Product availability and people just entering this hobby

Model Railroader General Discussion (Model Railroader)
1

In the recent thread about another hobby shop closing, I was reminded why I dislike the current state of the model train industry and why I think it is bad for the hobby.

Back in the dark ages of the hobby, when you HAD to build kits and most were of marginal prototype accuracy, at least you could count on those same products being available when you wanted them.

MB Klein had nearly every Blue box Athearn car or engine in stock most of the time. Regional distributors suppling local hobby shops had good inventories of Atlas track, Kadee, Cal Scale, Athearn, Roundhouse, etc, etc.

But today, a modeler has few “staple” items he can count on being able to buy at his local hobby shop - think maybe that has something to do with so many of them closing?

I know this much - if I was getting into this hobby today, and did not own one model train yet, a quick survey of the products in stock at Walthers or MB Klein, or Trainworld, then compared to a list of what has been made in the last five years, would likely cause me to rethink my interest in this hobby.

And right now, as a modeler who has most of the model trains I want, if that was not the case, I might be selling off the rest and finding a new hobby?

What good is a set of XYZ passenger cars with no XYZ locomotives? In the old days you could sit down with the Walthers catalog and plan your layout and your purchases - today you cannot “plan” anything since who knows when what will show up from where?

And this rant is not about prices - this has never been a cheap hobby - and it never will be. But if you simply can’t get the stuff, or even know it might be comming, or worse yet it was made but now you can’t buy a new one (I’m not much for buying others used junk), it does not matter what it costs.

Some of you likely noticed a much “smaller” activity level by me on this forum, something some of you are no doubt happy about. Well stay happy, because I rec

2

I agree that things aren’t as available as they used to be, but I also do not think it is limited to our hobby. Store shelves in general have less variety on them. They carry fewer and less variety because having a high inventory is costly and with low margins, they have to keep costs down.

Yes, there has been a significant lack of some items, Atlas track a glaring example, but the problem could have been in any aspect of any business that has few suppliers. When high priced items are going to be produced in a limited market, I understand why they do not mass produce items, but it would be nice if they would do reruns more often, since the dies are already made.

The economy in general isn’t doing well and when the majority of the population has less and less expendable income, things like hobbies are among the first things to loose out. I would dearly like to buy some of the more expensive and better made items available, but limited income makes me turn to making things from natural materials, scratchbuilding and buying less detailed items. I do enjoy making kits, but have to settle for plastic kits in lieu of the very nice craftsman kits that are advertised.

Hopefully the hobby can weather the storm and continue making people happy with the wide variety of skill building it offers.

Have fun,

Richard

3

Sheldon,

The economy today just does not support the way we did model railroading years ago. Even 20-30 years ago, there would be shortages, they were just minor compared to what we see today(long lead times for production from off-shore). Back in the 80’s, Athearn cars/engines would go into short supply for maybe 6 months until another run was produced. Most of the line was not in continuous production. As a former LHS co-owner, I remember the shortage of RDC’s at one point and all the ‘rumors’ that the molds were broken/etc…

I learned early to pack rat some on my hobby supplies as they never seemed to be available when I needed them. People looked at me when I ordered a case of Athearn 40’ box cars for future projects, or lots of Kadee couplers(another one of the shortages from time to time). I also bought those lovely P2K engines as they arrived, and did not wait for the big mail order ‘blow out sales’ to arrive.

I can see your point that it could be hard to start over with the ‘selection’ that is currently available. But the ‘newbie’ does not even think about the total picture like you and I do - They ‘see’ something they percieve as ‘neat’ and impulse purchase it. That is why we see such a strange mix of engines/rolling stoeck on layouts! My problen starting over would be the lack of decals for so much of the stuff I am interested in. Even finding undecorated cars can be a challenge. I am currently working on some C&NW 40’ box cars. I have the Microscale decals, but finding the correct I-M ‘improved’ 1937 AAR box cars has been a challenge. I picked up three painted/decorated onces today for under $20 each, and they will hit the strip tank on Sunday. In the ‘old’ days, I would just dig out some Athearn ones from my ‘cache’ and dig through my Champ decals(or go to the LHS for them

