Hopefully it isn’t just me, but I am beginning to see many manufacturers raise prises above what most people would be willing to afford. Everyone wants new members in the hobby, but how can we expect young blood to afford $16 to $30 dollars for a freight car? Athearn discontinued their blue-box line (maybe they brought it back, i can’t remember…help me out), and even now as a professional modeler i was perfectly satisfied with the quality of those cars. I know people do want details on their cars, but what about those that don’t understand or care to know what “dreadnaught ends” are or radial-trucks…all they want is an attractive model that runs well. Bachmann was unbelievable with their N-scale dash-8s they just came out with. i saw those for $90 dollars w/ markdown…thats less than a KATO! in o’gauge the lionel and MTH gg1’s are an example, with the lionel being $200 more while both are extremely similar locomotives, and you get 2.o with MTH! i see some people not being able to continue the hobby because of this, and i don’t want to see any manufacturers price themselves out of the market. Many of my friends in the industry think this is true, but I’d be interested to hear what other modelers think. take care everyone, and be safe out there.
The prices are going up in train shows as well as losing the spread between a person letting go unwanted items on ebay versus a hobby shop trying to sell retail on ebay.
This will be a expensive hobby. However I recall that Athearn Blue Box kits once costed about 2.50, Athearn Locos about 22.00 and top of the line engines were close to a 100- This was back in the late 70’s where wages appear to be a bit more then what they are today. My family bought a house in the mid 60’s a nice 3 bedroom home on a 1/2 acre. Price? @ 19,000 give or take a few thousand. That same home still stands and is now worth in the neighborhood of $150,000.
Back to trains. O scale for me is out. Too pricey. I dont care for the constant “Belly shoving” between Lionel and the other manufactoers in the courthouse these last few years. Seeing a switcher go for 600- and RTR Lionel O sell for 70- or more just turns me off.
I have gotten used to the prices of HO RTR and perhaps a few engines and must admit the quality is almost the same as brass. But Brass will forever be the high dollar item in the railroading. The most beatup rusted out unidentifiable steam boiler made of brass back in the forties will sell for several hundred dollars on ebay for buyers who know what it is and how to “Fix it” make it work etc.
Couplers, Paint, decals and other necessary items that is consumed by the workbench probably will not increase much in price in the next ten years. But the big stuff will.
What tickled me was the recent Lionel Challenger Locomotive was close to 700- Retail While a very fine engine and pulls everything you own in good style, Athearn Genesis produced a similar model for half the cost which basically is the same engine. That engine I think does better on the track than the lionel monster does.
As far as the prices… the big struggle right now I think is the actual money paid for the item. A factory may say this is a brand new greatest steam model and the MSRP is 20
I’m suspecting that licensing fees might be a bit of a culprit. I’ve seen prices for locomotives where they were $5 more because UP and CSX charged licensing fees to use their logo. But that’s on old flame I will not reignite here.
Inflation has a way of catching up with everything. I have an old Walthers catalog from 1973, it was only around $3.95, and the 2005 catalog is now around $22.95. Amazing what 32 years will do the cost of things.
I keep hearing that all these high prices will keep the youngsters out of the hobby. That back in '73 I bought a Blue Box for…
I have three sons ranging in age from 16 to 9. Only one has shown an interest in my trains (the 9-year old). The older ones like their video games. They have no problem payng 100-200 for the game system and then 30 to 50 for a new game that they tire of in less than a year. They think it is all right to speend 20-40 on controllers. My point here is that the cost is not the factor determining where the next generation spends their dollars. The reasons have been covered in other topics and I won’t reha***hem here.
My wife and her ex bought a brand new Pontiac Bonneville in 1977 for $5,000. New ones today are 25,000. I myself (I am 43) remember buying gas for 35 cents (premium) now it is over 2 dollars.
I bought five Athern Blue Box reefers for the christmas train at my LHS. They ran about $7.50 each. Bought a Model Power 2-6-2 for about $30.00. Not the highest quality models, but for what they are used for they are adequate.
