Railway Modelling - A Hobby turned Luxury?

[Dunsignalling]

2 minutes ago, D9020 Nimbus said:

I'm sure there are far less skilled carpenters around now than then, too… and your comparison is only valid if you are a skilled worker in the building trade in your area. The average hourly rate is 15 times what it was in 1972, so an A4 Pacific is twice as expensive compared to then; the Peco brake-van is the only item whose price now is the same as then in real terms; everything else is at least 50% more expensive (Hornby Railroad) or more (the rest).

 

Average referred to is median hourly rate. Source: official statistics.

There was however, a ruddy great burst of inflation between 1960 and 1972 so our starting points are different. 

 

John

[D9020 Nimbus]

2 minutes ago, Dunsignalling said:

There was however, a ruddy great burst of inflation between 1960 and 1972 so our starting points are different. 

 

John

The years after 1972 would be much worse for inflation… 1972 was just before the oil prices hot up almost instantly.

[Monkersson]

38 minutes ago, Nearholmer said:

U.K. average wage is now c£37k/year, and assuming deductions at 40% that gives somewhere over £400/week take home pay.

The average wage is nowhere near 37k, its quoted between 29k and 31k, which after deductions gives c£2k a month/£500 a week take home

[Monkersson]

8 hours ago, TheQ said:

I think we've been spoilt for a few years when China took over production prices were cheap for a short while. Now they've been increasing rapidly the pay of their labour  prices have gone back up. Not yet high enough for loco production to return to the UK but it can't be far off.

 

Bring production back the UK would increase prices around 6/7 times - just for basic models.

[woodenhead]

Creating a topic 'a hobby turned luxury' just feels like another way of saying toy trains cost too much now.

 

The same argument can be tossed at car ownership, home ownership and children.

 

It is what it is, you can make it as expensive or as cheap as you want to, no-one forces anyone to partake.

[Michael Hodgson]

22 hours ago, Jeff Smith said:

This is potentially controversial ground......especially the use of the word modelling.....

... and the word plonking ... suggests we're all plonkers!

[Michael Hodgson]

11 hours ago, F-UnitMad said:

The decline and demise of railway modelling has been predicted since before I was born (1960s)

 

If that was true, the Warley Show would be in a hut at the back of the Harry Mitchell Centre in Smethwick, rather than at the NEC since 1993-ish?

 

When I belonged to the Birmingham MRC (clubroom was Hazelwell station on the Camp Hill line), Warley was just another local model railway club like every other town in the country.  The big shows were Manchester, London, York and Glasgow, and of course the NEC didn't exist.

[Phil Parker]

1 hour ago, Nearholmer said:

U.K. average wage is now c£37k/year, and assuming deductions at 40% that gives somewhere over £400/week take home pay.

 

Got a source for this? The ONS say £586 a week - £30472pa

[Oldddudders]

25 minutes ago, Phil Parker said:

 

Got a source for this? The ONS say £586 a week - £30472pa

I'm afraid facts have no place in this sort of thread. 

[Clive Mortimore]

1 hour ago, woodenhead said:

Creating a topic 'a hobby turned luxury' just feels like another way of saying toy trains cost too much now.

 

The same argument can be tossed at car ownership, home ownership and children.

 

It is what it is, you can make it as expensive or as cheap as you want to, no-one forces anyone to partake.

Yo Woody

 

Are you allowed to toss children from your car or house? Is it a new sport I haven't heard of? And is it a hobby or a luxury?

[Nearholmer]

1 hour ago, Phil Parker said:

Got a source for this? The ONS say £586 a week - £30472pa

 

The ONS, funnily enough.

 

The difference is that I (unwittingly) cited the mean, and the figure you point to is the median, which is actually probably the more relevant figure to use in this debate, so £586/week before deductions, roughly £460, I think, after deductions (someone can doubtless get the detail on that), it is.

Edited August 25, 2021 by Nearholmer

[Nearholmer]

28 minutes ago, Oldddudders said:

I'm afraid facts have no place in this sort of thread. 

 

I normally have the highest respect for your contributions OD.

[Nearholmer]

2 hours ago, Monkersson said:

The average wage is nowhere near 37k, its quoted between 29k and 31k, which after deductions gives c£2k a month/£500 a week take home

The mean is c£37k, the median c£31k, both are “averages”. See my response to PP’s question.

 

This is a good read https://www.payspective.com/insights/average-salary-uk/

 

 

Edited August 25, 2021 by Nearholmer

[newbryford]

5 hours ago, Steamport Southport said:

 

But that's not what I'm talking about.

 

I'm talking about collecting things as mint/near mint to sit on for a few years and then sell on and make money. Not to use.

 

 

 

Isn't that investing rather than collecting?

 

Collectors that I know may sell sometimes, but only because they've managed to acquire a better example and selling off the lesser quality duplicate. 

[Craigw]

4 hours ago, woodenhead said:

Creating a topic 'a hobby turned luxury' just feels like another way of saying toy trains cost too much now.

 

The same argument can be tossed at car ownership, home ownership and children.

