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You pays your money you takes your choice, modern OO locos and their price


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50 minutes ago, letterspider said:

Life is too short to kit build a 16T wagon

 

 

 

 

 

It's called modelling dear. Maybe try it? It can be fun.

 

 

How long does it take someone to order a model, wait for it to arrive and then open the box? Some of us could build a dozen 16T mineral wagons in that time. Especially if you batch build them. And for cheaper than the shiny new RTR version has cost. Things like paint costs are negligible as most of us already have it in stock.

 

So £20 or so, as opposed to a Parkside wagon kit for about £8. And a couple hours of your time whilst watching TV or listening to music (or whatever).

 

 

 

Jason

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Yes I have been making trees, platforms, wagons had a go at casting resin parts when the spares weren't available, 3D printing etc  and I guess other readers will have to do this with a full time job and a family in the mix as well as invading the loft space, flooring and lining it.

 

For myself I do about 95% modelling and 5% actual playing.

After all of that

 

Well for example - I would build a Genesis FNA Barrier wagon because there is no other option and it is easy to get a good result.

On the other hand for example the Genesis kit FNA nuclear wagon retailed about £20 - £25 and the Bachmann goes for about £30, has better detail, better wheels and will have better paint work.

 

I may want to sell my boxed Bachmann FNA in the future and it will hold it's value well.

 

When you actually compare and evaluate the advantages and disadvantages of kits against the RTR - well it is no wonder Bachmann are able to sell their steam crane for over £200

 

It's not rocket science!

 

 

 

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43 minutes ago, Steamport Southport said:

 

It's called modelling dear. Maybe try it? It can be fun.

 

 

How long does it take someone to order a model, wait for it to arrive and then open the box? Some of us could build a dozen 16T mineral wagons in that time. Especially if you batch build them. And for cheaper than the shiny new RTR version has cost. Things like paint costs are negligible as most of us already have it in stock.

 

So £20 or so, as opposed to a Parkside wagon kit for about £8. And a couple hours of your time whilst watching TV or listening to music (or whatever).

 

 

 

Jason

24 hrs in the case of “ trackshack “.

 

Bare in mind not everyone enjoys making plastic kits - used to be a necessity for the stuff I couldn’t get RTR, but only for that reason. I gave up making airfix kits years ago, as my time has to be devoted to the bits of “ modelling “ I enjoy the most.

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19 hours ago, spamcan61 said:

So broadly speaking a train set has gone from costing half a car radio to nearly two car radios. I'm sure a similar exercise could be carried out for TVs, white goods etc. with similar results.

 

Or, perhaps electronics and goods manufactured at huge scale have got stupidly cheap?

 

If you instead compare the A4 example above with the weekly wage (which is how you normally purchase a loco rather than trading for white goods) it hasn't actually got more expensive at all:

 

Cost of:

                    1980  2020
Painted Hornby A4   £25   £110
Average weekly wage £125  £550

In both cases the cost is about 20% of the average weekly wage.

 

I think we all set our exceptions of what is "a lot of money"  in our 20s or so - so some of us might consider 100 pounds for a loco being expensive - but your grand father thought 20 shillings was extortionate and your grandkids might be happy paying £1,000!

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3 hours ago, letterspider said:

Life is too short to kit build a 16T wagon

 

 

 

 

It's certainly too short to build a rake of them; one's not so bad.  I once built 40 for a club layout, and 'production lined' the process.  Never again, I lost the will to live after about the first 5 processes.  It seemed to take forever.

 

Fortunately for my period (and Tomparryharry's) there were a lot of XPOs still around, and I don't need a huge number of Bachmanns' 16 tonners.  My mineral rakes are 'packed out' with Oxford 7 plankers and Dapol or Parkside construction kits, Parkside enabling a bit of variety to be included.

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3 hours ago, Steamport Southport said:

So £20 or so, as opposed to a Parkside wagon kit for about £8. And a couple hours of your time whilst watching TV or listening to music (or whatever).

Jason

A bit over a tenner these days according to H&A and Peco, assuming you're going to build it more-or-less as-is from the kit.

 

Although I suppose you could always ask about a bulk discount if you were going to buy 50!

