Bachmann 2020 Announcements - Spring

[melmerby]

29 minutes ago, Oldddudders said:

I'm still unsure what point you are making. We all went through education before going out into the world and earning a living. Shops were full of unaffordable goodies then, too. 

wots edyoukayshun

[Oldddudders]

1 minute ago, melmerby said:

wots edyoukayshun

At 71, I can't remember!

[jsp3970]

While I don't model the modern era I must admit that 37 looks really sharp.

[BlackRat]

Wow........£300 plus for a station....!

[Phil Parker]

As one of the *bleep* holes, I stand by my statement "If you don't like the price, don't buy the trains. You'll survive without them.". 

 

Model railways aren't food and water, they are a discretionary purchase. Nice to have but you don't die without them. There are also many ways to acquire models. Do you need the latest super-detail version? Could you buy an older model and detail it? There are some massive cost-savings to be made if you go in that direction. Taken to the extreme, much of Pendon is made of materials that cost pennies, but the quality isn't bad. I detailed models for years and still do - it's good fun.

 

Of course, I didn't have the problem when I was a penniless student. Buying a 4mm scale loco kit was waaaay out of my reach, but I could build 16mm scale models using very cheap materials indeed. One day things will change and you'll have a bit more cash and by that point there will be a whole load of new models that are even better than the ones we have now. And people on RMweb will still moan about the price.

[The Stationmaster]

55 minutes ago, Joshthetrainguy said:

Instead of replying to everyone I will attempt to aid understanding of what I have said

I am a student and contrary to popular belief I am poor 

This is a shame as I do really enjoy this hobby and to all you *beep* holes who are saying dont buy the trains is that really a logical option

And I am not angry at the companies as I understand inflation but I feel that maybe sometimes no matter how much you want something sometimes it's too much to pay

 

 

And that has been the situation for as long as I can remember.  It was no different back in my early days of full time work when I was £9/15/0 per week. (£9.75 for younger readers) and it wasn't much different when I was on £25,000+ pa with two growing youngsters to support and send off to uni.  And now I am a poor old pensioner eeking out my miserable pittance from one stale crust to the next.

 

Grow up and save up - or shut up.  I'm thoroughly hacked off with folk who doing nothing but moan about prices - Bachmann no doubt have a far better idea of the impact of their prices on sales than we do but incredibly they still bring forward new releases - so somebody must be buying the stuff.

 

(Don't bother to report this post, I'm quite capable of doing that myself thank you)

Edited February 4, 2020 by The Stationmaster
Correct typo

[MarkSG]

Well, there's nothing here for me.

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Which is probably a good thing, given the amount I've been shelling out recently (Bachmann crane arrived last month, just pre-ordered a Hornby Rocket, got my eyes on a few of Oxford's announcements). Sometimes, it's good for things to be a bit quiet in the wallet department. 

 

Actually, the fruit van is right up my street, and I probably will get one. And a metal shed can go anywhere, really. It's the sort of thing I might pick up if there's a good price on one at a trade stand at any of the shows I go to. Not because I need it, but because it's there.

 

Joking aside, I don't really have an issue with it not having anything that leaps out at me. It's only a quarterly release, so it's going to be fairly low key. And the fact that the steam-era stuff is mostly from points south and west of this sceptred isle means that maybe I can look forward to something from the glorious east in later releases. These things go in cycles.

 

[Phil Parker]

20 minutes ago, Forester said:

Please do not shout down discussions about price.

 

It is a perfectly valid discussion point whether an item is or is not likely to sell at the price stated and whether it may be worth waiting for large amounts of unsold stock to be reduced later.

 

Price is a perineal discussion on this forum, and has been in the model railway press for over 60 years. There is some stuff on my blog from 2010 with letters saying exactly this.

Every thread about products can, and often does, descend into people moaning things cost too much. If that's what you want then we'll stay away, along with most of the other readers.

What is the result of these discussions? Nothing at all. Stuff costs what it costs. If it's too much, we don't buy it and the manufacturer either finds a way to make things cheaper, or more likely exists the market to do something that makes them money, that's how business works.

