Why is their no budget range for the younger modeller to get into this hobby?

[Philou]

46 minutes ago, Steamport Southport said:

Never understand this idea that kids like diesels. They don't.

 

I agree, the younger grandson who is nine, much prefers steam locos only ever having seen two. His is the Holden above, his first steamer bought about four years ago. The next Christmas, he requested a Hall (lad of good taste) with some GWR stock. Last Christmas, it was the 'Coronation Scot' in blue and for his birthday last April, were last three coaches in stock to go with it. The 'Scot' and coaches were not cheap whereas I did get the Hall and three coaches for under £80!! To me, that seemed very reasonable.

 

I didn't mind buying him the 'Scot' as he is quite meticulous and careful. I don't know what will be in the stocking this year though!

 

The other grandson is TGV mad, though he was looking at a French 4-6-2 earlier - but I think they're rather too expensive for what they are - we'll see.

 

So, I'm with Southport on this - but with a caveat - not ALL kids like diesels.

 

Cheers,

 

Philip

Edited August 15, 2020 by Philou
Phat Phingers

[black and decker boy]

The only way super cheap products work is by selling in high volume.

 

The toy train market of the UK simply isn’t big enough to generate the volumes needed to make a profit.

 

The fixed costs simply don’t split low enough. Research & design, tooling, finance, marketing, shipping & warehousing. Getting a super cheap range into Supermarkets & major online sellers is always stacked in favour of the shop, not the manufacturer and again needs very high volume or they are not interested. Water thin profits on the super Cheap models are quickly eroded if the entire batches don’t sell through quickly. Stock sat in warehouses is dead money.

 

the reason the manufacturers have gone for high spec, low volume is that they make higher profit and hold much lower risks.

 

cheap toys (cars, dolls etc) get their economy of scale by being generic and the same the world over. Lightening McQueen looks the same in the U.K., USA and N Korea.

[adb968008]

32 minutes ago, Steamport Southport said:

 

I'm going by the amount of people who go and watch them.

 

Turn up at a Steam Gala it's full of families.

 

Go to a Diesel Gala it's full of unaccompanied men in the 50 to 70 age bracket. Very few kids about. I know, I'm one of those men.

 

When was the last time you saw hordes of kids on Crewe station looking at the trains? Thought not. They don't exist. When there's a steam train going through, totally rammed.

 

People think kids like what they liked. They don't.

 

 

Jason

Your comparing Crewe in 1960 to Crewe in 2020 again.

 

Railcams, Youtube, Gengroups, Simulators all provide excitement to kids without neccessarily being on the platform.

Quite definitely theres less kids than 1960,1970,1980,1990,

 

But are you suggesting the hobby should stop when BR went away ?

 

I know many preserved lines think this, and they are slowly transitioning from preserved railways and becoming commercial businesses, as without volunteers they wont survive on the current business model.. just look at the WSRs upheavels... thats a clear sign of adapt or die and the power struggles old and new visions present.

 

The threads about why no budget range, it would seem to be, because theres no future in the hobby... I don't believe that for one minute... not at the speed 2020 liveries and stuff sells out.. DRS PFAs (2nd batch, sold out in 1 afternoon), 2nd ROG 37 gone without a trace, GWR 158.. 3rd batch in 2020, Transpenine 68.. £300, Scotrail class 170..£400 someones buying it, and I doubt there buying black 0-6-0 tender engines, discounted Princesses, Nelsons, Coronations, Stanier Moguls, L&Y Aspinalls and all the other heavily discounted recent releases I see weekly in my inbox.

 

 

Edited August 15, 2020 by adb968008

[Dunsignalling]

2 hours ago, PatB said:

Wouldn't Bachmann/Kader have all (well, a lot anyway) of the old Mainline tooling? Not that there's a lot there relevant to a modern youngster, with the most up-to-date offering likely being the 56.

Trouble is, they'd probably have to make new chassis for them, the old ones being the main reason those models that hadn't been redone already were discontinued in the first place. The split chassis that Bachmann created to replace them aren't that easy to convert for DCC, either. They'd need retooling to provide for it on the production line.

