Bachmann Branchline announcements for 2015/6

[Legend]

And just to emphasise how out of touch Bachmann are, I've just received an email from Hornby. GWR shunter struck £10.95. Bachmann version £17.95. A very European price!!! But it serves to demonstrate that Hornby could well score here by filling the space Bachmann vacated. Pressflo from Hornby next year perhaps?

[Ozexpatriate]

But it serves to demonstrate that Hornby could well score here by filling the space Bachmann vacated.

They very well may do just that.

[Dunsignalling]

And just to emphasise how out of touch Bachmann are, I've just received an email from Hornby. GWR shunter struck £10.95. Bachmann version £17.95. A very European price!!! But it serves to demonstrate that Hornby could well score here by filling the space Bachmann vacated. Pressflo from Hornby next year perhaps?

It's difficult to judge what's really going on from just one model, especially a duplicated one.

 

It may be just that Hornby have been left with a load of these and want rid.

 

If that were the case, it wouldn't provide any reliable guide to future pricing. 

 

John

[david12345]

I have just received an email, Hornby dutch liveried ZTO brakevan £13.50. 2015 Bachmann release with a bit of weathering RRP £24.50. I don't know how these are going to move off the shelves.

[Butler Henderson]

And just to emphasise how out of touch Bachmann are, I've just received an email from Hornby. GWR shunter struck £10.95. Bachmann version £17.95. A very European price!!! But it serves to demonstrate that Hornby could well score here by filling the space Bachmann vacated. Pressflo from Hornby next year perhaps?

Thought we were part of Europe, but it reflects the problem that for years we have wanted better models but have never wanted to pay for them as such. Recall a story of Lima being told by their importer not to fit better motors because the British would not pay the consequential price. Take a look on Bachmanns website at the Lilliput items, the Std 3 tank may now be £117.90 but the Lilliput eqivalent is £140 dearer. As for the shunters trucks never actually handled ither but would question which is the better constructed; are Hornby still using that horrible brittle plastic?

[Ozexpatriate]

It may be just that Hornby have been left with a load of these and want rid.

Hornby sent an email that R6642C, GWR Shunters Truck (Hales Owen), 1940s, arrived this week. The 2014/15 Bachmann GWR Shunters' trucks are yet to arrive.

 

It's pure duplication of new re-liveries. In the discussion on this Bachmann seemed to have a slight edge, but with today's pricing, Hornby's item is noticeably cheaper.

[Mad McCann]

This always seemed a strange choice for a big release. Let's be honest, a GW shunters' truck is a pretty niche item and the vehicle type itself, not replicated to any meaningful degree elsewhere in the British Isles. I suspect single, twin and bogie bolsters may be 'the next big thing' in wagonry.

Maybe.

[TheSignalEngineer]

Well, scary as it might seem, I started out in '67 as a Trainee Programmer with Shell International at the princely sum of 590 QUID A YEAR, and THAT was considered very good!!!

The previous year I started on £520 on the BR S&T Engineering Student programme. I think that was the going rate for the Professional & Technical  Grade 'A' for my age at the time.

[TheSignalEngineer]

The Waterloo pub in Devonport (near Kings Road) pint of scrumpy, 10d, pint of 'Heavy', 11d. Both out of tap barrels. I'm still recovering...........................

The sort of scrumpy they sold resulted in Devon Colic (don't ask.....)

Phil

Home brew cider in the Greyhound in Holloway Head, Birmingham around 1965 was 10d for the ordinary brew or 11d for the 'rough'. Three pints of that was enough to do serious damage to all but the regulars. You could be drunk for 1/8d (about 8.6p) or completely out of it for 2/9d (about 13.7p).

[Loconuts]

In 1964 I started an engineering apprenticeship with a salary of £4. 9s per week of which I gave my mother £1. 10s for keep.  The rest paid for bus fares to work, night outs on the beer, clothes and modeling.  Not a lot spare.  Being careful I could just about afford 2 Wills body kits a year to fit commercial Triang or Hornby Dublo loco chassis.  Hard times but happy times.  When the Triang Britannia first appeared the price was £3. 3s( £3.15p) and the Hornby Dublo 08 was £1. 10s (£1.50) in 1964 as comparisons.

 

10 years later I got married and bought a 2 bed terraced house for £8,000 and my salary in the Civil Service ran to the same as a new mini for the time of approx £950 per year.

 

No discount for any models from the retailer, manufacturers RRP is what the retailer charged you.