[TheSignalEngineer]

16 minutes ago, melmerby said:

wots edyoukayshun

Something that I was near finishing when the first model 37 came out. Didn't buy it, no money and was still on 3-rail so "nothing in it for me"

[raetiamann]

1 hour ago, Joshthetrainguy said:

Instead of replying to everyone I will attempt to aid understanding of what I have said

I am a student and contrary to popular belief I am poor 

This is a shame as I do really enjoy this hobby and to all you *beep* holes who are saying dont buy the trains is that really a logical option

And I am not angry at the companies as I understand inflation but I feel that maybe sometimes no matter how much you want something sometimes it's too much to pay

 

 

 

1 hour ago, Joshthetrainguy said:

A few years back it was possible to find good second hand equipment from retailers and on eBay at decent pricing, however it seems now that the likes of Hattons & Rails are charging around the new price or more and some ebay pricing is out of this world. The exception to this is Lima & lesser detailed Hornby kits.

 

Edited February 4, 2020 by raetiamann
Didn't pick up quotation marks.

[Matt C]

1 hour ago, Joshthetrainguy said:

Instead of replying to everyone I will attempt to aid understanding of what I have said

I am a student and contrary to popular belief I am poor 

This is a shame as I do really enjoy this hobby and to all you *beep* holes who are saying dont buy the trains is that really a logical option

And I am not angry at the companies as I understand inflation but I feel that maybe sometimes no matter how much you want something sometimes it's too much to pay

 

 

 

 

But Josh being a poor student is GOOD. It means you cant afford all those shinies to distract you from your studies. Studying hard will get you GOOD grades which means when you Graduate you will be able to get a GOOD job and then be able to buy all those expensive shinies !   

  But please while you are studying, do drop in and give us your pearls of wisdom as it gives us old *Beep* holes something to laugh at, and at the same time improves your communication skills so you don't come across as such a young *Beep* head  

 

Back to Bachmann  

Edited February 4, 2020 by Mattc6911

[ruggedpeak]

8 minutes ago, Phil Parker said:

 

Price is a perineal discussion

Ewwwww.

 

[Phil Parker]

1 minute ago, ruggedpeak said:

Ewwwww.

 

 

It's certainly a pain somewhere close to there to have to referee...

[JSpencer]

1 hour ago, Iltman said:

Looking at the announcement my first thought was £200 for a re-livery of an existing model?  Whilst I'm glad to see more birdcages, the RRP for the C is I’m afraid to say rather extracting the urine

 

I'm surprised Barwell did not question that with Kader. The fact that the re-release of a full Wainwright C class at just under £200 (a 50% jump over the previous plain black types) was down to the complex livery, I might just about swallow but now an almost plain black loco is nearly the same makes me feel that someone at Kader quoted the same price as the more complex Wainwright one.

Surprised to see another rake of SECR birdcages considering the odd few originals hanging around and the last batch (from December) are a long way from being sold out.

[Oldddudders]

8 minutes ago, The Stationmaster said:

Grow up and save up - or shut up.  I'm thoroughly hacked off with folk who doing nothing but moan about prices

Nicely put, Mike. Josh's complaint, on what appears to be his first posting, is rather like me registering on a petrolhead forum and complaining about the price of a Ferrari. I can't afford a 10-year-old one! Some things will always be out of financial reach, and we adjust our sights accordingly. 

[truffy]

1 hour ago, Pre Grouping fan said:

Not necessarily Barwell that sets the pricing, that comes from the factory. And using Kaders factory they don't have a lot of choice but to accept the prices they set and pass it on the the customer with the usual markups. 

 

Fair point. But you'd think that someone, somewhere, would note that a preexisting livery (31-461A) is currently being discounted at about one third of 31-464A's RRP and put two and two together. Perhaps there really is room for a very good, but not quite premium, model relivery at a premium price. Time will tell, I'm patient.

[caradoc]

Anyone unhappy with the range offered by Bachmann (or other manufacturers), and the price, is of course perfectly free to set up their own organisation to make exactly what they want, at a price they and us would pay, instead of moaning on the internet.

There were things I could not afford when I was a student, I just couldn't tell the whole world back then.

 

Anyway, I look forward to future announcements.........

 

[tomparryharry]

I thought that I'd come along, and have a little rant

 

I'd like to have a train set,

But sadly now, I can't.

 

Seeing all those fancy toys,

It makes me seeing red,

 

So I thought I'd post it here,

And wind up RM Web, instead!

