Cost of modelling

[Meole]

The closure of Hattons was surely a pointer.

 

[eldomtom2]

Part of the problem is that the British market allegedly demands ever more detail and thus ever higher prices - compare with something like the Japanese N market, where detail is kept at a sensible level and models are much more affordable.

 

[SquireBev]

I think this image neatly encapsulates the problem...

 

[Sun Chariot]

I think this image neatly encapsulates the problem...

View attachment 164043

That is absolutely insane. Oxford Rail's J27 was purchased end-2023 for only 4 times that price....
I think Bachmann Scenecraft items are shocking prices, in general.

 

[GusB]

Part of the problem is that the British market allegedly demands ever more detail and thus ever higher prices - compare with something like the Japanese N market, where detail is kept at a sensible level and models are much more affordable.

I'd be willing to sacrifice some detail in favour of lower prices. When I was younger it was more or less a choice between Hornby or Lima, with the occasional model from the likes of Mainline; if you wanted to have a more detailed model there were companies who manufactured kits.

Going back nearly 10 years, I was looking at some magazines that my dad had bought and my reaction to some of the prices was "HOW MUCH?!"

Nowadays, you're looking at well over £100 for a loco; how the hell are we supposed to attract people into the hobby when prices are so far out of reach?

 

[Class15]

I'd be willing to sacrifice some detail in favour of lower prices.

I agree totally.

 

[Sun Chariot]

I'd be willing to sacrifice some detail in favour of lower prices.

It's double-edged, I think. Cast your mind back to Hornby's "design clever" period - more moulded detail, less fidelity in some more intricate areas.
Admittedly, the retail prices weren't that much less; possibly a function of inherent costs for their labour, materials and supply chain.
The models were not received well; I suspect the large voice was that of the "cabinet collectors", rather than by the "layout operators". So, we come full circle and pay more for models with abundant, fragile, detail...

 

[61653 HTAFC]

It's double-edged, I think. Cast your mind back to Hornby's "design clever" period - more moulded detail, less fidelity in some more intricate areas.
Admittedly, the retail prices weren't that much less; possibly a function of inherent costs for their labour, materials and supply chain.
The models were not received well; I suspect the large voice was that of the "cabinet collectors", rather than by the "layout operators". So, we come full circle and pay more for models with abundant, fragile, detail...

At risk of overlap with the Hornby thread, it doesn't help that the only manufacturer attempting to do a "budget" range is Hornby, who seem to be incapable of consistency.

Just this week, the Sam's Trains YouTube channel reviewed a Hornby "Railroad Plus" Class 20 model which was a modified Lima design. This was on sale for under £100 and had a decent level of detail for the price along with NEM couplings. If Hornby can do this at such a decent price, there's really no excuse for them charging a similar amount for 0-4-0 pocket rockets with goalpost couplings. Yes I know, I'm like a scratched record!

I'd like to see some of the other manufacturers launching a genuine budget range to compete with Hornby, and the most likely to be capable of doing so is Bachmann. They have the current licence for the TTTE stuff (which if handled well is a licence to print money), and their American arm already occupies a lower spot in the market than their UK equivalent. They do already have the EFE brand, but to call that a budget range is rather stretching the bounds of credibility!

 

[Iskra]

At risk of overlap with the Hornby thread, it doesn't help that the only manufacturer attempting to do a "budget" range is Hornby, who seem to be incapable of consistency.

Just this week, the Sam's Trains YouTube channel reviewed a Hornby "Railroad Plus" Class 20 model which was a modified Lima design. This was on sale for under £100 and had a decent level of detail for the price along with NEM couplings. If Hornby can do this at such a decent price, there's really no excuse for them charging a similar amount for 0-4-0 pocket rockets with goalpost couplings. Yes I know, I'm like a scratched record!

I'd like to see some of the other manufacturers launching a genuine budget range to compete with Hornby, and the most likely to be capable of doing so is Bachmann. They have the current licence for the TTTE stuff (which if handled well is a licence to print money), and their American arm already occupies a lower spot in the market than their UK equivalent. They do already have the EFE brand, but to call that a budget range is rather stretching the bounds of credibility!

I watched that too and thought the model looked decent, and was thinking the exact same thing about how it compared to their tank engines charged at not much less! If Hornby could make all the Railroad range like that- value, reasonable quality, nice livery but kept simple in terms of features, then people would actually buy them and it would be a winner. The problem is the range is still far too inconsistent.

