked to buy one than any new car on the market today.
The new cars are more detailed, but the detasils break easily. Young/new people are being priced out.
You just need to learn to shop. Walthers new NW2 DCC and sound is listed for around $210 but others want more than retail, paid $145 for mine. All my stuff is high detail and paid less than $15 per car, sometimes much less, if I remember right I paid $12 each for MTH 2 bay hoppers instead of $35 and these were brand new in original shipping container, also these were in ,my home road logo. These were very recent purchaces.
Yes, this hobby can be expensive but I find my biggest cost is in tools.
Had I not invested in a quality soldering station, proper solder, appropriate flux, foam cradle, and solder removal tools, the following would have not been as successful…
Young people will buy into the hobby. They will spend more money per detailed piece of rolling stock and engines and I’d think collect less pieces then us ‘‘old’’ guys growing up on Athearn BB and MDC/Roundhouse.
Well, there are some valid points here. But I don’t entirely buy into this projection, if for only these two reasons:
I’m amazed how some young folks can generate money. And not always by means of their parents or plastic.
I’m just as amazed at how much they are willing to spend for what they want.
I suspect that their greater urgency for instant gratification (as compared to most of us at their age), is suffcient to offset the problem.
[Added] Whatever issues there may be in acquiring motive power and rolling stock, there may be an even greater one. Pretty quickly a 4x8 on a slab of plywood with sectional track won’t cut it for those wanting to move ahead. I’m almost more concerned with the ability to work with their hands. To run an analogy with the fairer sex, I’d wager that far fewer young women these days can cook (from scratch) or sew than in previous generations.
I notice that some of the young model railroaders on youtube buy up a lot of inexpensive used locos and rolling stock. They buy the items that a lot of people would consider as junk, fix them up and get them running like new. In my opinion thats how young people get involved and will keep the hobby going.
Well we just had a lunar eclipse and the “this hobby is so expensive” threads come along just about as often. I saved both the 50th anniversary edition of the Walthers catalog as well as the 75th edition. This allowed me to compare prices of items to what they were a generation earlier. For the most part, the cost of like items had kept pace with inflation. Some a little more, some less. There’s no comparing locos because a high end DCC loco from today is so much more sophisticated than a basic DC loco from 25 years earlier. More than a decade has passed from that 75th anniversary issue but I would wager the same comparison would be true today.
The good news is any of us is free to spend as much or as little as we choose. It’s still possible to enjoy the hobby without buying high end items. Accurail freight cars are still relatively cheap and you can still buy basic DC locos at a reasonable cost. If you can’t find affordable passenger cars there’s always ebay. I’ve built a fairly large fleet through the second hand market and haven’t had to spend an arm and a leg to do so.
One of the earliest ads with a price is in the March 1934 issue. An outfit is selling what we would call sectional track. A three foot straight section, two rail O, on plywood roadbed is $1 a piece.
It’s all a matter of perception. Prices have to be raised in order to survive. When you see the price of a box of 6 premade hamburger patties at $20 then that $30 freight car looks reasonable. Just imagine the costs of developing a new model. The company can be out hundreds of thousands of dollars in design, mold making, setup, crew training in assembly, and so on. Let alone shipping costs from around the world. I never understood Bowser. Parts made in the US, shipped to China and assembled, shipped back to the US. Crazy.
I don’t think there are two more countries on Earth than the United States and Canada where it is easier to go out and obtain the standard of living you want. Barring health problems, you have a choice as to the amount of effort you put into your life. If you don’t like something about your situation, fix it.
I have had the good fortune of being able to travel the world and have shared meals with people living in mud huts or grass shacks surviving on $2.00 a day. If you want to be healthy and fit, do what the healthy and fit people do. If you want to be in a good place financially do what those people do. Every hour spent in front of the idiot box or on the front porch drinking beer is time that could have been spent cracking a book and learning how to improve your situation.
I don’t tolerate whiners well, in case you haven’t guessed. I wonder what someone living on $2.00 a day would think about us spending $100.00 on a toy train car?
I bought a few passenger coaches a while back. They are fairly decent but not spectacular Rivarossi models. They were about $30 each. I found some Walthers lighting kits for these models. I took them apart and installed the lighting kits and replacement trucks and wheels. While everything was spread out on the workbench, I painted the rudimentary interior and added unpainted figures I got cheap after brush painting those.
These cost me about $40 per car. Plus, I got all the “play value” out of producing my custom coaches.
It would be interesting in what young Forum member Harrison and his friends would have to say on the topic, but then they’re probably busy, having far too much fun enjoying this hobby.
Model Railroad “stuff” has always been a bit high for equal time spent hobby “stuff”. When I started out in HO gauge (1951) there wasn’t any prefab track. It was 3 for a dime 36” rails and a roll of Atlas Tie Fiber Strip at $1.25 for 25’, a sack of scale spikes for another dime.
My first HO locomotive (MDC 0-6-0) cost me $6.85, I was earning my hobby money from a paper route at 45₵ per month.
When I got my first car gas was 17₵ per gallon.
I’ve never bitched about the cost of my hobby and that includes today’s prices. A good Model Railroader will find a way to play with his trains.
The only thing that made me think cost recently is the price of electronics from China, prices have almost tripled in the last few months. Sure glad I don’t need any more electronic goodies. I just love the DC to DC Buck Converters.
Hobbies aren’t a right. They’re from discretionary income unless you’re immature and irresponsible enough to fund your pastimes using money you shouldn’t, or that you simply don’t have (but I repeat myself…);
People into fishing will spend $1000 each year just on new lures, a replacement reel or rod, new line, gas if they drive;
Kayakers and paddle boarders will spend $3000 on a new hull/board, $400 on the ‘best’ carbon fiber paddle, gas money if they have to drive any distance;
Motor cycle enthusiasts, whether enduro, motocross, or road racing,…well, I hesitate to guess, but it must be thousands each year, and that’s after the initial purchases of helmet, license and testing, spiffy upgrades, say to a collector exhaust and racing bars, how much for a helmet these days, more if it’s a go-fast kind…; (same for snow machines)
What would the ‘best’ and coolest crossbow cost…maybe $3000 for one custom made? Then there are the arrows, wrist savers, etc…;
A decent violin, even second hand? $800, really well used, rather tired. A ‘good’ bow is several thousands new; and
painting, probably fairl cheap these days. An easle, maybe $100 second hand. Paints of any kind and quality, probably set you back about $200. Brushes, decent again, about $130, give or take. Oils might be a bit more, dunno…I don’t paint. I put my money in trains.
I didn’t need “the best”. A 1959 Les Paul guitar can be worth over a quarter millions dollars, yet my cheap knock-off Les Paul style copy cost me a hundred bucks and plays and sounds just fine. 60-65 years ago I used to drool over the Pacific Fast Mail brass locos on the back cover of Model Railroadeer, and marvelled at the nice engines with turned flywheels and fancy motors and GEARs, Gears I tell you. But I was happy as a clam with my rubber band drive Athearn locos. Sure, they stopped with a wiggle, but that was OK. And I had some B unit dummys, I don’t see those anymore
Later in life I bought some Fine Scale Miniatures kits, but when I was starting out, I had my cheap Revell Engine house, and station, and Crossing shanty. They were a small step up from the Plasticville structires I had 70 years ago. But I liked them. And I got me one of the Ambroid “One of 5000” car kits later on, but my selection of blue box cheap cars was fine for me.
Without blue box cars, Revell and Plasticville buildings, and rubber band locos, I likely would have put my time and energy into short wave radio, my other hobby at the time.