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And people think larger scales are expensive?


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I've found the most expensive gauge per square foot is N as you tend toward main lines with scale length trains. A 47 with 8 coaches comes in at around £500. But you get a lot of operational interest in that space and that is important when considering value for money. 

 

I enjoy 0 but. my 0 gauge branch in the same space that cost about the same has stalled as there isn't the operational complexity. 

 

It's not just how much you get for the cash it's how much interest it can sustain in the long run. A lot of lines featured in mags seem to last 2 years or less. Is that value for money when you count depreciation of stock and materials? 

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Just some fun with figures from my database of the average price of something with wheels, i.e. loco or rolling stock (in brackets: number of occurrences) :

Gauge Z: 204 (5) 

Gauge N: 56 (58)

Gauge 00: 40 (231)

Gauge H0: 79 (1016)

Gauge S: 32 (74)

Gauge 0: 230 (602)

Gauge 1: 813 (201)

 

All amounts in Euro (but it's about the relative ratio); Gauge Z a bit high but only a few occurrences (train-sets). Gauge S is cheap!

 

Regards

Fred

 

 

 

 

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17 hours ago, melmerby said:

Freight is much more popular in the US IMHO probably due to the major lack of passenger trains in large areas of the US for many years now.

 

Yeah, but the point was, they don’t make locos

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17 minutes ago, Nearholmer said:

What did you find in S?

 

I thought it was a scale either for US retro-collectors, Antipodean narrow gaugers, or English chaps who hand carve everything from mahogany and ivory.

I have about 45 American Flyer items (7 locomotives), but also some BUB, JEP and Stadtilm (from the sixties) and more. Nothing narrow gauge and nothing hand carved (since I am not an English chap ;))

 

 

 

 

Regards

Fred

Edited by sncf231e
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10 hours ago, rob D2 said:

 

 

We all have too many locos generally. That’s because a) that’s where the character and glamour is and b ) need a variety to look realistic ( I model  EWS And those worked in nationwide pools so you’d often never see the same stuff twice )

:lol:

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11 hours ago, rob D2 said:

 

We all have too many locos generally. That’s because a) that’s where the character and glamour is and b ) need a variety to look realistic ( I model EWS and those worked in nationwide pools so you’d often never see the same stuff twice )

 

I think that is known as an oxymoron!

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On 08/08/2020 at 11:12, Phil Parker said:

 

Can I just point out that in the world of Garden Rail, O gauge is "smaller scales" :P

 

True. I have 3 16mm battery-powered Simplex diesels. All are 32mm gauge, and I don't actually own a 32mm gauge railway!

 

As for the Regner steam loco that arrived this week to someone who doesn't really do steam...

 

You're looking down the rabbit hole Phil. Not long now, and you will be on equal terms with lap & lead steam, and why Churchward, Collet & Hawksworth  are the Holy Trinity...

 

"One of us, one of us..." He He...

Edited by tomparryharry
Text clean up.
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Manufacturers will have a strategy that will attempt to maximise their profits whether it be high volume low margin or small volume and high margin or somewhere in between. Prices will obviously depend on the strategy chosen. Strategy will be driven by what volume is possible in the various scales. I fully support manufacturers trying to maximise profit because, if they don't make a reasonable return on investment, they will pull out of the business. There are noticeably less new N gauge products coming onto the market and this is almost certainly because the ROI isn't so good as 00 or 0. I have seen no evidence that anyone in the UK is getting rich from selling model railways in any scale.

 

 

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Going back to the start of this topic, I think there is something in the OP's point, even if it was partly just intended to spark off a discussion (a success if so!). It is about the options  out there, now that O gauge is so much more affordable.

 

Most (all) of us are constrained by some blend of budget, space, and modelling time/skill. If for example you have a space of 9 ft by 2 feet and a budget of say £750, you could build something interesting in N, OO, or O. It won't  be the same thing in each scale, but it can give just as much pleasure, perhaps to different people. Not N for me- too small and fiddly!

 

Of course there comes a point with reducing budget that OO is the best option, owing to lower prices and the availability of so much used stuff.  

 

And for me any one of several large Heljan O gauge diesels would be preferable to the OO gauge BP, and pricewise they are in the same ballpark. But that's just me. And for that matter- just me at the moment.- If I had a circuit big enough for the BP I might think differently....... Although then I'd want a circuit big enough for a 10 coach train in O....

 

 

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34 minutes ago, Sotto said:

Going back to the start of this topic, I think there is something in the OP's point, even if it was partly just intended to spark off a discussion (a success if so!). It is about the options  out there, now that O gauge is so much more affordable.