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     I returned to this hobby only a couple of years ago, after an absence of almost fifty years  - so this is my take from that perspective. What struck me was a) How much had changed, and b) How much had remained the same.....

     Big changes with DCC (We were just flirting with PCM and sound back then. ), SOUND - which I really like - and some amazingly detailed RTR - even some gear that might seem 'old' to you guys was 'new' and 'quite detailed to me....! 

     What had remained pretty much the same was the general availability of various loco kits and ready built kits - usually needing to be rebuilt. On that score, a big advance is the availability now of some really excellent motors and reduction gearboxes etc to get these kits running acceptably.

     I bought a lot of used locos in the first year, and frankly, I thought most of them were cheap as chips. Yes, I bought a few brand-new items, and yes, they were a bit pricey - but I didn't 'have to', it was a choice. Out of around 300 locos, mostly used RTR and kit, I bought I think four new locos and one coach and one brake-van new. All the rest of the rolling-stock is used. If one has a little modelling and technical ability, it's not hard to sort-out the various niggles that some of the used items inevitably have - that said - a lot of it was boxed and like new. I can't really understand folks bitching about prices - as if they don't like the cost, then they don't have to pay it. The 'market' will inevitably sort-out what is sustainable. If I see a new desirable RTR item, I look at what else is available, and how difficult getting a decent workable and well-finished kit/upgraded RTR model would be.

 

     (There is one area where I do have a gripe, and that is the cost of the DCC sound decoders for the locos. If one only has a few locos, this is clearly less of a problem. The non-sound decoders seem to be available for around a tenner - no biggie, but sound decoders all seem to be around £100. (= £30,000 for all my locos....!!!). For a potentially tiny mass-produced electronics item, that seems a vast amount, far far more than the cost of more than 95% of my locos....! Even the Hornby basic sound decoders (An excellent idea BTW.) are still around £34. (= £10,300). Sooner or later, there will have to be a really affordable sound decoder to enable universal usage. A tenner would be acceptable. (=£3,000). If they became cheaper, they would be more universally used.

     Clearly, I'm not going to fit sound to ALL of my locos at those prices - I was simply illustrating the vast potential cost.... :-) )

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7 minutes ago, Methuselah said:

     I returned to this hobby only a couple of years ago, after an absence of almost fifty years  - so this is my take from that perspective. What struck me was a) How much had changed, and b) How much had remained the same.....

     Big changes with DCC (We were just flirting with PCM and sound back then. ), SOUND - which I really like - and some amazingly detailed RTR - even some gear that might seem 'old' to you guys was 'new' and 'quite detailed to me....! 

     What had remained pretty much the same was the general availability of various loco kits and ready built kits - usually needing to be rebuilt. On that score, a big advance is the availability now of some really excellent motors and reduction gearboxes etc to get these kits running acceptably.

     I bought a lot of used locos in the first year, and frankly, I thought most of them were cheap as chips. Yes, I bought a few brand-new items, and yes, they were a bit pricey - but I didn't 'have to', it was a choice. Out of around 300 locos, mostly used RTR and kit, I bought I think four new locos and one coach and one brake-van new. All the rest of the rolling-stock is used. If one has a little modelling and technical ability, it's not hard to sort-out the various niggles that some of the used items inevitably have - that said - a lot of it was boxed and like new. I can't really understand folks bitching about prices - as if they don't like the cost, then they don't have to pay it. The 'market' will inevitably sort-out what is sustainable. If I see a new desirable RTR item, I look at what else is available, and how difficult getting a decent workable and well-finished kit/upgraded RTR model would be.

 

     (There is one area where I do have a gripe, and that is the cost of the DCC sound decoders for the locos. If one only has a few locos, this is clearly less of a problem. The non-sound decoders seem to be available for around a tenner - no biggie, but sound decoders all seem to be around £100. (= £30,000 for all my locos....!!!). For a potentially tiny mass-produced electronics item, that seems a vast amount, far far more than the cost of more than 95% of my locos....! Even the Hornby basic sound decoders (An excellent idea BTW.) are still around £34. (= £10,300). Sooner or later, there will have to be a really affordable sound decoder to enable universal usage. A tenner would be acceptable. (=£3,000). If they became cheaper, they would be more universally used.