 

Todays modeler really has it good compared to those days and yet all they can do is moan about price increases which are quite minor.

 

Model Railway products come under luxury items and people have always had to pay more for those items.  We have been spoilt by the cheap Chinese product which exploited the Chinese factory worker but that is now changing.  The Chinese worker is not going to earn the UK minimum wage today for another 5 years.  Could you live on that?

 

Another interesting fact is that the ABS range of wagon kits which first appeared in the early 70's were very much more expensive that any RTR wagon model.  They are now cheaper than the current RTR models in many cases.

 

Loconuts

[Colin]

Thinking back to the late '70s and the release of the Airfix 14xx and auto coach, I remember seeing them advertised at between £10 and £15 for loco and coach together. How does that compare with the current price of a Bachmann 64xx and equivalent coach?

[Roy P]

Thinking back to the late '70s and the release of the Airfix 14xx and auto coach, I remember seeing them advertised at between £10 and £15 for loco and coach together. How does that compare with the current price of a Bachmann 64xx and equivalent coach?

I remember my take home pay in the late 70s and it was a fraction of what it is now and are the old Airfix and the new Bachmann items truly comparable?

EIther way, I reckon I could buy roughly the same number of each then and now with a weeks pay....If my money was my own as it was then.

 

RP 

[coachmann]

Although it would not benefit Hornby or Bachmann today, there is something to be said for considering basics if one is strapped for cash. When I was young (violins and cardboard boxes), disposable income was invisible by todays standards and so railway modellers settled for the slow process of building a small branchline terminus and building a loco body on a RTR chassis. If we were lucky we built a second loco "for handling the goods traffic". Track was invariably individually rail spiked through fibre sleepers and two or three points. An alternative was grossly overscale fibre sleepered 'Universal' trackwork, which is what I adopted in the end. These small layouts gave us loads of enjoyment in between work, as we built just about everything from kits or cardboard/plastikard. This was a world well apart from planet proprietary ready to run. 

 

I am pretty sure the only change that has taken place amongst railway modellers has been the gradual move away from loco building into buying RTR. I doubt limited disposable income affects them because they only buy whatever is applicable to the period and railway they are modelling. Perhaps those brought up in recent years and used to buying whatever turned them on beit steam diesel and electric will have to cut back in the face of rising prices. Is this really such a bad thing. I mean, do these people really play with all the models they buy or is the act of buying their biggest pleasure?

[The Stationmaster]

It is possible that Oxford have lower overheads owing the their company structure, but they may also beholding the price down to an artificially low level to establish themselves in the market. Will they be subject to the same financial influences that affect Bachmann, Hornby and others or are they immune to them?

All concerns who manufacture in China/buy in from China are subject to exactly the same cost imperatives if those costs are increased by the Chinese Govt.  The only difference is that the basic wage - in the same sort of industry - can vary between provinces and hence some places have lower labour costs than others, it's just that their increases start from a different point.

 

Quite honestly I doubt there's little difference in the cost of making the same thing to the same spec between different factories apart from any differences in rates of pay and in any event many of those in the business in China talk to others in the same business and will know how costs and prices compare.  The big difference is in what comes after the ex-factory cost because every percentage added to something with a high labour input is going to have a  greater impact than adding teh same percentage to something with a low labour input although initial tooling costs and development costs also have to be amortised.   I happen to know of one factory that has made models for several different 'manufacturers and the difference in end retail price between those 'manufacturers' is quite substantial - but the factory has done different levels of work for each of them hence the labour and tooling input has varied which has impacted the ex-factory price.

 

Adding on to the ex-factory price is where big differences can come - clearly it will be influenced by the cost of developing and producing the model and what had to be paid for money borrowed to do that.  It will vary according to the size of the business and its structure - for example some have high research costs while others don't, Hornby is a large (in comparative terms) company with stock market presence with adds cost.  Oxford is a small company (listed as 'between 11 & 50 employees') with different overheads, Kader is a large company although Bachmann in the UK is small but it depends how the money is moved internally and Kader has been losing money on toys & models.

 

So in reality it is vey difficult to make comparisons and if you were a  new entrant and could afford to do so where would you price if you are going up against the likes of Hornby and Bachmann?