4

Gidday, I find it very frustrating going through the likes of the Walthers catalogue, (and NO this is not a specific dig at Walthers), and finding sold out, discontinued, preorder, not in stock, back order, or some similar phrase. I don’t pretend to have any real knowledge how model trains are manufactured and the costs involved, though I am well aware of the costs of having stock gathering dust on the shelf, but I do wonder if the product was such a good seller, did the beancounters get the demand wrong in the first place ?, but with already having the tooling, would not another run be a good idea??
Just out of interest, and if I’m proven wrong, [banghead] it does not appear that I can purchase a new HO 4-8-2 Mountain at this time and that I have missed out on the Athearn 2 or 4 windowed Eastern Cabooses.
Having said all of the above and now wondering if I’m getting to the age of “Back in the good old days laddie…” were we spoilt? To be devil’s advocate, would I as a newcomer to the hobby know any better and just accept what’s going on now as normal practise[?]
While I have more than enough projects to last for a very long time, especially at the speed that I work at, a couple of Heavy Mountains would be nice, but I’ll let Bowser be my caboose supplier.
Sometimes Sheldon, you just have to grit your teeth, count to ten, and then smile.[:D]
Cheers

5

There is a far greater variety of products, in stock and ready to ship, than ever before in the history of the hobby. The difference is that there is an even larger number of products that have shipped in the past and are not currently available or are announced and not yet shipped. That makes it seem that stuff is not availble.

Perspective, people.

A Newbie could buy the things they need for a layout at any time. Not everything that has ever been produced, but enough to build a layout.

And with eBay and other resellers, the universe of available products is even larger.

I have had enough of the crying for the good old days (which were not all that good) on this forum. Good night now.

6

I visited a hobby shop was about to close and one of the owner’s gave me some insight why it was more difficult to stay in business. She stated that most manufactorers like to use certain paints and solvents that give the models the best appearance but unfeasible to use in the US because of the excessive regulations. Therefore the manufactores have to resort to outsourcing the production to other countries thereby being subjected to the “production run game”. So to have a chance of obtianing a particular product they would have to order large quantities and wait up to a year or more for delivery. She said sometimes this uncertainty in delivery causes customers to loose interest in the product.

This seems to me as another example of the government being too involved in business. If they were smarter about enviromental regulations maybe these manufactorers could make their products in the USA and create more jobs here.

The state of New Jersey now will not allow the Telsa electric cars to be sold by Telsa dealers, instead sold through independant dealers.

The US and state governments should ease up on stupid regulations so we can pull ourselves out of this sluggish economy.

7

Good post, Sheldon, but you omitted one very important consideration - - customers !

Back in the 1950’s when I was a kid, everyone had trains and everyone was building plastic models.

Walk into any LHS back then and there were 20 kids just like you and me shopping with their parents dollars.

That just isn’t the case today. Kids don’t play with trains. Kids don’t buy trains with their parents dollars.

So, you open a super store for $10 million and pay monthly rent of $8,500. You stock the shelves with XYZ passenger cars and XYZ locomotives. You carry every brand out there, and you discount at 40 percent.

So what? What could is that if the only foot traffic is a bunch of guys with time on their hands who want to stand around, drink coffee, and BS.

Yeah, I know, we have all heard it many times before, go to any train show and you will see little buggy eyed kids in the aisles. That doesn’t mean anything. If you want to know the state of the hobby, look in the playroom of any kid between the ages of 7 to 14. Do you see any model trains? Probably not.

It is not about costs or margins or any of that other financial stuff. It is all about customers, or the lack thereof.

My advice is to quit wringing our hands over the gradual demise of the hobby and enjoy it while we can. The only thing deader than the hobby is the LHS.

Rich

8

I think today’s new modeler far smarter and knows their way around the internet.

Today new modeler has top instant information just by asking a question on a forum.Instead of buying a Walthers catalog he now heads to walthers.com for instant stock check just like the local hobby shop and they can watch how to videos on you tube and learn how things is done from track laying to installing a decoder,reviews of products etc…

Years ago we had to go to the hobby shop or maybe the local club to seek information…The Walther catalog was the go to book but,the item shown may not be in stock when ordered through the local shop and today the catalog is basically outdated and worthless.