 

[Titfield]

I ordered a mainline J72 from my local model shop when it was announced ( 1976? ). It cost me £6. The Bank of England inflation calculator puts this at £39.24 today. A new Bachmann equivalent is around £120, and is a much better model but is it worth 3 times as much?

A couple of years later I was able to buy 6 Mainline Mk1 coaches for £12 from one of the discounters £2 each or £10.61 in today's money Today's Bachmann equivalent is discounted to around £35 each. Again, a much better model.

I would conclude that we are overpaying today by about 50%. Yes, we are getting a more accurate model but I would say it is worth no more than twice the inflation-adjusted price of what were state-of-the-art models at the time.

It isnt just inflation, it is also a reflection of lower volumes which push up the price per unit.

 

[Justin Smith]

I'd be willing to sacrifice some detail in favour of lower prices.

Particularly when one can only see that detail when actually holding the loco and looking at it up close.....

 

[GusB]

It isnt just inflation, it is also a reflection of lower volumes which push up the price per unit.

It's a bit of a chicken-and-egg situation, though; set the prices too high and you'll never get volume.

Surely there has to be a sweet spot in-between where models are acceptable, but not necessarily accurate to the individual rivet; modelling has always been a compromise. If your goal is complete accuracy, you'd be rejecting OO completely; EM or P4 would be the way forward. Failing that, we should be pushing for UK models to conform to HO standards.

All I want is something that looks right, even if it may not be 100% accurate, and I don't want to be paying scale-millions. If some people are willing to pay silly money for accuracy and then stick that model on a plinth for the rest of its life, that's fine; it'd probably be cheaper to make it non-running in the first place.

 

[Justin Smith]

All I want is something that looks right, even if it may not be 100% accurate, and I don't want to be paying scale-millions. If some people are willing to pay silly money for accuracy and then stick that model on a plinth for the rest of its life, that's fine; it'd probably be cheaper to make it non-running in the first place.

There is much to agree with in this post !

 

[xotGD]

it'd probably be cheaper to make it non-running in the first place.

Now that is a good idea. Models with no guts in them for static display.

Would that halve the price of a £150 loco, or am I being too optimistic?

 

[Gloster]

Now that is a good idea. Models with no guts in them for static display.

Would that halve the price of a £150 loco, or am I being too optimistic?

Much too optimistic. I read somewhere that the cost of the motor is only a small part of the total cost, but you have the additional problems of keeping two similar lines apart throughout the process. It might save a few pounds, but would the problems if somebody bought the wrong one dig into this?

 

[eldomtom2]

In Japan Tomytec has a long-running line of static N gauge models that can be motorised. For an example of the prices, a four-car commuter EMU costs around £40 and the parts to motorise it cost about £30. Part of how costs are kept down are by using a limited number of motorised chassis that have to be adjusted to the required length by the purchaser using included spacers. So it is a viable model in some cases, though I don't know if it would do well in the UK market.

 

[Sun Chariot]

Now that is a good idea. Models with no guts in them for static display.

Would that halve the price of a £150 loco, or am I being too optimistic?

The US HO market has certainly offered some locomotive models as undecorated and / or unpowered. I have a few unpowered FT/F2/F3 "B" units.

Prices not as low as "half the price"; but it's a cost effective way of creating multi-loco lash-ups.

 

[Ted633]

Now that is a good idea. Models with no guts in them for static display.

Would that halve the price of a £150 loco, or am I being too optimistic?

Looking at the price of the Bachmann DBSO, probably as close as you're going to get to a loco without a motor, I'd say that is a tad optimistic!

 

[Iskra]

Looking at the price of the Bachmann DBSO, probably as close as you're going to get to a loco without a motor, I'd say that is a tad optimistic!

Hornby were doing an unpowered HST powercar for £76 last year, which I thought reasonable. I think people would buy them. I’d probably pick some up to run double headers with, but that would affect sale of full price loco’s, so would be revenue negative for manufacturers.

 

[gc4946]

Qiuite a few new models nowadays selling at eyewatering prices (e.g. Farish N gauge 450 South West Trains Desiro) https://railsofsheffield.com/produc...est-trains-livery?_pos=2&_sid=9fce9d50c&_ss=r at £339.95 with discount
I imagine the sale/part-exchange of unwanted models in part are paying towards purchase of these models, rather than people splashing out on their cards

 

[Sad Sprinter]

My favourite model - a hornby class 466 Networker from 2004 is perfectly adequate in detailing. I have some more diesel locos from the late 2000s which are very well detailed and the price was reasonable then as I remember

 

[sprinterguy]

Like some others on this thread, I'm largely insulated from price rises through buying locomotives and rolling stock secondhand through either Ebay or a small number of reputable online retailers with pre-owned sections.