 

Hornby's pancake motors and the old ex-Airfix tender drives had to go because of tightened EU regulations on RF interference and I suspect the old Mainline ones (even if the tooling still exists) would also fall foul of those.

 

John

Edited August 15, 2020 by Dunsignalling

[Dunsignalling]

27 minutes ago, adb968008 said:

Your comparing Crewe in 1960 to Crewe in 2020 again.

 

Railcams, Youtube, Gengroups, Simulators all provide excitement to kids without neccessarily being on the platform.

Quite definitely theres less kids than 1960,1970,1980,1990,

 

But are you suggesting the hobby should stop when BR went away ?

 

I know many preserved lines think this, and they are slowly transitioning from preserved railways and becoming commercial businesses, as without volunteers they wont survive on the current business model.. just look at the WSRs upheavels... thats a clear sign of adapt or die and the power struggles old and new visions present.

 

The threads about why no budget range, it would seem to be, because theres no future in the hobby... I don't believe that for one minute... not at the speed 2020 liveries and stuff sells out.. DRS PFAs (2nd batch, sold out in 1 afternoon), 2nd ROG 37 gone without a trace, GWR 158.. 3rd batch in 2020, Transpenine 68.. £300, Scotrail class 170..£400 someones buying it, and I doubt there buying black 0-6-0 tender engines, discounted Princesses, Nelsons, Coronations, Stanier Moguls, L&Y Aspinalls and all the other heavily discounted recent releases I see weekly in my inbox.

 

 

At least half the people I've known who use train simulators do so instead of having a model railway.

 

John

[Binky]

2 minutes ago, Dunsignalling said:

At least half the people I've known who use train simulators do so instead of having a model railway.

 

John

Same here, and it makes sense when so many people already have a computer in their house and younger generations have grown up knowing that whatever their hobby/interest is they can probably get a computer game or simulator of it.

[adb968008]

56 minutes ago, Dunsignalling said:

At least half the people I've known who use train simulators do so instead of having a model railway.

 

John

It would be interesting to know why, my guess would be a range of lower cost, easier to set up and takes less space... in other words it provides the same experience, but easier.

 

coming back to the point of why no budget range, I’d proffer another reason as to why not, and suggest its nothing to do with the customer at all....

 

Everyone in this game is in it to make money.

The one who made most in the goldrush was the toolsmith selling tools.
I suggest its no different here.

Commissioners are just prospectors looking for nuggets.

 

Quoting to make a budget model, at the raw material end, is probably little different to tooling a higher detailed model.. a sprue is a sprue, with groves that plastic is squirted into... whether theres extra groves for separate hand rails has little bearing on the cost of making it.

 

 Assembly takes more time, but in a country where assemblers are cheaply available.

 

So when quoting at the bottom line per model at the factory, the price probably isnt much different, but once the suppliers, middlemen, sales margins are all added, the differential is much greater, making it more commercially attractive to make more detailed, then less detailed...

 

so big nugget or little nugget ?

what would you make in that position ?

 

All is good as long as the buyer can afford it.

Thats why I keep circling back to the younger modeller, the older modeller has mostly got it all, history can only be repeated so many times..endlessly retooling duplicates will see someone come a cropper if the economy changes. They can sit with what they already have and not miss out. Whilst I accept 2020 is smaller than 1990, which is smaller than 1960, ignoring it ignores a future.., recycling history will eventually run out.
If the buyer doesnt have as much spend, make what they can afford, grow a market, which just like the 90’s and 60’s generations later demanded better.  It give’s yourself less dependency on 1 or 2 market groups. If making lower margin models for a smaller group is too small.. then we have reached the end.. in which case its time to make something other than model railways.

 

I dont think were there, as there is clearly plenty of investor money around still, and attracting ever more entrants..but I do think its unhealthy rinse and repeating older models with new toolings, replacing some that are not that old... so if 2020 or budget isnt the answer..what is, Steampunk ?

 

 

Edited August 15, 2020 by adb968008

[The Johnster]

On 13/08/2020 at 22:17, Zomboid said:

Probably because even reruns of old Triang and Wrenn models would still cost a lot if sold at a profit.