     Clearly, I'm not going to fit sound to ALL of my locos at those prices - I was simply illustrating the vast potential cost.... :-) )

Hi,

 

The sound decoder hardware is not mass produced with respect to consumer electronics. Like most surface mount electronics they are involve pick and place machines which take labour to set up. Say a batch of ten thousand is made per DCC socket type per year the setup labour costs have to be spread across only ten thousand modules. The sound files and sound playing/mixing/motor control software are not mass produced they have to be recorded/ written by skilled people. If there was just one sound file for all locos steam and diesel the cost would be a bit cheaper.

 

I think it is unlikely that there will be a sound decoder with preloaded sounds for ten pounds as ten pounds is the asking price for the cheapest non sound DCC decoder.

 

Model railways would be more widely used if they were cheaper but that's no argument for much lower prices. Hornby got into financial difficulties and withdrew a lot of their range. Bachmann have put up their prices in order to remain in business.

 

Regards

 

Nick

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19 hours ago, Nearholmer said:

The answer is clearly to buy unused, ten year old models, as people who over-indulged then liquidate their stashes in sterner times.

 

Nice idea, but the problem is that people look at today's prices and then sell their older models for more than they cost originally. Hatton's secondhand prices are a good example of this.

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3 hours ago, Methuselah said:

     

 

     (There is one area where I do have a gripe, and that is the cost of the DCC sound decoders for the locos. If one only has a few locos, this is clearly less of a problem. The non-sound decoders seem to be available for around a tenner - no biggie, but sound decoders all seem to be around £100. (= £30,000 for all my locos....!!!). For a potentially tiny mass-produced electronics item, that seems a vast amount, far far more than the cost of more than 95% of my locos....! Even the Hornby basic sound decoders (An excellent idea BTW.) are still around £34. (= £10,300). Sooner or later, there will have to be a really affordable sound decoder to enable universal usage. A tenner would be acceptable. (=£3,000). If they became cheaper, they would be more universally used.

     Clearly, I'm not going to fit sound to ALL of my locos at those prices - I was simply illustrating the vast potential cost.... :-) )

I do not understand your logic.

I do not use sound chips but I view the work involved in producing them as being roughly similar to any other fairly complex computer program.  I would consider that if you compare a sound chip to a game you would be taking a more realistic view. Then look at the respective volume and model railway sound chips seem to be competitively priced if not actually something of a bargain. As I say I do not use them but I reckon you are being rather unfair in your judgement of the highly skilled people who are putting these programs together. I do find some of them to be rather good. 

looking at a German large scale BR50 recently I was very tempted. I think the action chip was more than 200 euros extra. But it did include a feature that reduced the coal load in the tender as the loco ran. It is not just the sounds that can be programmed in these days.

Bernard

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The problem with sound locos is that you are probably going to run 4 of them at a maximum but you may have to chip twenty of them

In an ideal world if you had 10 class 37's you would be able play sound on the two that you are playing with at any one time, without having to remove and reinsert the chips between them- or the terribly expensive alternative of 10 sound chips.

This is where the market place would be crying for an innovative solution -

 

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9 hours ago, StuartMc said:

 

Or, perhaps electronics and goods manufactured at huge scale have got stupidly cheap?

 

If you instead compare the A4 example above with the weekly wage (which is how you normally purchase a loco rather than trading for white goods) it hasn't actually got more expensive at all:

 

Cost of:


                    1980  2020
Painted Hornby A4   £25   £110
Average weekly wage £125  £550

In both cases the cost is about 20% of the average weekly wage.

 

I think we all set our exceptions of what is "a lot of money"  in our 20s or so - so some of us might consider 100 pounds for a loco being expensive - but your grand father thought 20 shillings was extortionate and your grandkids might be happy paying £1,000!

 

Worth pointing out that there is a much broader and better quality 2nd hand market available. Just mentioning it as  by coincidence I paid 2nd hand £100 for a super detailed A4 with a brand new TTS  chip. 