[Legend]

In 1964 I started an engineering apprenticeship with a salary of £4. 9s per week of which I gave my mother £1. 10s for keep. The rest paid for bus fares to work, night outs on the beer, clothes and modeling. Not a lot spare. Being careful I could just about afford 2 Wills body kits a year to fit commercial Triang or Hornby Dublo loco chassis. Hard times but happy times. When the Triang Britannia first appeared the price was £3. 3s( £3.15p) and the Hornby Dublo 08 was £1. 10s (£1.50) in 1964 as comparisons.

 

10 years later I got married and bought a 2 bed terraced house for £8,000 and my salary in the Civil Service ran to the same as a new mini for the time of approx £950 per year.

 

No discount for any models from the retailer, manufacturers RRP is what the retailer charged you.

 

Todays modeler really has it good compared to those days and yet all they can do is moan about price increases which are quite minor.

 

Model Railway products come under luxury items and people have always had to pay more for those items. We have been spoilt by the cheap Chinese product which exploited the Chinese factory worker but that is now changing. The Chinese worker is not going to earn the UK minimum wage today for another 5 years. Could you live on that?

 

Another interesting fact is that the ABS range of wagon kits which first appeared in the early 70's were very much more expensive that any RTR wagon model. They are now cheaper than the current RTR models in many cases.

 

Loconuts

I really wish we still had the disagree button.

 

There was no discount back in the 60s because shops had to sell at mrp. I can't remember which government removed that rule , but ever since then there have been discounts. I remember Railmail from the mid 70s , so probably the Heath government removed the restriction

 

Moaning about minor increases. Err I don't think so. Its the overall level of charging ie a coach at £69.95 when most coaches are half as much. £30 inconsequential. Yes on a one off transaction possibly , although I would point out job seekers allowance is £66 so hardly inconsequential to someone unemployed

 

Moaning on. Alternative? Put up and shut up. Watch out for the £100 coach next year then , because manufacturers will just assume we are all rolling about in cash and charge the max

 

Chinese labour rates , undoubtably they are going up. But Bachmann would have us believe there is a one to one relationship between labour and the cost of a model so a 15% increase in labour translates into 15% increase in final cost. In fact the labour content is only a proportion. Over on MREmag, I think, it was quoted that the cost of assembly was £1. Probably that's for a very simple wagon, but I reckon that's about 8% of total selling price. So a 15% increase on that is 1.2% . Along way short of 15 don't you think, even if a complex wagon takes three times more labour it's still less than 4%

 

Yes there are other factors such as manufacturing capacity, and cost of raw materials. The price of plastics is dropping with price of oil!

 

So yes I'm moaning on about it and make no apology for it. I do think that this is much more to do with Kader increasing the margins of its UK subsidiary up to level of European. So if you are willing to pay European prices fine just accept it. As I've said never say never, there are some Bachmann goods I want, but I'm cutting back drastically on other spend with them. Not because I can't afford it. I'm in the lucky position I can (although many can't, spare a thought for them). I think it was much more eloquently put by adb968008 that what you will see is Bachmann driving itself into a niche market. The Modern day Wrenn

[The Stationmaster]

I think in many respects it is very difficult to compare 'then' and 'now' incomes without looking at costs as well.  For example when I started full time on BR in 1966 I was on £9/15/0 per week which was a few £s better than I'd been getting a few weeks earlier in a brewery job but not as much as I'd been able to make (with overtime) on Christmas post in the previous couple of years - but I could still have an evening out for £1 and taking a girlfriend to a (very) posh restaurant left change out of a fiver.

 

Oddly my third pension (yes, I get three - but I paid in for them) currently delivers about £9.90 per week after tax but a day out at a model railway show last weekend with the two (adult) offspring cost me around £30 for fuel and entry, daughter paid for the cuppa and burgers.  And a meal out for two in the cheapest local restaurant costs £40, it would be well over £100 in the most expensive one.  Prices have risen and generally so have incomes and - most important of all - you tend to be working on a tight income when you are young and have a young family.

 

Oh and with the BR version of the Hornby GW Shunters' Truck you also have to factor in the cost of paint & transfers to get it into the correct livery!

[Jol Wilkinson]

Although it would not benefit Hornby or Bachmann today, there is something to be said for considering basics if one is strapped for cash. When I was young (violins and cardboard boxes), disposable income was invisible by todays standards and so railway modellers settled for the slow process of building a small branchline terminus and building a loco body on a RTR chassis. If we were lucky we built a second loco "for handling the goods traffic". Track was invariably individually rail spiked through fibre sleepers and two or three points. An alternative was grossly overscale fibre sleepered 'Universal' trackwork, which is what I adopted in the end. These small layouts gave us loads of enjoyment in between work, as we built just about everything from kits or cardboard/plastikard. This was a world well apart from planet proprietary ready to run. 

