Boxes are handled very roughly during shipping. The stirrups where attached at the factory, but all of the bumps, falls, maybe being tossed worked them loose. I have had parts fallen off, but it just a few seconds to put it in. If you don’t like finding fallen off pieces, buy a Genesis and assemble it yourself when it arrives.
Then its ok to accept busted up cars because of rough treatment?
No,glue the steps on and pack them securely like Atlas,ER,IM and other companies.I’ve never unpack a Atlas or IM car with their stirrups laying in the tray and they receive the same treatment do thet not?
Average household income in 1956 was $3600. That’s $31,500 now.
Mean right now is around $51,000.
If something was $20 in 1956, it represented .55% of the household’s income for the year. The $175 to buy an equivalent product now is .34% of the household income.
Actually a $20.00 locomotive-and there was some higher back then-would leave the average union worker around $70 for a week and $70.00 was a lot of cash back then in fact I bought my first car for $50.00-a 1955 Ford Crown Vic in1964.
The lessor paying jobs would be around your 3600/yr. Your 3600/yr works out to be $70/wk-kinda low wages for most skilled union labor.Check the prices on HO Seeker for some of those fifty era locomotive kits.
Hush, you and your “actual numbers.”
What I found most interesting about this thread is that LION actually posted a response that wasn’t in the third person ! [swg]
Mark.
The issue with train prices and inflation is how much discretionary income does a person have to spend on trains. And how much of that is required to buy an engine, a boxcar, etc.
Lately, with the decline in pensions and subsequent need to fund retirement accounts, the faster than inflation college cost increases, the quickly rising health care costs I suspect that discretionary income is declining for a lot of people. Sure trains may be a better deal in the abstract, but if you have less money to spend on them, that doesn’t help much.
Paul
Those are not “actual numbers” $3800/yr amounts to $70.00 a week before taxes and was poverty level for unskilled labor.
$70.00/wk you couldn’t buy a new car,buy a house,pay monthly bills,take vacations,put Jr and Sis through college etc.You did well to survive paycheck to paycheck on that $70.00-again before taxes.
The great American dream was in full swing back then.
I think what is pretty abstract is the belief that many of those with a job are effectively priced out the hobby with today’s prices. It’s just not so, even for brass if you choose to limit yourself to a specal item or two. Lots of people can afford brass, but they’d rather have 4 units in plastic. And that’s where I think a lot of this “being priced out of the market” comes from, people worrying about quantity over quality. Not that the plastic items are poor quality, they’re usually not these days. It’s just that people think they NEED the big lashup to get their freight around that 4x8. Realistically, they’d be better off with a single high quality loco in a space that size. And a lot of the rest – cars, track, structures, etc – need not be acquired all at once.
And once again, this whole issue of the market pricing people out of the hobby is closely related to expectations. No one is going to force you to model the UP across Wyoming – and there are plenty of prototypes that wouldn’t be as costly to model. If your budget for acquisition is limited, adjust your expectations.
Mike,If you haven’t notice the growth in ISLs seems to be the answer for many modelers since one doesn’t need a lot of stuff so two or three DCC/Sound equipped engines and 48 or so high end cars are the norm…The need to rotate engines and cars helps the operations of ISLs.
The modern ISL is focus on more a given railroad be it UP or BRC set in a specific location…
Larry, the Engineman,
ISL’s. [Y] [Y]
All you need is the correct Ind. and run any kind of car your heart desire’s.
Take Care!
Frank
EDIT: Don’t even need an Ind. if you put in a Team Track.
Frank,Add 2 or 3 car spots per industry plus a transload track and you can have a wide selection of cars including flat cars loaded with farm impliments,pipes,sheet steel etc.
A well design ISL can result in some fun operation–if operated prototyical manner and the best part a ISL can be detailed to the Nth degree…
I agree with you, Tom.
How often can we talk among ourselves about this issue?
I would much rather read an article written by a manufacturer about the cost of manufacture then and now.
Atlas, or Athearn, or BLI could write something a lot more interesting and accurate than anything in this thread.
Rich
Hi,
I totally agree that the subject would be much more meaningful if discussed by business folks that have a true perspective on “then and now”.
The costs of doing business - ANY business - are many times more now as compared to the past. Are we getting more for our money? Of course! But it ain’t cheap.
To those who are upset at the cost of this hobby, I say “get on your horse and skedaddle”. Find another hobby that is less expensive - if one exists…
I think local railfaning would fill that bill nicely since everybody owns a camera and car.
Star gazing would be another.
[bow][bow][bow]
And the emporer is naked…
Its not the light bulbs, but the light board.
An old Proto 2000 light board, the best lightboards ever invented, would do just that.
Its what ALL locomotives should have. The problem is that the internet forums, dcc populated, pretty much ran these boards out of the industry, since, they draw too much power and the mega layout folks couldn’t run 25 locomotives at the same time on the first dcc system they bought.[:-^]
Yes, spending $150 on a well detailed locomotive kind of gets wasted when the locomotive remains UNLIT at less than a scale 30mph.
Get yourself an Aristocraft CREST wireless throttle system to power your layout and the lights will shine brightly BEFORE the locomotive moves. Yes, a prototypical detail that is important to many people who operate layouts. Not just having the rivets in the right places on the shell.
Or, a dcc system will do that too, provided you install a decoder into the locomotive.
Its not just Athearn, all manufacturers try to use low draw electronics in their locomotives.
That could be debatable but,let us speak first of my Bachmann S4 whose highlight is bright–maybe a tad to bright? I turnoff my room lights and dim and brighten the lights and the dim appeared a tad to bright based on my night observations while railfaning.Both of my P2K GP9s the number boards is as bright as the headlights and looks odd.
Those are actual numbers. I pulled them from a 1956 report by the Department of Commerce on wages. 23.3% of the male population made less than $1500. A further 9.1% had no income or reported a loss for the year (the data does say that it counts a lot of teenagers, but the boomers weren’t teens yet so that’s not a huge part of the population and unemployment was around 4.1%). Now, there was 28% that made over $5,000 a year too. There were a lot of people getting by on very little money, economic boom or not.
[quote user=“NittanyLion”]
BRAKIE
Bayfield Transfer Railway
NittanyLion
Average household income in 1956 was $3600. That’s $31,500 now.
Mean right now is around $51,000.
If something was $20 in 1956, it represented .55% of the household’s income for the year. The $175 to buy an equivalent product now is .34% of the household income.
Hush, you and your “actual numbers.”
Those are not “actual numbers” $3800/yr amounts to $70.00 a week before taxes and was poverty level for unskilled labor.
$70.00/wk you couldn’t buy a new car,buy a house,pay monthly bills,take vacations,put Jr and Sis through college etc.You did well to survive paycheck to paycheck on that $70.00-again before taxes.
The great American dream was in full swing back then.
Those are actual numbers. I pulled them from a 1956 report by the Department of Commerce on wages. 23.3% of the male population made less than $1500. A further 9.1% had no income or reported a loss for the year (the data does say that it counts a lot of teenagers, but the boomers weren’t teens yet so
That may be… I’ll admit, I’m speaking more about the Athearn, Atlas, Walthers trio and their DC board operation than Bachmann. And I haven’t sampled brand new versions of the big three’s locomotives, so they may have evolved.
If Bachmann is making their locomotives that are INTENDED FOR DC USE actually light up correctly ON DC POWER, it is yet another indication that the people at Bachmann are starting to understand the hobby a little better than before, and maybe even better than the others.