 

It is what it is, you can make it as expensive or as cheap as you want to, no-one forces anyone to partake.

 

You have hit the nail on the head with this.

 

At one point in time modellers would have accepted a small BLT and been perfectly happy with that. The explosion of RTR stock at historically cheap prices has fueled an aspirational rise and many people look towards a large main line station - even when they do not have the space (and never will) - plus collecting livery variations appears to be quite popular too . I know of people in Australia who have purchased 20 new RTR locos to make sure they get all the number variations they want.

 

Regards,

 

Craig W

[The Johnster]

It depends what you want from your railway and what you can actually have, and I don’t just mean what you can afford and have room for.  Lets postulate a situation in which money is not an issue and neither is space, so you can build and operate your dream layout or have it built, but your choices are still constrained and you will still have to accept compromise.  Unless you are happy to accept organised running sessions with a known group of operators, there is a limit to the complexity of the layout you can operate to it’s full potential on your own, and the more operators you need, the more you will inevitably be affected by not all of them being available all the time, and the greater the potential for personality conflicts, not to mention design stage errors that become embedded in physically huge layouts and prove difficult to eradicate because they ate not discovered until too late. 
 

I am very much a lone wolf operator, and insist that I am able to indulge in a session whenever I like on an ad hoc basis; to that end, the layout room is next to the living room.  It is a single track steam era BLT, albeit a busy industrial South Wales one, and is plenty to keep me occupied from an operating and modelling point of view.  What would I do with it if I had lottery money?

 

I’d buy a bigger house with a bigger railway room, but it would still be downstairs and part of the main living area.  I’d rebuild the layout with chaired track and convert to full DCC, or more likely pay to have that done at my age. But I’d probably keep the basic concept, using the extra space to extend the length of the station and the colliery sidings so that I could run longer trains, and probably resite the colliery further up the valley past the station, a much more usual arrangement in South Wales than the kickback I have currently.  I’d model more of the branch, with a grater distance between my station throat and the scenic break, room to accelerate trains up to about 40mph or so over realistic times and distances and drive them properly, up and down gradients.  I’d push my curvature and turnout radii to more plausible measurements, and have a fiddle yard with the capacity to keep all the locos and all the stock on the track all the time.  
 

In other words I’d have a better version of the same layout, because it suits my needs very precisely, having been designed with that objective.  Less is more, if you operate properly and a complex main line layout with multi-train action and lots of possible movements would be more than I could cope with alone, never mind the increased burden of cleaning and general maintenance.  OTOH, a main line train-watching layout would fail to satisfy my need to operate with realistic shunting procedures, and the trains go too fast to see properly. 
 

I am sure that many modellers do not think this sort of thing through sufficiently to avoid having layouts that are to difficult for them to operate fully and are too bg and complex to ever stand a chance of being anything like ‘finished’.  Some people are serial layout builders and this suits them, but I can’t help feeling that for many it’s a wasteful way of going about things, as is the insane overprovision of stock that many of us have, and not how we thought it was going to be when we started.  Nothing wrong with collecting and enjoying the ownership of models never taken from the box and rarely seeing daylight, and if you can make a profit out of it good luck to you, but I’d contend that you are engaged in an activity that is not the hobby of railway modelling. 
 

Sir Topham asked if railway modelling is a hobby turned luxury.  I would say it is not, and do not think any hobby is a luxury; it is a part of a person’s life if one is the sort of person that enjoys a hobby; not everyone is and it isn’t compulsory!
 

You may, especially if you can afford it, practice your hobby in a luxurious way, and you may go on luxury holidays in luxury hotels, live in a luxury home, drive a luxury car, and sail a luxury yacht, but your hobby occupies the same part of your life as an ordinary hobby does for an ordinary bloke who doesn’t do anything luxury because he can’t afford it.  How much you enjoy it depends not on luxury, or how much you spend, but on how well your railway satisfies your needs, for operating, or using the layout socially for set multi-persion fixed sessions, or building things, or whatever it is that is the main reason for getting into it; love of trains is as good as any.  Obviously, a certain level of poverty will prevent you taking it up, and it would be very unfair on any dependents, but I do ok and I’m on about £60 a week after rent and bills; I try to budget £40 a month for the trains, though the truth is nearer £50.

 

The poverty angle is a dampener in another respect as well though; people close to the edge for money often live in rented accommodation on short term leases renewable at the landlord’s discretion, and railway modelling needs a greater level of stability and security of tenure than that!  But if you can pay your way, feed the kids, and have a bit available for it, a hobby is a normal activity, arguably an essential for your general well-being, and in no way a luxury  

[Chris M]

13 hours ago, Monkersson said:

Bring production back the UK would increase prices around 6/7 times - just for basic models.

And yet British made Peco N gauge wagons are about half the price of Farish wagons. Ok the Farish ones are more detailed but 6/7 times more seems rather like a figure plucked out of thin air.

[Bernard Lamb]

28 minutes ago, Chris M said:

And yet British made Peco N gauge wagons are about half the price of Farish wagons. Ok the Farish ones are more detailed but 6/7 times more seems rather like a figure plucked out of thin air.

