Started drifting off into no man’s land in my mind and started wondering what the real railroads cost compared to models.
In HO (1:87)-
a $40 loco = $3480 real world?
a pc of atlas flextrack @ $4.65/3ft is $1.55/ft = $134.85 /ft real world?
a $21 tank car = $1827 real world?
Guess we should be glad EVERYTHING is not true to scale!
What IS the list price for various pieces of railroad equipment? Locomotive? Boxcar? Track?
I’m not sure how much new equipment costs but www.okarkmountainrailcar.com has a nice selection of used equipment.
I’ve got news for you guys. Neither of those links work. On the first one I get Server not found and ond the second one I get Error 404.
The railroads WISHED they only paid those scale prices you sited.
Oooh, I want that GP30M! There’s even some half-way decent (for Guilford) abandoned track in my town I can run it on. Now, I’m sure I’ve got an extra $175,000 laying around somewhere…<>
[empites pockets and wallet, finds only lint]
[sigh]
Oh, well. By the way, in HO scale, it would be $2,011.14. P2Ks go for $50-80 depending on its age. I think the P2K is more in the realm of reality.
Remember that the locos (and track, and cars) are scaled down in three dimensions: length, height, and width. Therefore, 87x87x87=658,503.[zzz] 658,503x$40=$26,340,120, not including any sales or use taxes, or cost of “layout”. I’m not current[:-^] with prototype pricing, but using the reduction factor literally, I would guess that $40 is a bit high.[;)] Gary
Me too, but it’s a little pricey, as you pointed out!
However, I have a solution for all of these price issues… Wait, can a fairmont speeder pull a caboose? [;)]
-Brandon
Gentlefolks, I think you’ve missed something.
Scaling price, like scaling prototype weight, requires multiplying the model price by the cube of the scale ratio.
That $125 locomotive ‘prices up’ to $82,597,038.88 OTOH, that $350,000 used prototype loco should be available for 53 cents!
As a professional in the field, I would rate this entire exercise as ‘meaningless statistics.’
Chuck (retired ststistician modeling Central Japan in September, 1964)
Oops. I fixed the missing z but didn’t link it anywhere…
A $50.00 HO model of a modern loco would probably run about $500,000.00 or more for the real thing…
Tracklayer
But the HO dollar is 7586.41 real dollars since the thichness is neglible - right? [:o)]
Enjoy
Paul
Don’t I wish! [:D] As long as we’re in dreamland, I could also wish that the Yen exchange rate was still the same as it was during my modeling era. At present it’s about 1/3 as much. [:O][V]
Chuck (modeling Central Japan in September, 1964)
This thread is assuring me that there are people that have WAAAAY to much time on their hands…Now get off the computer and go work on your layout…chuck
You, unfortunately, did not drift quite far enough; your computations are strictly linear and ignore what is called spatial extension.
Take a $40.00 loke and multiply it by 87 - length - and multiply that by 87 - width - and multiply that by 87 -heighth - and I think you can see that modeling is much more expensive than prototyping. Calculate in the other direction for a $1,500,000.00 loke and our model should come in at $2.28. Party-pooper aren’t I?
So now I can show this thread to my wife and justify why dollar for dollar I would get more from the real thing? lol
Meaningless thinking? Maybe…maybe not…now I’m not sure
Ken
I still can’t figure out why I wasted 10 minutes reading this thread. Or was it 1,000 HO minutes? [#oops] I went the wrong way! It was only .1 of a minute.[%-)][banghead][xx(] Or was it .1149425 or a minute?[sigh][zzz]
hey concrete,
locos are now selling for around 3 million a piece for an EMD unit around 2.6 mill for a GE. Actually I think this was a pretty interesting thought.
What about a 400,000 pound loco in HO would be 4597 pounds and N …