Actually, as Wrenn proved with their ex Hornby Dublo range, they'd cost more than the current 'hifi' models.  Dublo failed because it couldn't keep a lid on costs, and the reintroduced Wrenn ex Dublo items, which were only different in that they had tension lock couplings, were more expensive than and inferior in terms of detail to concurrent Triang Hornby, an impressive feat when you look at concurrent Triang Hornby!  Then there was a period of livery aberrations; SR sunshine liveried rebuilt Bullieds, Caledonian liveried BR 4MT tanks.  Hornby recently marketed a tribute Black Princess, but the costs of producing a replica of the original Rovex model seem to have put them off doing that, and anyway who'd buy them at about £200 a go?

[adb968008]

5 minutes ago, The Johnster said:

Hornby recently marketed a tribute Black Princess, but the costs of producing a replica of the original Rovex model seem to have put them off doing that, and anyway who'd buy them at about £200 a go?

I’m still getting my head round whos buying these at £500 per model..

https://www.Hornby.com/uk-en/shop/new-for-2020/Hornby-s-centenary-year/2710-mr-no-1-centenary-year-limited-edition-1920.html
 

[phil_sutters]

I haven't read all 131 previous posts so I don't know whether anyone has asked this question before. Why can you buy a radio-controlled drone for a youngster costing from £9 upwards when you have to pay at least £50 for an 00 loco and then more for the controller? I grant you that a R/C loco would still need track, but then so does the wired track version. A couple of basic chassis - 4wheel & 6wheel - with R/C controls could have a variety of bodies - steam and diesel. One could build up a modular control panel for further R/C accessories like points or signals. I know that there have been R/C trains. Wasn't one of the Lego sets R/C or at least infra-red controlled. Model planes, ships, trucks and tanks all use the technology. Given that railways are basically required to operate forward and backwards, rather than in two dimensions like trucks and tanks or three like aircraft or subs. it seems odd that we are still wedded to two rails with the connectivity problems that can bring. Electronic miniaturization and massive improvements in battery technology would seem to have made R/C a much more viable option - until you want to have lots of layouts in one exhibition hall, I suppose. R/C truck enthusiasts seem to be able to cope.

Edited August 15, 2020 by phil_sutters
added comment & photo

[Zomboid]

5 minutes ago, phil_sutters said:

Why can you buy a radio-controlled drone for a youngster costing from £9 upwards when you have to pay at least £50 for an 00 loco and then more for the controller?

Those are 1. Junk with a 20 minute life expectancy and 2. Not an attempt to replicate the appearance of any real world object.

 

Radio control trains can easily be done though, it's the default choice for garden railways, and in my view it's the future for indoor trains too.

[spamcan61]

4 minutes ago, Zomboid said:

Those are 1. Junk with a 20 minute life expectancy and 2. Not an attempt to replicate the appearance of any real world object.

 

3. made in huge volumes hence minimal tooling cost per item

[Binky]

It would be perfectly possible for many layout operators to all use radio control in one room as the modern 2.4ghz systems all find a vacant frequency to use and swap to another one if there is interference, this is how radio control car racers can all turn up and race together without having to discuss what crystals everyone is using like the old 27mhz days.

 

I'm guessing it comes down to numbers again, drones are hugely popular right now and the same design drone can be sold the world over, a radio control UK locomotive which mostly only appeals to the UK market would probably not sell in large enough numbers to turn a profit.

[phil_sutters]

I accept that the £9 drone will be a disposable short-term toy, but you can get a 1/24th scale Porsche for £13. Again it won't be that detailed and probably won't have a very long life span, but an initial 'train set' isn't very detailed and will get grown out of fairly rapidly.

I have been tempted to buy one of the cheap train sets sold by Poundstretchers at Christmas and see what I could turn it into. They are usually to a non-standard scale with plastic track and very rudimentary loco wheels, but some have had quite nicely detailed coaches and wagons. Being tempted is as far as it's got, as my 4mm modelling backlog grows rather than shortens.