 

Most (all) of us are constrained by some blend of budget, space, and modelling time/skill. If for example you have a space of 9 ft by 2 feet and a budget of say £750, you could build something interesting in N, OO, or O. It won't  be the same thing in each scale, but it can give just as much pleasure, perhaps to different people. Not N for me- too small and fiddly!

 

Of course there comes a point with reducing budget that OO is the best option, owing to lower prices and the availability of so much used stuff.  

 

And for me any one of several large Heljan O gauge diesels would be preferable to the OO gauge BP, and pricewise they are in the same ballpark. But that's just me. And for that matter- just me at the moment.- If I had a circuit big enough for the BP I might think differently....... Although then I'd want a circuit big enough for a 10 coach train in O....

 

 

 

The OP never mentioned O gauge though...

 

It was a toy kettle that's just slightly better than a Mamod.

 

http://www.brandbright.co.uk/product_info.php?cPath=1_5&products_id=1#:~:text=An exciting engine from Doncaster,sized for a long run.

 

 

Jason

Edited by Steamport Southport
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23 minutes ago, Steamport Southport said:

 

The OP never mentioned O gauge though...

 

It was a toy kettle that's just slightly better than a Mamod.

 

http://www.brandbright.co.uk/product_info.php?cPath=1_5&products_id=1#:~:text=An exciting engine from Doncaster,sized for a long run.

 

 

Jason

 

Well, we are all playing with toys, whether it is model trains or unnecessarily fast cars!

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  • 2 weeks later...
On 07/08/2020 at 19:07, The Johnster said:

There are probably too many variables to make meaningful comparison.  If a model is half the size of another otherwise identical one, it should be twice the prices, shouldn't it, because the work of reproducing that level of detail costs twice as much for the smaller one, doesn't it, so an 00 loco should be roughly twice the price of an 0 gauge one.  Ah, no, hang on a minute, the 0 model should be more expensive because of course any manufacturer worth his salt will have made it considerably more detailed, with more separate and working parts correctly reproduced, than the 00 one.  

 

No, that's not right, let's look at it holistically.  If 0 costs twice 00 then the overall cast of the 0 layout, which needs less stock than the 00 which has more track scale mileage to fill, the two should work out equal, right?  What about N then...

 

I don't think anybody has designed a layout, and proposed a range of stock for it, lets say Minories because everybody knows that, and priced it up in both 4mm and 7mm to see what the difference actually would be.  Even this is not a true guide; the larger space required for the 7mm is a cost to be considered, and it's about 4 times larger, not twice, because that's how area works.

 

I give up, but at least I've shown you all why!

I only came upon this topic because I was searching on Minories but as at least three friends of mine seem to be going between N, H0 & 0 (an expensive habit) so the comparisons are interesting though, as you say, almost impossilbe to make directly.

 

In 60 plans for Small Railways, where Minories first reappeared a year after original 1957 RM article,  CJF gave suggested loco numbers for his plans and for Minories that was 4-6. or 5-7 for the goods variant, That was only about one more than he was suggesting for BLTs in the same sort of space.   

 

For a shelf layout (like Minories or a typical BLT) the cost of the space required in 0 compared with 00 or H0 would surely be doubled rather than quadrupled because you wouldn't need a wider room to accomodate a 20 inch wide board than a 10 inch one. My friends' 0 scale layouts are all linear and they use club test/running tracks if they want to give their trains a longer run.  What really seems to happen though is that their 0 gauge  layouts are for exhibitions (remember those?) and only set up at home for testing and troubleshooting so the cost of space isn't really an issue.

Rolling stock IS more expensive in 0 than in 00 or H0 but the people I know who work in the larger scale, the extra unit cost seem to be far more selective about what they buy even than for their own smaller scale activities.

 

I suspect therefore that the overall cost of working in 0 rather than the smaller scales ends up being not that different particularly as you seem to only need shorter trains to create the same effect, a four coach express in 0 is far more convincing than a four coach express in 00 and each train needs to be longer in N to be convincing.   

I'm also wondering though whether larger scale modellers tend to build more for themselves so bringing the price down. Is it easier to build a 32mm gauge point than in 16.5mm gauge?  

 

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It is fair to say that you typically need more stock in N than in O. The choice of scale has more to do with what you want from a layout than anything else. A minories type layout will always be more impressive in 0 than in 00 or N. But if you really want to model full length trains going through the countryside most of us need N. N still works out cheaper per train. A rake of four Mk1s in 0 would cost circa £700 whereas an 11 coach rake in N would be a mere £400ish. As I probably have a lot more trains than I would if I modeled 0 the cost probably isn't that much different. 

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