I believe that figure originated in a discussion about clothing and was used by Adidas as the main reason for moving production from Europe to the Far East. Of course it is subject to variation due to how certain parts of the business record their non direct costs. In the case of the wagons you mention  you need to look at cost rather than price. Neither party is likely to let you do that. The exact ratio will of course change over time. Being long retired I no longer have to bother with such things.

Bernard

[HonestTom]

15 hours ago, woodenhead said:

Creating a topic 'a hobby turned luxury' just feels like another way of saying toy trains cost too much now.

 

The same argument can be tossed at car ownership, home ownership and children.

 

It is what it is, you can make it as expensive or as cheap as you want to, no-one forces anyone to partake.

And the great thing is that now we have a choice. You want ready-to-run? There are models that we wouldn't even have dreamed of twenty years ago. You want to build you own? You still can - and now there's a whole array of tools and materials that didn't exist not so long ago if you want them.

[cypherman]

19 hours ago, woodenhead said:

Creating a topic 'a hobby turned luxury' just feels like another way of saying toy trains cost too much now.

 

The same argument can be tossed at car ownership, home ownership and children.

 

It is what it is, you can make it as expensive or as cheap as you want to, no-one forces anyone to partake.

Hi all,

Woody I can see where you are coming from. But you are wrong with your choices. Cars, Homes are not luxury's. They are necessities that people in this present day need. Children are a different matter depending on whether you think we should or not have more children in the world. Toy trains and no matter how detailed they are or what they cost are just that. They are toys for older boys and girls. Just toys. You will not die from hunger or failure to get to work to earn money to pay for your home or food to eat.  You will not will not die of exposure from severe weather by not playing with toy trains. Therefore they are a luxury.

Edited August 26, 2021 by cypherman

[Jeff Smith]

This is a pretty good indicator, particularly item 2:-

 

luxury

 (ˈlʌkʃərɪ)

n, pl -ries

1. indulgence in and enjoyment of rich, comfortable, and sumptuous living

2. (sometimes plural) something that is considered an indulgence rather than a necessity

3. something pleasant and satisfying: the luxury of independence.

4. (modifier) relating to, indicating, or supplying luxury: a luxury liner.

[C14 (in the sense: lechery): via Old French from Latin luxuria excess, from luxus extravagance]

Collins English Dictionary – Complete and Unabridged, 12th Edition 2014 © HarperCollins Publishers 1991, 1994, 1998, 2000, 2003, 2006, 2007, 2009, 2011, 2014

[Nearholmer]

About tine Maslow’s Hierarchy of Needs put in an appearance https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Maslow's_hierarchy_of_needs

 

Other analyses and models are available, but this one is certainly a good starter.

Edited August 26, 2021 by Nearholmer

[Monkersson]

10 hours ago, Chris M said:

And yet British made Peco N gauge wagons are about half the price of Farish wagons. Ok the Farish ones are more detailed but 6/7 times more seems rather like a figure plucked out of thin air.

I work in procurement for injection moulded items, which the company I work for have made for us in China.  The costs to do such things here are absolutely huge compared to outsourcing it.  

 

I made comment on it in another thread a while back https://www.rmweb.co.uk/community/index.php?/topic/144756-Heljan-announce-class-45-in-oo/&do=findComment&comment=4468739

 

 

 

You cant compare Pecos' costs against Farish, we dont know the factors in setting the sale price of their items

[Monkersson]

13 hours ago, The Johnster said:

You may, especially if you can afford it, practice your hobby in a luxurious way, and you may go on luxury holidays in luxury hotels, live in a luxury home, drive a luxury car, and sail a luxury yacht, but your hobby occupies the same part of your life as an ordinary hobby does for an ordinary bloke who doesn’t do anything luxury because he can’t afford it.  How much you enjoy it depends not on luxury, or how much you spend, but on how well your railway satisfies your needs, for operating, or using the layout socially for set multi-persion fixed sessions, or building things, or whatever it is that is the main reason for getting into it; love of trains is as good as any.  Obviously, a certain level of poverty will prevent you taking it up, and it would be very unfair on any dependents, but I do ok and I’m on about £60 a week after rent and bills; I try to budget £40 a month for the trains, though the truth is nearer £50.  

This part of your post Johnster is very interesting and hits a nail square on the head.  You don't have to buy the latest release to enjoy the hobby.  Too many people who gripe on about costs all the time are the same people who just must buy everything that is released, how would they view the cost if they only bought what they actually needed for their layout?  Would their enjoyment of the hobby increase as their own costs diminished?  I'd wager it would.

 

I am very lucky in that I am working and can afford, if I wish, to indulge, but I reckon I've spent less in the past month that what you budget for, because I only really buy what I need, and I get great pleasure from my models

[sncf231e]

5 hours ago, cypherman said:

Cars, Homes are not luxury's. They are necessities that people in this present day need. 

I consider a car a luxury, so I sold mine and bought a handful of trains. And now I can spent monthly extra on trains not having to pay for using the car.

Regards

Fred