Times and means have change…You just need to know how and where to look for your paint and decals best starting place is Walthers since they show 13 pages of paint and supplies and 23 pages of decals.

9

During my student days in the 1970´s, I earned some extra money helping out in a large toy store, which sported a huge train department ( afterall, our beloved and precious models are toys). In those days, we spent quite some time and natural intelligence (artificial one wasn´t around in those days) to monitor sales and stock development, just to ensure we´d never be out of stock. Inventory was tremendous, although the market did not offer the great variety of manufacturers and models we have today. Anyone coming to the store could be sure he left with the product he wanted to have. On top of that, we offered something precious, especially for newbies - advice and help!

Long gone are these days. There is no way any business could stock all the products available these days. In another thread, Sheldon said his ideal LHS would cost 10 million $ to set up, a figure I don´t dare to challenge. Aside from that, quite a lot of what we desire is subjected to pre-orders, limited runs, product announcements years before the actual release and other nuisances. If I had not been into this hobby for over 50 years now, would I take it up the way business is done today? Most likely not. We tend to forget, that any business is finally people business.

10

[bow] couldn’t agree more Larry,

You have to think like a new hobbyist, most people don’t start with a plan to build an empire, they are curious and may start off with a readily available train set , then they may seek out Internet forums, slowly they grow more knowledgable about the hobby, themselves and what they would like to build, and they slowly start collecting what the need from shops , EBay and Train shows.

The hobby is healthy IMHO, it is just vastly different than what the older folks came to know about model railroading.

do I miss finding a new hobby shop when I travel? Very much so, but I still search them out, hoping to find that out if production kit tucked away in a dusty corner.

11

Now there’s a thought. We should contact those two guys who star in American Pickers on the History Channel and have them search out those dusty corners of LHS and report back to us. [(-D]

Rich

12

The thing with paint could change and it wouldn’t make any difference. The cost of labor is what drives model production and that’s a far bigger factor than any other in the cost of making a model. That’s why so much is made in China, not because of some regs.

Sheldon’s prespective is a bit paradoxical. I guess I don’t see how the supply of many things even applies when you’re willing to actually BUILD models. I’ve never run out of things to build yet, although sometimes getting a specific something can slow a particualr project until it becomes available.

If folks aren’t building things, then missing out on something specific can be a drag. But really, it’s mostly about paint and details, the same underlying model is produced over and over. Only in rare cases is something like the mechanism NOT recycled in this way, so buy the latest run and re-decorate it if you’re ambitious, no need to make a federal case out of it…[:^)][:-^]

As for more stuff being out of stock, as was mentioned, that’s really because there is so much more offered, but it quickly passes through the distribution system and becomes unavailable under that specific stock number – and it usually won’t be re-run. No big deal in most cases, this is just a game played with numbers to say more stuff is out of stock. Warehouses full of every item ever offered are not coming back, this is just the way things are made these days. And there’s little that is

13

As long as I don’t have to hear Mike laughing…[banghead]

i have a love for the MDC 3-1 kits, can’t explain it, I just do.

I remember visiting an LHS somewhere around the port of Long Beach. I found two steam shovel kits and a Moose Jaws 0-6-0 static loco kit for 8 bucks each. These go triple that on EBay

[C):-)]

14

I think hobby shops are facing the same problems as hardware and other stores are because of the economy; more so because hobbies are recreational.

I think model railroading is changing in the same way as many hobbies in that people today want ready-to-run and are less inclined to assemble or build. (This seemed to be the trend in RC aircraft). I think building from kits or scratching building is an interesting part of the hobby, not the “dark age”.

But the hobby shop not only sells ready-to-run rolling stock, but construction materials and tools. And when I need a bigger ticket item (e.g. a decoder), the hobby shop can usually order it within a week. (How many people buy such items on-line instead of from their local hobby shop and then wonder why the hobby shop is closing)?

When I grew up, Rich’s Hobbytown in Pinebrook, NJ served more than one hobby. Maybe we need more not just model railroad hobby shops.

