More model ideas

[Colin_McLeod]

I can't believe that there are so many posts discussing the possibility of AS producing some sort of TtTE.

 

I am not privy to AS's plans but them  producing a high quality TtTE is IMO, as Monty Python would have put it, "getting too silly"   🤪

[Dunsignalling]

4 minutes ago, Colin_McLeod said:

I can't believe that there are so many posts discussing the possibility of AS producing some sort of TtTE.

 

I am not privy to AS's plans but them  producing a high quality TtTE is IMO, as Monty Python would have put it, "getting too silly"   🤪

And we are now well beyond the "Full Half Hour".....🥸

Edited May 17, 2022 by Dunsignalling

[woodenhead]

1 hour ago, Dunsignalling said:

Tomix only do N gauge, so it's a different licence, one that Bachmann don't seem interested in exploiting themselves, despite having a presence in N gauge.

 

John

Actually Bachmann do also do N gauge Thomas https://www.tootallythomas.co.uk/ourshop/cat_1673457-N-Scale.html

[woodenhead]

14 minutes ago, Dunsignalling said:

And we are now well beyond the "Full Half Hour".....🥸

No we're not 🥸

[Delta_Who]

Everyone on this page right now

[Banger Blue]

22 minutes ago, Colin_McLeod said:

as Monty Python would have put it, "getting too silly" 

🤣🤣

[Arrachogaidh]

1 hour ago, Dunsignalling said:

 

In truth, kids only form a very limited part of the model railway market these days, trains just aren't cool any more, and relatively few nowadays take an interest.

 

John

 

Hmm, not many kids could afford £140 for a locomotive and £35 for a coach. They have been priced out of N Gauge.

[palmsticks]

Anyway, I think Accurascale should make a Deltic... 😉

[woodenhead]

2 minutes ago, palmsticks said:

Anyway, I think Accurascale should make a Deltic... 😉

And who’d buy one of those, get real Bachmann have already done it.  I’d bet you’d hope they do the one in purple too, you and one other person maybe.  Fat chance of Accurascale doing a loco and they’d do one more popular than a Deltic, maybe a Hymek 

[palmsticks]

22 minutes ago, woodenhead said:

And who’d buy one of those, get real Bachmann have already done it.  I’d bet you’d hope they do the one in purple too, you and one other person maybe.  Fat chance of Accurascale doing a loco and they’d do one more popular than a Deltic, maybe a Hymek 

Ah damn. I hadn't thought of that.  It wouldn't work at all.

 

However, it is an absolutely irrefutable, cast iron, solid gold, grade A fact that all trains and locomotives should quite rightly be purple.  Just like that classic song from the artist formally known as the artist formally known as Prince: Purple Trains... 

[Steamport Southport]

1 hour ago, Arrachogaidh said:

 

Hmm, not many kids could afford £140 for a locomotive and £35 for a coach. They have been priced out of N Gauge.

 

Do kids buy them though? Or are they Christmas and Birthday presents that some kids want instead of the latest console, games or mobile phone.

 

 

Can somebody remind me how much the Hornby Murdoch was? ISTR it was over £100 RRP even 10 years ago. Just a toy, right?    😜

 

 

https://www.hattons.co.uk/stocklistdatabase/36052/hornby_r9684_class_9f_2_10_0_murdoch_in_orange_thomas_the_tank_engine_range/stockdetail

 

 

Now into four figures. Seen them sell for £750 plus.

 

https://www.ebay.co.uk/itm/304392588754?chn=ps&norover=1&mkevt=1&mkrid=710-134428-41853-0&mkcid=2&itemid=304392588754&targetid=1654411312256&device=c&mktype=pla&googleloc=9075129&poi=&campaignid=17205888705&mkgroupid=136489431756&rlsatarget=aud-1848439599592:pla-1654411312256&abcId=9300865&merchantid=115578225&gclid=CjwKCAjwj42UBhAAEiwACIhADkNcbTdvLJF-SKC6HbWwkJdG48TfAz-L6MrIjQ2_Fs5Lii1E9pZMJxoCGGwQAvD_BwE

 

 

Jason

[mdvle]

2 hours ago, Arrachogaidh said:

Hmm, not many kids could afford £140 for a locomotive and £35 for a coach. They have been priced out of N Gauge.

 

Yet many of those same kids are spending £400+ on a games console and then £60 multiple times a year on games for that console...

 

Not to mention smartphones, tablets, cool and trendy clothes or shoes, etc.