I also still think the Airfix Mk2d has been an amazing model - still commands high prices and often see it resprayed into NR livery.

 

 

 

 

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20 hours ago, The Johnster said:

It's certainly too short to build a rake of them; one's not so bad.  I once built 40 for a club layout, and 'production lined' the process.  Never again, I lost the will to live after about the first 5 processes.  It seemed to take forever.

 

Fortunately for my period (and Tomparryharry's) there were a lot of XPOs still around, and I don't need a huge number of Bachmanns' 16 tonners.  My mineral rakes are 'packed out' with Oxford 7 plankers and Dapol or Parkside construction kits, Parkside enabling a bit of variety to be included.

I had a similar experience to this, building 20 Parkside 24.5t steel minerals for me. To put in context, each wagon side has 6 supports between body and solebar, needing to be cut from the sprue and tidied up eith a fine fine then glued on. So that's 12 a wagon, times 20 - as you say looseing the will to live! Making up some running numbers from HMRS sheets to supplement bought ones so they'd all be different wasn't that great either. I was and remain delighted with the outcome, but never again.

 

John.

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On ‎24‎/‎02‎/‎2020 at 16:39, Methuselah said:

   ... There is one area where I do have a gripe, and that is the cost of the DCC sound decoders for the locos...

Don't forget that all that goes into the sound recording: hire of loco and operating session, location recording, subsequent editing into the package to be loaded on the decoder, is in the UK at UK cost, by people with skills which attract market rate wages. The physical decoder will be a somewhat higher cost than a non-sound type, but most of the expense is in the sound package.

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1 hour ago, 34theletterbetweenB&D said:

Don't forget that all that goes into the sound recording: hire of loco and operating session, location recording, subsequent editing into the package to be loaded on the decoder, is in the UK at UK cost, by people with skills which attract market rate wages. The physical decoder will be a somewhat higher cost than a non-sound type, but most of the expense is in the sound package.

I'm not minimising the work in the recordings etc, in fact, I was actually disregarding the cost of the sound files entirely. The sound chips themselves are currently prohibitively expensive, and that needs to change. I think the purveyors of these recordings can charge what they like - the market will sort itself out naturally.

 

Another issue that I forgot to mention was - and again, I say this as an old crock recently returned to this hobby - there seem to be way way to many different sockets etc. ONE standard universal socket should suffice if it has enough pins.  Sound aside, there are lights and smoke, and that's about it at 4mm scale. Simpler cheaper decoders could be sold with the standard pin-configuration.

 

I'd prefer to buy the decoders and shop-around for the sounds, and ultimately, I think that's what the market will dictate. The data cards in digital cameras etc today are tiny. If there was a slot for these in the decoder, just the data card with the sound-files etc could be transferred between models - a quick and easy operation. Cards could easily be sent-away to be written, re-writen / updated from websites, or the dedicated users could write their own, as some already do.

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10 hours ago, Methuselah said:

I'm not minimising the work in the recordings etc, in fact, I was actually disregarding the cost of the sound files entirely. The sound chips themselves are currently prohibitively expensive, and that needs to change. I think the purveyors of these recordings can charge what they like - the market will sort itself out naturally.

 

Another issue that I forgot to mention was - and again, I say this as an old crock recently returned to this hobby - there seem to be way way to many different sockets etc. ONE standard universal socket should suffice if it has enough pins.  Sound aside, there are lights and smoke, and that's about it at 4mm scale. Simpler cheaper decoders could be sold with the standard pin-configuration.

 

I'd prefer to buy the decoders and shop-around for the sounds, and ultimately, I think that's what the market will dictate. The data cards in digital cameras etc today are tiny. If there was a slot for these in the decoder, just the data card with the sound-files etc could be transferred between models - a quick and easy operation. Cards could easily be sent-away to be written, re-writen / updated from websites, or the dedicated users could write their own, as some already do.

Hi,

 

Every product is a combination of what it cost to develop and produce and what price the market will stand.

 

There are a lot of different types of DCC socket but not all can fit into all locos. In the US where DCC was popular earlier than in the UK there are a range of decoders made for particular locomotives (the locos original PCB is replaced with a PCB with the decoder soldered on).