Products for my railroad, The Reading, have been out of production for decades. Fortunately, ebay makes it possible, if not easy, to find items which wasn’t possible before ebay became available.

I think it’s a misperception that kids have hobbies. While we may get interested in a hobby when we are kids, I think school, work, marrage and young kids of out own make it difficult to have a hobyy until we are older when time and resources become available.

A recent Model Railroader editorial described a survey that found most Americans are not “tinkerers”. For many of us, learning to build from scratch by starting with kits is the purpose of the hobby.

So maybe it’s inevitable that the model railroad hobby w

15

Hi!

Well, I have to say I basically agree with Sheldon (again). If I was thinking about entering the hobby today, I would have to do some real soul (and bank) searching. When I got into Lionel and later in HO, there was no hesitation.

Speaking to HO, I got started in the scale when I was 15 (1959). At that time, there were 3 major (and a few minor) manufacturers that made the entry relatively painless. Athearn produced terrific locos and cars, Atlas produced the track products, and MRC the power packs. With those three, you could quickly and easily get a layout up and running.

For basics, those were truly the “good ol days”. But for intermediate or advanced stuff, you had to spend some big bucks on fairly limited availability of products.

IMO, the problem for today’s new MR is the lack of affordable entry level track/locos/cars.

A saviour for the Hobby has been Ebay (and other auction sites). One can sell off old stuff to allow upgrading, or acquire used stuff at much cheaper (than new/retail) prices.

Anyway, I’ve got pretty much everything I want in HO right now, so I’m pretty content.

16

I’d only laugh because I can relate to that. Always wanted to get some of those, missed them when they came out, then got serious about narrowgauge…

But really, weren’t all the parts in each of those kits available elsewhere in the MDC line? I thought only the instructions were unique based on what I heard and the parts were from a range of diffferent kits picked over like a dog’s breakfast. But I could be wrong about that, as I never got my grubby mits on any of them.[^o)]

17

Agreed… But,the Internet shops and e-Bay can help ease the pain.

IF Bachmann keeps improving their products then and IMHO they may become the entry level locomotives since most DCC equipped diesels can be had for less then $60…

Even their very basic EZ DCC system is affordable for the new hobbyist and gives simple multiple train operation…

18

A few more thoughts:

While I started in this hobby as a pre teen, I don’t think the real purchasing power in this hobby has EVER had any thing to do with kids in the hobby. That opinion comes from having stood behind the counter back in those “golden days”. The very first survey I read in MR about the hobby put the average age at 34 - that was in the 60’s.

My comment about the fact that you had to build stuff back in the day only relates to my interests and the way most of the product was back then. While I am a builder for the most part, I have no problem with RTR, I buy my fair share of it, especially considering my planned total layout size. But it is a factor in terms of continuity of product - if you need 10 products for a project, and only three are available - those three are less likely to sell - hurting the retail sales.

As to how much product is out there at any one time, I will agree that if you include the secondary market there is way more than in the past. Personally I buy only a small percentage on the secondary market, and what I do buy that way is almost always “new old stock” type stuff, vertually never “already been played with” - that’s just me, not just with model trains…

But if you remove the secondary market from the picture, I think the amount of product out there at any one time is not much more than it was 30 years ago - I could be wrong.

My “super train store” would take years to get really going, plaacing preorders as products are announced to build the inventory, consistant competitive pricing but no “blowout sales” until product is clearly obsolete, etc. Yes it would go against all the bean counter theory currently used in business - I’ve made a fair amount of money in my life doing stuff differently than “conventional” thinking…

My “super train store” would of course be on the web as well as its brick and mortar presence - no different

19

Sheldon, you should make an appearance on Shark Tank.

You could ask for $10 million in exchange for a percentage of equity in the business.

Maybe Mr. Wonderful would take you up on your offer.

Rich

20

The “shortage” of what you need can also have a reverse negative affect. As a newbie I read several threads like this and so when I saw what I needed (at the time) I grabbed it.

The problem with that was that as I got further into my layout my plans that I had as a newbie changed. Timing as they say is everything.

Bob