My first job I made $3.50 an hour. I get 10 times that now. It would be nice if prices stayed at 1978 levels, but I wouldn’t want my wages to be there, though.Model railroading has never been cheap, but neither has anything else, especially in leisure activities. To those who say its too expensive, you may be right, but let’s not compare the bygone days to today. Remember you can never go home. Just my 2 cents
Good point about comparing model railroading equipment to video games. Of course I wish my son’s games would last as long as a year!!
Your look at prices of stuff years ago is interesting. I think we also should remember that today we have costs that were not a factor 20 years ago. Personal Computer? What’s that? TV? Hey, the antenna doesn’t have monthly charges - the radio in the car didn’t come with a monthly charge to listen - if AM didn’t have it, oh well. How many families pay for the home phone and about 2 - 4 cell phones.
Just imagine if we decided to live the way we did maybe in the late 70’s. Take the money you save on internet service, cable (or satellite TV), satellite radio, several cell phone numbers and I bet you could buy a bunch of train stuff every month! It’s simply a case of priorities.
None of this should surprise anyone. Manufacturers have to heat there buildings. Has the cost of oil and gas gone up or down over the past 5 years? They also have to give raises to their employees, they also have to provide medical and dental benefits in most cases, they have to pay RE taxes. The cost of materials has not gone down, nor has shipping charges to the manufacturer gone down because trucks and ships and planes and trains all need fuel…and, as stated above, fuel costs have not gone down, they have risen substantially as “we” all know only too well. Have you checked the price of your heating oil or natural gas this winter over 5 years ago prices? So if the manufacturer wants to stay in business, and his cost that he cannot control are rising, he has no choice but to raise prices. It doesn’t matter what the industry is, catalogs, magazines, plastic model RR cars, tools…it is all under the same pressures.
I’ll agree about O gauge. I really like the size of O guage equipment, and would love to have a large layout of it, but it is VERY expensive, not to mention how much more space it takes up compared to HO.
I have Lionel catalogs where their “premium” locos go for more than $1000. One catalog has a NYC Hudson with all the extras you can get in O guage, and it is 1100 dollars. Compare that to the quote “cream of the crop” BLI Hudsons in HO, and thats an $800 difference. Even the cheaper company K-Line sells their big steam or diesel for $500-700, almost double HO.
So, I would say that while $300 hundred for a BLI engine with sound, etc. or 25 bucks for that RTR freight car isn’t cheap, it definitely isn’t near the cost of O.
Oh, and I’ll tell you video game and computer parts/accessories/games are also very expensive, and like model rr, while eat a whole in your pocket if you want the best stuff.
All in all, maybe these things are expensive, but when you consider how much fun and enjoyment you can get out of it, I’d be willing to pay more.
Yes, prices have gone up, and it is scary, but if you want to play YOU pay I just look around for the best deal I can get, there are some items that cost more than what I think they should,ie building kits, signals etc, I just wait for the right time SAVE and buy.
What I don’t like is when a manufacturer does another run of a locomotive, the price goes up by about ten to twenty dollars. I’ve heard this being called ‘inflation’, but to me ‘inflation’ and ‘greed’ are one and the same. This is why everything is getting more expensive.
I realize that everyone want to be realistic about the train and layouts, but it seams to me that we are advertizing for them (UP and CSX charged licensing fees to use their logo). They sould be paying (or bidding) to have their names on the items we purchase.
Me, I don’t advertize for free. When I purchase a new or used car and it has one of dealers licence plate frames on it, I turn it upside down so no one can read it.
While I will agree that there are instances of “inflation” really being about greed. The price of CD’s come to mind. But on the other hand we want higher salaries in order to buy the same amount of stuff. We often justify wanting a higher salary by saying that stuff costs so much more. Since we are in part arguing “inflation” to justify a higher salary, does that make us “greedy”?
As much of the RTR equipment we are discussing is molded from plastic resin of one type or another, there is a major component of the increase. My company has seen basic acrylic resin move from the lower $0.30’s per pound December '03 to over $0.65 now. And there is no softening on the horizon. Plastic is a deriviative of the petroleum market so when crude goes up, everything linked to it does too.
And don’t even get me started on steel. Shortages on specific alloys, many of which are no longer produced in the US. Even scrap is in demand with China’s appetite being felt.