So having plug in decoders may give the consumer more choice. Also DCC is still evolving and the number of lights and other accessories on locos/multiple units is increasing.

 

Sound decoder manufacturers keep in business by protecting their sound files against copying. So the use of memory cards is unlikely. Also having a card socket may mean taking the body off a loco to update the sounds and will increase the size and cost of the decoder.

 

Regards

 

Nick

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12 hours ago, Methuselah said:

... there seem to be way way to many different sockets etc. ONE standard universal socket should suffice if it has enough pins.  Sound aside, there are lights and smoke, and that's about it at 4mm scale. Simpler cheaper decoders could be sold with the standard pin-configuration...

When I returned to model railway there was a nice simple option, wires for soldering in, or 8 pin plug. Still works for me today! All I need, runs the motor, lights, meh!

 

A functional expansion to 21 pins for the 'bolt on' sound capability then occurred. And after that, everyone wanted to invent a connector, or so it seemed. Unplanned development is the bottom line. Good lesson for anyone coming up with the next big thing; plenty of redundancy in the connector for expansion, whatever it may be.

 

12 hours ago, Methuselah said:

...I'd prefer to buy the decoders and shop-around for the sounds, and ultimately, I think that's what the market will dictate...

Not in the DCC format is my guess. It's plenty obvious that this is old tech, and something vastly more capable could now be devised. But no clear successor has yet emerged.

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On 24/02/2020 at 16:13, sharris said:

A bit over a tenner these days according to H&A and Peco, assuming you're going to build it more-or-less as-is from the kit.

 

Although I suppose you could always ask about a bulk discount if you were going to buy 50!

 

Yes, I'd certainly ask if I bought them all at once! I just buy them  one or two at a time. It keeps the sanity that way. If your frame of mind is in play, then a batch of 10 at a time 'might' be achievable, but it will certainly depend on the individual. 

 

The 3-link couplings make 60 links alone, and it takes about 3-4 minutes to make a set, so do the maths.  At least it's better than watching Crossroads on the telly.....

 

Happy modelling,

Ian.

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On 23/02/2020 at 16:10, Phil Parker said:

3D printing offers no economies of scale. While a single injection mould costs a lot of money, every item produced from it costs pennies. Your 1000th 3D printed model costs the same as the first.

This is a rather strange argument. Not only do economies of scale still play a role with 3D printed models in the form of things like research and 3D modelling, but the only reason they play a larger role with injection molded models is because of the massive upfront cost that is absent with 3D printing.

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I'd say that the upfront cost for 3D printing of the sort of quality and finesse needed for our purposes is pretty massive, certainly out of the reach of domestic printers.  And they are not suitable for mass production, taking several hours per item to complete, and requiring extensive setting up.  3D has huge potential, but the dream of being able to produce quality fine scale items at home is some way off yet!

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42 minutes ago, eldomtom2 said:

This is a rather strange argument. Not only do economies of scale still play a role with 3D printed models in the form of things like research and 3D modelling, but the only reason they play a larger role with injection molded models is because of the massive upfront cost that is absent with 3D printing.

 

Those economies are tiny and the bill will be the same for both. Your 1000th 3D printed model costs the same to manufacture as the 1st. Once you've tooled up for injection moulding, the costs plummet. Do a large enough run and the cost per unit is very small, not something 3D offers. Of course, for a tiny run, the situation is reversed. 

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30 minutes ago, eldomtom2 said:

Do you have any proof that injection moulding is cheaper per unit than 3D printing, and if so how much?

Get yourself trained in manufacturing engineering! Time gives a quick and dirty estimate of the cost per piece after the initial investment has been recovered. If your 3D printer needs ten minutes to 'build' a part, and your moulding machine knocks out one every twenty seconds, that's 30: 1.

 

I am not kidding. That number is the scale of the change in the cost of the physical medium (not the content) in the move from pre-recorded VHS tape to DVD.

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3 hours ago, eldomtom2 said:

Do you have any proof that injection moulding is cheaper per unit than 3D printing, and if so how much?

I'd say the fact that noone, model railway related or otherwise, is using 3D printing for production runs of any size is fairly strong evidence. 

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