 

Kids haven't left the hobby or been priced out of the hobby - the ones who are truly interested in trains and remain/return in the hobby as adults are still around.  All that has happened in those who played with trains because nothing else was available and left them in their teens and never returned don't play with trains anymore.

[PieGuyRob]

1 hour ago, Steamport Southport said:

Can somebody remind me how much the Hornby Murdoch was? ISTR it was over £100 RRP even 10 years ago. Just a toy, right?    😜

 

 

https://www.hattons.co.uk/stocklistdatabase/36052/hornby_r9684_class_9f_2_10_0_murdoch_in_orange_thomas_the_tank_engine_range/stockdetail

 

 

Jason

If you follow that link to the Murdoch on Hatton's website and scroll down and look at what people also purchased as well as Murdoch. Why would they buy N gauge couplings for a 00 gauge locomotive?

[Roy Langridge]

9 hours ago, mdvle said:

 

Yet many of those same kids are spending £400+ on a games console and then £60 multiple times a year on games for that console...

 

Not to mention smartphones, tablets, cool and trendy clothes or shoes, etc.

 

Kids haven't left the hobby or been priced out of the hobby - the ones who are truly interested in trains and remain/return in the hobby as adults are still around.  All that has happened in those who played with trains because nothing else was available and left them in their teens and never returned don't play with trains anymore.

I think you are a bit out of touch there. As said up thread, the kids don’t pay for most of this, it is parents/grandparents in the main. I would also argue that your “many” is actually very few as a percentage of children. As the purse strings tighten, those sales will get hit. 
 

I live in an affluent area, and I can assure you that a lot of my sons’ friends do not have the latest games consols etc. and where they do they tend to be the cheaper versions such as a Nintendo Switch. 
 

Lastly, and linking games to model trains, young people will often be drawn to DCC with its additional controllable functionality such as lights sound. The cost of a decent games console is about the same as a decent DCC system, however, buying the “addon” is very different. A new game is often £50, a new DCC loco with lights and sound is now approaching the same cost as the initial purchase. 

 

Roy

Edited May 18, 2022 by Roy Langridge

[Mark]

How about some 6 wheel milk tanks? Lots of options there LMS, Great Western, Southern, BR modifications like roller bearings, different types of tank  and laddering and a long life span.

 

Mark

[Dunsignalling]

11 hours ago, Arrachogaidh said:

 

Hmm, not many kids could afford £140 for a locomotive and £35 for a coach. They have been priced out of N Gauge.

Or, to put it another way, the manufacturers are catering for a market they can afford to service. Quite simply, if things can't be made/sold at a profit, they don't get made.

 

In OO, Railroad is there for the juniors/beginners (etc.) at lower cost solely because it's made using obsolete tooling that has long since paid for itself, but prices are moving up even there as production costs in China increase.

 

If there was a sensible living to be made from making such products using new tooling, someone would have latched onto it years ago. Even when Hornby (probably the only player with a chance of making it work) tried it, the results fell into a middle ground that was deemed too expensive by one end of the market and insufficiently detailed by the other.

 

Wherever we as individuals sit on the price/detail demand spectrum, the return from supplying our wants also has to match that from other products that could be made using the same resources, and it's only the adult enthusiast/collector market that can really do that currently.

 

John

Edited May 18, 2022 by Dunsignalling

[TomScrut]

10 hours ago, mdvle said:

 

Yet many of those same kids are spending £400+ on a games console and then £60 multiple times a year on games for that console...

 

Not to mention smartphones, tablets, cool and trendy clothes or shoes, etc.

 

Most of the kids aren't necessarily buying these things themselves, but however they come to have them your point is valid IMO. Instead if asking for games consoles for Christmas, they could be asking for trains.

[TomScrut]

1 hour ago, Dunsignalling said:

In OO, Railroad is there for the juniors/beginners (etc.) at lower cost solely because it's made using obsolete tooling that has long since paid for itself, but prices are moving up even there as production costs in China increase.

 

It would not surprise me at all if there was a larger % profit margin in Railroad stuff than more detailed models, regardless of tooling which I expect isn't normally held against the model for pricing. I do not expect that there is many hours of labour in a Hornby Railroad 66 vs a Hattons one for example.

[Suzy Sulzer]

IF its not already mentioned .I notice a gap in the  market for a High speck LMS Stanier 2-8-0 8F Locomotive.