[009 micro modeller]

36 minutes ago, phil_sutters said:

I haven't read all 131 previous posts so I don't know whether anyone has asked this question before. Why can you buy a radio-controlled drone for a youngster costing from £9 upwards when you have to pay at least £50 for an 00 loco and then more for the controller? I grant you that a R/C loco would still need track, but then so does the wired track version. A couple of basic chassis - 4wheel & 6wheel - with R/C controls could have a variety of bodies - steam and diesel. One could build up a modular control panel for further R/C accessories like points or signals. I know that there have been R/C trains. Wasn't one of the Lego sets R/C or at least infra-red controlled. Model planes, ships, trucks and tanks all use the technology. Given that railways are basically required to operate forward and backwards, rather than in two dimensions like trucks and tanks or three like aircraft or subs. it seems odd that we are still wedded to two rails with the connectivity problems that can bring.

 

I suggested something vaguely similar earlier, but with modular body parts and kits or the option to construct your own body.

[Binky]

20 minutes ago, 009 micro modeller said:

 

I suggested something vaguely similar earlier, but with modular body parts and kits or the option to construct your own body.

 

I like what Smallbrook Studio have done with their O-16.5 range, providing kits to put other loco and wagon bodies on easily available chassies, and it certainly encouraged me to give that scale a go.

 

If someone could produce a few types of battery powered generic r/c chassis (0-6-0, Bo-Bo, multiple unit, etc) and a choice of bodies to fit them it might be an option for youngsters starting out. The chassies wouldn't be prototypical for every loco but it didn't stop people from buying early Hornby class 08s and other locos that weren't 100% right. Bodies could then be made for different markets but using the same chassis, and no doubt aftermarket bodies from different manufacturers would appear in time.

Edited August 15, 2020 by Binky

[The Johnster]

6 hours ago, Dunsignalling said:

 

They don't have a sufficiently extensive "back catalogue" of obsolete stuff to cascade into a budget range.

 

3 hours ago, PatB said:

6 hours ago, Dunsignalling said:

 

Wouldn't Bachmann/Kader have all (well, a lot anyway) of the old Mainline tooling? Not that there's a lot there relevant to a modern youngster, with the most up-to-date offering likely being the 56.

 

2 hours ago, Steamport Southport said:

 

Never understand this idea that kids like diesels. They don't.

The old Mainline range is a poisoned chalice that suffered well known and terminal problems with quartering in the split chassis.  They are not really ideal as children's beginner models even if you could retool them for nothing to run reliably; they were in fact the first generation of our modern hi fi models.  Children, by and large, like locos that look 'cute' and have coupling rods, steam or diesel.  

 

Older youngsters that are 'into railways' will be fans of the real railway and want to replicate it.  Few will have the room, even in N gauge, or resources.  

 

I am very old, so old that I am almost middle aged by railway modeller standards.  This means that I cut my teeth on Triang Rovex, and graduated in my teens as a result of Ratio kits and MRC into whitemetal kit locos and minimum 2' radius turnouts.  In those days, the RTR trade produced nothing of use to a serious modeller.  Very little of their output was to scale, detail was crude (although at the time I was in awe of Hornby Dublo Walchearts, and not many of the modellers whose layouts were featured in the magazines used any of their stuff.  

 

Nowadays the position is reversed; hi fi RTR is sold at prices comparable to those days when inflation is taken into account, certainly Hornby Dublo and Trix prices, and is reliable, scale, and highly detailed.  Those kits I tried so hard to get right and was so proud of in the 60s and 70s are now the crudely detailed, see the motor, no brakes or rodding, poor relations; RTR is better scaled, detailed, performing, and printed than them.  My high point was probably a Westward 64xx in the early 90s; lovely smooth performer and not badly built or finished though I say so myself.  The Bachmann knocks spots off it.

 

But you can't make highly detailed models that are robust enough for unsupervised use by children.  Fact of Life, inescapable. So, a range of cheap RTR that will be popular with children and the parents who have to stump up for it, the people who want a dmu for the price of 2 Railroad s/h coaches, needs to be to an entirely coarser scale, and a coarser wheel/rail profile.  A child needs to be able to put it on the track and it needs to go round 1' radius curves at a scale 200mph. Look at the original Trix Twin tinplate 00 to see what I mean.  Such a range can be built and marketed, fairly cheaply, but it will be incompatible with 00 standards and hence not a starter set or an introduction to the main stream hobby.  