 

 

[Butler Henderson]

So does the Combined Volume catalogue available from the 10th have the new additions in it or is it the same as sent to Club members which judging from comments on it did not have anything not previously announced in it?

[The Stationmaster]

Sorry I omitted saying something earlier.

 

Thank you Bachmann, there is something there for me 

[AY Mod]

15 minutes ago, Phil Parker said:

 

It's certainly a pain somewhere close to there to have to referee...

 

I've been giggling since the first typo through to this post, it's so apt considering its juxtaposition.

[Ouroborus]

I feel a bit sorry for Josh.  He has an opinion which is his right to.  He finds models expensive, so do I.  I can afford them, he can't.  Despite being able to afford them, there are some I'm choosing not to buy because I'm drawing a line.  In the same way that i could afford a BMW, I choose to drive something smaller and cheaper.   Life is full of things that we'd like but we'll never have either through choice or tough luck.  There is perhaps a generational issue that Josh's generation have been encouraged to think that all they need to do is want something enough and they'll have it.  Whether its a job, car, house, all you need to do is 'follow your dreams'.   Sadly, that's all bs.   Yes Josh, it is expensive and its a shame that you're priced out of it, but its maybe better that you learn this lesson with a toy train than something much more expensive - if you can't afford it, you can't afford it.

[Darius43]

53 minutes ago, Phil Parker said:

Of course, I didn't have the problem when I was a penniless student. Buying a 4mm scale loco kit was waaaay out of my reach, but I could build 16mm scale models using very cheap materials indeed. One day things will change and you'll have a bit more cash and by that point there will be a whole load of new models that are even better than the ones we have now. And people on RMweb will still moan about the price.

 

Made from cut and shut (and, above all, cheap) Lima Mk2s, some Humbrol enamels (no airbrush, just a brush) and some plastic bits from biros and the like back in 1985 when I was a poor student.

 

 

I did have to fork out for a razor saw to do the cutting and shutting but I still have that saw.

 

Of course, being 1985, there was no internet/RMWeb on which to moan about my limited means.

 

On the plus side, beer was about 80p a pint then and even cheaper in the Union bars.

 

Cheers

 

Darius

Edited February 4, 2020 by Darius43

[JSpencer]

42 minutes ago, BlackRat said:

Wow........£300 plus for a station....!

 

Is it Sheffield park again? I can barely recognise it! Looks nothing like my previous set.

[MarkSG]

The problem with discussions about prices is that there are two separate issues, which often tend, rather unhelpfully, to get conflated.

 

The first is the question of what I can afford to pay and what I am willing to pay (and note that the latter is, often, lower than the former). This is purely my own viewpoint, and the only thing which has any bearing on it is my own opinion of what a model is worth to me. It's purely subjective, and my opinion may well be different to someone else's.

 

The second is the question of what is the optimal price for a model, from the supplier's perspective. This is based on a lot of factors, including development and marketing costs, an understanding of the mathematics of  things like demand curves and consumer/producer surplus, and statistical data from past sales. And, fundamentally, it isn't subjective. The costs, the maths and the statistics aren't subjective at all. There are some subjective aspects to it, but these are based on an informed understanding of the market from a supplier perspective.

 

If someone wants to say that they won't be buying product X because it's too expensive for them, that's fine. Everybody is entitled to make that assessment. Lots of things are priced higher than I'm willing to pay for them. That's just the way it is.

 

What none of us are in a position to do, though, is to extrapolate from the specific to the general. Just because It's too expensive for me, it doesn't follow that it's too expensive, full stop. The theoretical optimal sale price of any product will always, by definition, be higher than many people are willing to pay for it. The number of people who don't buy a product is, for the vast majority of consumer goods, higher than the number who do buy it. So the fact that someone identifies as being in that group of non-buyers tells us nothing about anything other than them. It certainly doesn't tell us anything about whether the product is correctly priced or not. (Well, actually, it does - it tells us that the supplier hasn't made the error of making it too cheap!).

 

Anyone is entitled to tell us whether they think a model is priced within their reach. Just as they're entitled to tell us whether the product meets their other requirements. But they're not entitled to assume that their opinions are universally shared, and that their subjective opinion has any bearing on an objective assessment of a product.