 

I am pretty sure the only change that has taken place amongst railway modellers has been the gradual move away from loco building into buying RTR. I doubt limited disposable income affects them because they only buy whatever is applicable to the period and railway they are modelling. Perhaps those brought up in recent years and used to buying whatever turned them on beit steam diesel and electric will have to cut back in the face of rising prices. Is this really such a bad thing. I mean, do these people really play with all the models they buy or is the act of buying their biggest pleasure?

Larry,

 

while your opening paragraph very much reflects my earlier modelling years (as opposed to playing with Hornby Dublo), I feel your second para understates the reliance of many modellers on the RTR suppliers for the majority of their modelling items. Locos, coaches, wagons, signals and buildings are all part of the wide range of products available today that removes the need for many people having to make anything. Only scenery doesn't yet appear to have become available in suitable layout ready cheap modular units.

 

As you say, perhaps the act of buying and owning a nice model is probably where they get their enjoyment. That there are so many RTR items for sale second hand on RMweb, ebay, etc. compared with kits or kit built models (even allowing for the greater production volume of the RTR stuff) says something about an interest in models rather than modelling.

 

Jol

[coachmann]

It is impossible to compare then and now when it comes to RTR. "When" only goes back about 14 years as far as the detailed models we take for granted are concerned.

[Dunsignalling]

Hornby sent an email that R6642C, GWR Shunters Truck (Hales Owen), 1940s, arrived this week. The 2014/15 Bachmann GWR Shunters' trucks are yet to arrive.

 

It's pure duplication of new re-liveries. In the discussion on this Bachmann seemed to have a slight edge, but with today's pricing, Hornby's item is noticeably cheaper.

I bought one (Bachmann) from the first releases, having had a good look at both.

 

The Hornby one was cheaper, even then, and I don't recall what swung my decision in favour of the Bachmann model. [Edit: Yes I do, see post 575!] 

 

The GWR Shunters' truck is, by any definition, a fairly specialised item and I am a bit surprised that both manufacturers have produced further runs so soon.

 

John

[Dunsignalling]

Chinese labour rates , undoubtably they are going up. But Bachmann would have us believe there is a one to one relationship between labour and the cost of a model so a 15% increase in labour translates into 15% increase in final cost. In fact the labour content is only a proportion. Over on MREmag, I think, it was quoted that the cost of assembly was £1. Probably that's for a very simple wagon, but I reckon that's about 8% of total selling price. So a 15% increase on that is 1.2% . Along way short of 15 don't you think, even if a complex wagon takes three times more labour it's still less than 4%

 

 

But the wage increases also apply to the guy who delivers materials to the factory, the people who make the packaging and those who insert the models into it, the technicians who keep the production line running, the truck driver who shifts the products to the docks etc. etc. etc.

 

I short, it affects everything except the basic raw material costs (Chinese energy costs are rising too - despite free market ones dropping).

 

John

[PenrithBeacon]

I buy RTR if it's available. I also buy kits, again if they are available and are suitable for my skills, epoch etc. I consider myself to be a modeller, albeit a fairly 'off-on-on' modeller. But I don't have a lot of time to do modelling and I do have other interests too.

 

With respect to Jol, I think that the kit and scratchbuilders should to be careful about how they express themselves on this matter. Those who buy RTR and then make a layout to run them on are just as entitled to call themselves modellers as the kit and scratchbuilders are. I was looking at 'Oldshaw' (again) the other week at MK, a super layout where most of the stock is RTR. It looked wonderful (again) and nobody ought to say that it, and many others like it, are not the product of a modeller.

 

But, that being said, there is the world of difference between the kit and scratchbuilders and the rest of us in skill levels, but I do hope that it doesn't go to their heads and become arrogance. I have joined and resigned from the Scalefour Society twice because of the attitudes of too many of its members.

 

Regards

[wombatofludham]

I buy RTR if it's available. I also buy kits, again if they are available and are suitable for my skills, epoch etc. I consider myself to be a modeller, albeit a fairly 'off-on-on' modeller. But I don't have a lot of time to do modelling and I do have other interests too.