And don’t forget that plastic itself comes from oil, so the raw materials have gotten more expensive. It’s not just the shipping costs that the rising price of oil affects.
If it were possible to make a decent profit at lower prices I’m sure someone would jump in. Since they don’t, I assume that the current prices must be about right. I find it interesting that two low cost lines Athearn and Model Die Casting were sold to a big distributer.
This has never been a cheap hobby, but there are ways to keep the cost down through scratch building, upgrading cheaper rolling stock, watching for sales, etc. While we all want mueseum grade models at toy store prices,[:D] unfortunately we won’t be able to get it[:(]. But with a little paint, some tinkering, and judicous upgrading the cheaper stuff can work.
Enjoy
Paul
thanks for everyone’s responses, and i see opinions vary. I knew athearn discontinued their blue box line for a while, but maybe they brought it back…my memory is fuzzy on the specifics. either way it’s a moot point, but prices are rising, and as long as oil keeps going up, so will models (plastic ones mostly). If i hadn’t gotten out of model railroading, i would be happy paying less for something i could put together…like the old blue box kits. I always enjoyed putting the old athearn engine together, and superdetailing was really enjoyable too. part of the fun for me was working on them, not just opening the box and thats all there is to it. i guess when you figure in the cost of detail parts and what your time is worth, it probably comes out the same as these r.t.r. cars and locomotives. thanks a lot everyone, i appreciate your responses!
The prices have gone up over the last twenty years for sure, but look at the quality of the product that you get for the extra money. The detail on the RTR Kadee and LL cars is equal to muesum quality detail.
The higher priced locomotives come with sound and DCC installed and ready to enjoy with a lttle effort to learn the DCC operation. The recent Athearn Challengers are detailed much like the expensive brass, and if you replace the sound system, it is a great model. They lowered the price on that model and I understand the next batch will be the same low price.
It is a hobby that requires money to enjoy the latest items, but
When you say young modelers, what age range are you talking about exactly. The best way to get young modelers into the hobby (and I’m talking from a standpoint of being a relative of some sort) is to often provide certain model railroad gifts to them whether it be a box car, locomotive, passenger car, track, etc.
I started at around the age of 10/11 and early on before I had income of my own (outside 10 dollars a week for allowance), my Grandmother, Uncle and occasionally my parents would get stuff for me mostly up on request for my birthday or chrsitmas. That’s how my rollingstock grew, especially thanks to my Grandmother.
I never recall getting things in bulk in terms of rollingstock and locomotives but then again I had times where 2 locos would be purchased and a set of passenger cars but this would be once in a blue moon.
My point is that I find that this hobby is something that one gradually makes purchases for in terms of rollingstock and locomotives. Track and other accessories in the same price range seem to be within everyone’s means (excluding layout size and complexity). I was just telling my friend the other day that I didn’t have that much rolilngstock but then as I went throught the numbers in my head I realized that I had allot more than I was letting on (although a good portion is no longer, and will no longer be used).
The rise in prices means that we all will gradually have to adjust our purchasing habbits based on prices and income, where we are buying less per year so to say, except when going to train shows or shopping on eBay for good deals.
I will note that quality has gone up with prices; at least with what I have bought. I do think that prices are rising a bit rapidly. Hopefully it will level off soon.
One issue I have not seen mentioned yet is the value of the American dollar against other world currencies. As a Canadian, I watch what our dollar is doing relative to the U.S. buck and have seen it’s value climb substantially over the last year. In fact, this has resulted in pricing actually going down some for us. Not much, but some.
It would seem to me that the U.S. prices I have seen mentioned here and elsewhere are a reflection of the dollars value, ( down), raw material costs,(up), and shipping from China,(up).
Having said that, everytime I see this topic about pricing in U.S. dollars, I think about Athearn Geneses Trinity Hoppers at $55.00 CDN. list, Kato SD90 mac’s at $208.00 CDN. list and on and on and on I could go. I may be considered wrong, but I don’t think you have much room for complaint yet. If you really want expensive, try doing this hobby with Canadian dollars!!