[Dunsignalling]

23 minutes ago, TomScrut said:

 

It would not surprise me at all if there was a larger % profit margin in Railroad stuff than more detailed models, regardless of tooling which I expect isn't normally held against the model for pricing. I do not expect that there is many hours of labour in a Hornby Railroad 66 vs a Hattons one for example.

Possibly, but Railroad products are "repeats" of items that have been produced in substantial quantities in the past. It is therefore especially subject to competition from the second-hand market. 

 

Without truly "new" products to offer, it's likely that Railroad demand is "flatter" than that for the "main range", which does. As what can be defined as a "mature market", demand should also be more predictable, and may be in approximate balance, i.e. Hornby are producing/selling (roughly) as much of it as the market wants. There might therefore be no point in rebalancing production in its favour, even if the margin was better.

 

John 

Edited May 18, 2022 by Dunsignalling

[TomScrut]

12 minutes ago, Dunsignalling said:

Possibly, but Railroad products are "repeats" of items that have been produced in substantial quantities in the past. It is therefore especially subject to competition from the second-hand market. 

 

Without truly "new" products to offer, it's likely that Railroad demand is "flatter" than that for the "main range", which does. As what can be defined as a "mature market", demand should also be more predictable, and may be in approximate balance, i.e. Hornby are producing/selling (roughly) as much of it as the market wants. There might therefore be no point in rebalancing production in its favour, even if the margin was better.

 

John 

 

I wasn't suggesting rebalancing anything, I was simply saying I think there is a decent chance that Hornby make more money proportionately out if RR stuff. They are now about 2/3rd of the price of a Bachmann one for example but the assembly times must be remarkably different.

[Dunsignalling]

17 minutes ago, TomScrut said:

 

I wasn't suggesting rebalancing anything, I was simply saying I think there is a decent chance that Hornby make more money proportionately out if RR stuff. They are now about 2/3rd of the price of a Bachmann one for example but the assembly times must be remarkably different.

Indeed, but if the Railroad profit margin is better (which it might well be) there would be a natural imperative (assuming a static production budget) to transfer slots to it. In any event, it's unlikely that Railroad and "current" Hornby are produced using the same facilities, making that difficult.

 

Any competition Hornby face for Railroad production slots (and the cost of obtaining them) will be set by demand from other companies and what they are willing to pay for them, not a juggling process within Hornby.

 

It is easy to assume that a factory that makes toys/models only makes toys/models, but that is by no means the case. Small/medium Chinese factories are extremely adaptable across a broad range of product types for many industries. 

 

John 

Edited May 18, 2022 by Dunsignalling

[Dunsignalling]

11 hours ago, mdvle said:

 

Yet many of those same kids are spending £400+ on a games console and then £60 multiple times a year on games for that console...

 

Not to mention smartphones, tablets, cool and trendy clothes or shoes, etc.

 

Kids haven't left the hobby or been priced out of the hobby - the ones who are truly interested in trains and remain/return in the hobby as adults are still around.  All that has happened in those who played with trains because nothing else was available and left them in their teens and never returned don't play with trains anymore.

Either way, the market is smaller than it used to be..... 

Edited May 18, 2022 by Dunsignalling

[TomScrut]

15 minutes ago, Dunsignalling said:

Indeed, but if the Railroad profit margin is better (which it might well be) there would be a natural imperative (assuming a static production budget) to transfer slots to it

 

Yes but I think as you said before, it is a limited market. I think a lot of us have zero interest in any of them, I for sure do not.

[Dunsignalling]

58 minutes ago, TomScrut said:

 

Yes but I think as you said before, it is a limited market. I think a lot of us have zero interest in any of them, I for sure do not.

Me too, and then some.

 

Once I take out the eras that don't interest me, and the items that worked in areas that don't interest me, I probably have a zero interest in buying 90%-plus of what anybody is making at any given time.... 

 

That said, observation suggests that I am rather more "focussed" than most on things that do interest me, and I freely admit that tendency has strengthened rather than weakened as coverage has blossomed both in areas/eras of interest and non-interest. One benefit of such focus, though, is that rising prices are a bit easier to live with!

 

When my funds were fully employed in purchasing in-line with my interests, anything that didn't "fit" was easy to ignore. Now they aren't, those good habits have become entrenched and I find I've become (almost) entirely immune to "Rule One" temptation.  

 

I now don't buy locos without already having stock for them to pull, and I don't buy coaches if I don't already have something to pull them! 

 

John

Edited May 18, 2022 by Dunsignalling