 

Compatibility between manufacturers was for much of the first 40 years of RTR 00 a bane to modellers and manufacturers alike.  Coupling incompatibility is held to be as much a reason for Hornby Dublo's downfall as their retention of 3 rail; there is a folk memory of this in the trade and any attempt to diverge from 00 standards of couplings, wheel profiles, railhead profiles, or current supply will be met with a highly negative reaction.  So a proposed coarse scale starter toy range will never be produced by any of the current players; any such change will be regarded as commercial suicide, correctly IMHO.

 

I do not believe that the future of the hobby depends upon 'young blood coming in', impecunious youngsters who will follow in our footsteps.  I was one once, and there weren't many of us back then.  To a man (can't recall girls being involved) we gave it up for girls and came back to it with trainsets for the kids when the girls we'd given it up for got pregnant and we married them, to restart the hobby properly decades later when the kids had grown up,  or (as in my all to common case) when we'd finally re-established sufficient stability in our destroyed lives after the divorce.  There was a letter in the first MRC I bought in 1965 bemoaning the ageing and doomed state of the hobby, and a steady stream of such letters or posts online since.  'New' blood comes from where it's always come; promises to ourselves made by our younger selves that one day we'd have a layout.  Those of us that keep the promise, even poor pensioners like me, are sufficiently breaded up to buy models at the current cost; of course, we reserve the right to moan continually about the price of models.  Some of these guys are women these days.  

 

Believe me, ClayCross, for I have been around a long time and know a little whereof I speak, there are constants in this hobby.  Constant 1; the bulk of us have always been and will always be middle aged at the youngest, predominantly middle class, and predominantly white.  Constant 2; there has always been and will always be a core of dedicated and highly skilled younger modellers who will be one of the exceptions to Constant 1.  Constant 3.  Many of us started with a train set, but it's inadequacies led to us abandoning RTR and starting to build kits, or even scratch build.  Therefore, in reality RTR train sets were never what led us further into the hobby except in that we wanted to not have train sets any more, that was our own search for better models and improvements in our own modelling.  In some ways they held us back.  Constant 4; Model Railways are an expensive hobby, and nothing compatible with them can be made or sold cheaply.  Constant 5;  Children like playing with trains, but unless they grow to have a genuine enthusiasm for real railways, will grow out of it at about age 11.  Constant 6; There's not enough room.  Constant 7; It costs too much.  Constant 8; There's never enough time.  Never was, never will be.  Constant 9; completion of a difficult and troublesome scratch or kit build will provoke a hi fi RTR model announcement at half the cost the following week.  Constant 10; Johnster and soldering should never take place at the same point in the space/time continuum.

[The Johnster]

11 minutes ago, Binky said:

early Hornby class 08s and other locos that weren't 100% right

Or, perhaps more to the point, Wills bodyline kits that sat on seriously incorrect Triang or HD chassis.

[kevinlms]

5 minutes ago, The Johnster said:

Or, perhaps more to the point, Wills bodyline kits that sat on seriously incorrect Triang or HD chassis.

But several of the posts have advocated that approach, of having a small number of generic chassis, with interchangeable bodies.

So full circle, as for the last 20 years, the market has gone for as accurate as practical models, on specific chassis for the prototype intended!

[cctransuk]

On 13/08/2020 at 20:40, Claycrossjunction said:

My first train set was given to me by my late grandad it was a three rail Hornby Dublo brought for my father in 1961 my grandad was having a clear out in the loft when he found it .

 

So - even then - there was not budget range available; you had your Dad's cast-offs, rather than a new trainset from Hornby or Tri-ang.

 

So - what's changed, except the names of the manufacturers and the ease of acquiring other people's cast-offs?

 

John Isherwood.

[009 micro modeller]

36 minutes ago, Binky said:

 

I like what Smallbrook Studio have done with their O-16.5 range, providing kits to put other loco and wagon bodies on easily available chassies, and it certainly encouraged me to give that scale a go.