 

With respect to Jol, I think that the kit and scratchbuilders should to be careful about how they express themselves on this matter. Those who buy RTR and then make a layout to run them on are just as entitled to call themselves modellers as the kit and scratchbuilders are. I was looking at 'Oldshaw' (again) the other week at MK, a super layout where most of the stock is RTR. It looked wonderful (again) and nobody ought to say that it, and many others like it, are not the product of a modeller.

 

But, that being said, there is the world of difference between the kit and scratchbuilders and the rest of us in skill levels, but I do hope that it doesn't go to their heads and become arrogance. I have joined and resigned from the Scalefour Society twice because of the attitudes of too many of its members.

 

Regards

 

I agree wholeheartedly.  The way some of the knit-your-own-valvegear Finescale Jihadists express their barely concealed contempt for anyone who dares use RTR is self defeating, as it puts a lot of people off coming into this forum.  I know two people who, having been told about the site by myself, told me they were put off it by some of the "you can't be a modeller unless you hand roll your own rails, make your own bricks and mortar in 1:76 scale and hand craft your own rolling stock out of vellum" comments.

 

I don't kit build rolling stock (yet) and I have a phobia of soldering but I do enjoy scenic modelling using a mix of ready to plant, kit built and kit bashed, and other scenic items.  That makes me a modeller even if the majority of my rolling stock is RTR, with occasional slight modifications.  Anyone who disagrees can go disappear up their own fundament, assuming it is big enough to take the ego.

[TheSignalEngineer]

It is impossible to compare then and now when it comes to RTR. "When" only goes back about 14 years as far as the detailed models we take for granted are concerned.

Due to family and work reasons my modelling largely disappeared from the mid 1980s and through the 1990s. When I came back to it about 15 years ago there had not been  lot of change in the standard of what was available. Blue boxes still contained a lot of ex-Mainline stuff, many red ones looked like Triang re-incarnations, Dapol still had a lot of HD-era bodies mixed with Airfix/Mainline and there was Lima.

Suddenly we had an outbreak of coaches of more or less scale dimensions with flush glazing and locos with lots of detail. Anyone who wants to is welcome to return to the days where the choice was between about a dozen locos, pancake motors, big Lima flanges, generic LWB vans in Weetabix livery and pseudo Collett coaches in green livery. Oh, and don't forget the sandpaper 'Chuff Chuff' on the B12 tender

[railroadbill]

Re inflation over the years.

 

In 1958 a Hornby Dublo L11 A4 Mallard cost £3 15s 6d (inc tender).

 

Using this web site (and other web sites are available)

http://www.thisismoney.co.uk/money/bills/article-1633409/Historic-inflation-calculator-value-money-changed-1900.html

 

£3 15s 6d is the equivalent of £79.45 at today's prices.

The Bachmann web site doesn't have any A4s listed but the closest LNER type pacific, Tornado or A2s, are £159.95  

 

A 1958 LT20 Bristol Castle cost  £4 1s  which would now be £85.24

The closest Bachmann GW 4-6-0 is the modified Hall, listed at £124.95 unweathered.

 

 

So LNER designs have gone up by more than GW.....     :-)

[railroadbill]

I agree wholeheartedly.  The way some of the knit-your-own-valvegear Finescale Jihadists express their barely concealed contempt for anyone who dares use RTR is self defeating, as it puts a lot of people off coming into this forum.  I know two people who, having been told about the site by myself, told me they were put off it by some of the "you can't be a modeller unless you hand roll your own rails, make your own bricks and mortar in 1:76 scale and hand craft your own rolling stock out of vellum" comments.

 

I don't kit build rolling stock (yet) and I have a phobia of soldering but I do enjoy scenic modelling using a mix of ready to plant, kit built and kit bashed, and other scenic items.  That makes me a modeller even if the majority of my rolling stock is RTR, with occasional slight modifications.  Anyone who disagrees can go disappear up their own fundament, assuming it is big enough to take the ego.

Some years ago, through a friend who was into O gauge,  I met an acquaintance of his who made his own o gauge locos. He made his own wheels, think he said he used nails for spokes, and then turned them on a lathe. He was very scathing about anyone who didn't make their own wheels and couldn't therefore be a proper railway modeller, particularly when I mentioned the oo locos I'd made (but oo was only a toy scale). "Bet you couldn't make your own wheels" etc etc.  He never showed the standard of his work, of course....     I innocently asked him how his locos were propelled, was it steam, like the full size ones?  Don't think he liked that....     :-)

 

So who makes their own wheels?