Often, I'll buy secondhand items for about their original RRP when they were released between 15 and 35 years ago. I recently picked up a complete Lima/Airfix Scotrail push-pull rake for the equivalent of £32.50 for the Lima 47, and then £7 per carriage including a very tidy Airfix DBSO conversion: There are people prepared to pay double that total price for the recent Bachmann DBSO, a single carriage, on its own. The older Lima/Airfix tooling is plenty detailed enough for me for a train utilised sporadically on a Summer Sunday diagram on my layout.

In terms of track, buildings and accessories, it could become very expensive to rely on ready-to-place buildings from the likes of the Hornby Skaledale and Bachmann Scenecraft ranges. Cardboard and plastic kits still, in the main, seem to be relatively inexpensive and far more satisfying to construct, and there is now a far wider range of these available than ever before. Although the latter can become expensive when furnishing a whole layout, due to the wealth and breadth of accessories and detailing parts now available! There can also be savings to be made from buying RTR pointwork secondhand, from reputable sellers of known quality.

== Doublepost prevention - post automatically merged: 2 Sep 2024 ==

Hornby were doing an unpowered HST powercar for £76 last year, which I thought reasonable. I think people would buy them. I’d probably pick some up to run double headers with, but that would affect sale of full price loco’s, so would be revenue negative for manufacturers.

Appreciate you're talking about locos more widely, but with regard to HST power cars in particular I think Hornby wouldn't be keen on people cottoning onto the fact that you only need one motor-fitted power car that you can then mix and match with any number of cheaper unpowered dummy cars (or cheaper yet, swap spare bodyshells!). That unpowered HST power car was one that I did buy new, to go on one end of my Lima HST rake, as it seemed a far more reasonable price than I would have to pay for what would otherwise have to be a pair of the current tooling HST power cars. They do seem to hold their value, even secondhand.

 

[uglymonkey]

Are they all chasing an ever decreasing market? Baby boombers with their "gold plated pensions, will eventually shuffle of to the layout in the sky. If prices keep going up, how are they going to encourage the next generation and their families on tighter incomes? Is the market getting smaller anyway? If also sure not all of us want sound fitted dcc locos with scale mosquitoes and bird poo on the windows anyway?

 

[Sad Sprinter]

Are they all chasing an ever decreasing market? Baby boombers with their "gold plated pensions, will eventually shuffle of to the layout in the sky. If prices keep going up, how are they going to encourage the next generation and their families on tighter incomes? Is the market getting smaller anyway? If also sure not all of us want sound fitted dcc locos with scale mosquitoes and bird poo on the windows anyway?

It’s also going to be more expensive to model the nostalgia of millennials. I mean if I was going to model the railway off my teens it’ll be circa 2010. Meaning no local haulage but mostly multiple units which are obviously, more expensive. I think we’ll see a lot more micro layouts in future.

 

[Sun Chariot]

One thing I've never seen in model form: a failed engine Strategically placed on the layout, with no need for operable model. Just perturbed driver and secondman, in their hi-vis clad, stood beside the four-foot.
I'll await Bachy and Accura class 31 "non runner" listings to appear on the Bay...

 

[uglymonkey]

Or nothing moving on your layout at all due to a signal failure !!!

 

[Sun Chariot]

Or nothing moving on your layout at all due to a signal failure !!!

I'm waiting for an exhibition layout to dare modelling an RMT / ASLEF strike day

 

[Class15]

I'm waiting for an exhibition layout to dare modelling an RMT / ASLEF strike day

I’ve actually considered that for the NLL or GOBLIN as the 378s and 710s haven’t been modelled. Just freight. Would actually be quite interesting.

 

[Cowley]

One thing I've never seen in model form: a failed engine Strategically placed on the layout, with no need for operable model. Just perturbed driver and secondman, in their hi-vis clad, stood beside the four-foot.
I'll await Bachy and Accura class 31 "non runner" listings to appear on the Bay...

I can do you a failed HST being rescued by a 50…

 

[sprinterguy]

Or nothing moving on your layout at all due to a signal failure !!!

I feel like I've seen that achieved on more than one large DCC controlled layout at exhibitions over the last year.