 

If someone could produce a few types of battery powered generic r/c chassis (0-6-0, Bo-Bo, multiple unit, etc) and a choice of bodies to fit them it might be an option for youngsters starting out. The chassies wouldn't be prototypical for every loco but it didn't stop people from buying early Hornby class 08s and other locos that weren't 100% right. Bodies could then be made for different markets but using the same chassis, and no doubt aftermarket bodies from different manufacturers would appear in time.

 

Smallbrook is incredibly close to the sort of thing I was thinking of, albeit without the battery-powered aspect (although it may be possible to fit this to Smallbrook locos). They do an increased range of scales these days, including 1:32 scale on 16.5mm and Gn15 as well as larger gauges, together with the IoW prototype 00 stuff as well. I must find a pretext to build a Smallbrook kit at some stage. (Usual disclaimer - I like Smallbrook but have no vested interest etc etc.). They even do the interchangeable parts thing I mentioned - boilers and cabs etc. can be shared between multiple different kits. For the purpose of encouraging beginners I think being resin is a bit of a pain, as it can cause dust issues if filed or sanded incorrectly and needs to be stuck with superglue or epoxy (when I was starting out, and even now really, I found the plastic/polystyrene cement combination much more relaxing, safe and forgiving of mistakes than anything involving superglue). The cost can also actually be quite high, once chassis and body are purchased and paint and details added. However, volume production by mainstream manufacturers could potentially drive costs down over time and make plastic moulding viable.

[F-UnitMad]

On 14/08/2020 at 17:07, Nearholmer said:

Isn’t that simply the definition of youth?

 

Oh, hang on a minute..... I don’t think the OP is all that youthful.

 

Hmmm.

 

 

 

He spells like one....  

[Philou]

@The Johnster Is this tin-plate enough for you? My original two TTR trains - they cost quite a bit relatively speaking back then. Just look at them - under fed, unrealistic and basically, well, carp. I don't think this would fit OP's bill really. OTOH, they have survived nearly 70 years this year. The blue one was bought the day I was born in 1950 (allegedly):

 

 

Cheers,

 

Philip

[Binky]

8 minutes ago, 009 micro modeller said:

 

Smallbrook is incredibly close to the sort of thing I was thinking of, albeit without the battery-powered aspect (although it may be possible to fit this to Smallbrook locos). They do an increased range of scales these days, including 1:32 scale on 16.5mm and Gn15 as well as larger gauges, together with the IoW prototype 00 stuff as well. I must find a pretext to build a Smallbrook kit at some stage. (Usual disclaimer - I like Smallbrook but have no vested interest etc etc.). They even do the interchangeable parts thing I mentioned - boilers and cabs etc. can be shared between multiple different kits. For the purpose of encouraging beginners I think being resin is a bit of a pain, as it can cause dust issues if filed or sanded incorrectly and needs to be stuck with superglue or epoxy (when I was starting out, and even now really, I found the plastic/polystyrene cement combination much more relaxing, safe and forgiving of mistakes than anything involving superglue). The cost can also actually be quite high, once chassis and body are purchased and paint and details added. However, volume production by mainstream manufacturers could potentially drive costs down over time and make plastic moulding viable.

 

So for the beginner modeller who wants to start making kits or this would be an option, especially if a larger manufaturer could produce plastic body kit parts cheaper. It seems to have a following in a few of the narrow and minimum gauge scales. They would need to sell chassies at the right price though, perhaps as a "chassis + choose your body" type deal, otherwise buying a small loco to discard the body and replace it with your own would be a false economy.

I'm not sure what age or level of skill the OP was thinking of but this system wouldn't be much help for those wanting a "train set" for their younger kids though (personally I think these do exist at a reasonable price), but might be a good compromise for those who remain interested long enough to want to start modelling particular rolling stock but on a budget.

[Phil Parker]

1 hour ago, kevinlms said:

But several of the posts have advocated that approach, of having a small number of generic chassis, with interchangeable bodies.

 

Look out for October's BRM for a modern take on this. Once I finish the words of course...