Model prices and costs of bringing manufacturing back to the UK?

[Northmoor]

3 hours ago, Michael Hodgson said:

That's only because robot technology isn't yet up to it.  Greater precision will need even more specialist machine, which will in all probability be designed and built by other machines.

 

Time will tell. 

And those specialist machines will be purchased by manufacturers knocking out complex components equivalent to an entire locomotive production run in two hours.   The machines will get better and relatively cheaper, but they will still be devoted to markets that demand far more units an hour.  Programming the robot won't be cheap, this is specialist work so consider £50/hr minimum, probably double or treble that.  You then need to write that off (and all the testing, prototyping etc.) over no more than 2000 units. 

 

Sorry, but there is no getting away from the fact that model locomotives is an incredibly niche market and getting more so; look at the obscure prototypes being produced as all the mainstream types have already been made.  The days of Hornby making a model of Flying Scotsman that they could sell 50,000 of are long gone.

[jpendle]

4 minutes ago, Andy Hayter said:

DCC Chips and components - Far East? 

 

Actually no. Roco mainly use Zimo decoders and these are made in Vienna by Zimo.

 

Regards,

 

John P

[Derekl]

Where are Heljan made?

[St. Simon]

On 11/10/2022 at 18:51, Derekl said:

Where are Heljan made?

China, in the exact same factories as a couple of other UK manufactures (and I assume manufacturers in other countries)

 

Simon

Edited October 19, 2022 by St. Simon

[pete_mcfarlane]

You can get RTR locos that are manufactured in the UK.

 

7mm scale, detailed, very expensive (but look like they are worth every penny)

https://www.djhmodelloco.co.uk/product-category/ready-to-runs/

 

4mm scale, less detailed but more expensive than Hornby or Bachmann. Also look like they are worth every penny. 

https://www.ooworks.co.uk/products

 

 

[Andy Hayter]

2 hours ago, jpendle said:

 

Actually no. Roco mainly use Zimo decoders and these are made in Vienna by Zimo.

 

Regards,

 

John P

 

Made - or assembled?  the vast majority of components come from the Far East.

[jpendle]

3 hours ago, Andy Hayter said:

 

Made - or assembled?  the vast majority of components come from the Far East.

Zimo's decoders, which are Printed Circuit Board Assemblies, are made in Vienna. I took your DCC chip statement as referring to decoders rather than the microcontroller chips that are used in their manufacture.

 

Most people on this, and other forums, commonly refer to DCC decoders as DCC chips.

 

Regards,

 

John P

[dpgibbons]

China advantage isn't just low cost - as the world's toy factory, it has a vast ecosystem of component and service suppliers that has no equivalent in the UK.   

[The Johnster]

I’d say that it’s extremely unlikely that we will see volume RTR production return to the UK  from the Far East.  Our manufacturers all switched to Chinese subcontractors in the 90s, except Bachmann who are Chinese owned anyway, but work in the same way, because costs were spiralling here and the market was demanding ever more detailed scale models which required a lot of discrete components to assemble.  This is a labour-intensive way of doing things but the Chinese are very good at it, not to mention very good at organising production of components in what are effectively cottage industry factories and bringing them together at asingle facility for assembly and packing, ‘just in time’ logistics; this would be a nightmare if it was attempted here, a bunfight of sub-contractors blaming each other for delays and poor QC. 
 

The principle reason for subcontracting in China back in the 90s was that China could offer a combination of high quality product, reliable delivery, and low unit cost because of their low labour costs, the result of low wages that were acceptable to workers who were on waiting lists for Flying Pigeon bicycles.  We were more than happy to exploit this and for a ling time enjoyed high quality product at insanely low prices.  Seems a little churlish to me to complain now that the fun is over and prices are rising.  Chinese workers rightly demand proper recompense for their efforts, at the same time as the world’s economy is going into recession and inflation while the global transport network has not fully recovered from the Ever Given mess and war in Ukraine  is panicking the markets, a perfect storm of problems that translate to higher prices.  
 

But the cat’s been out of the bag for 30 years, and there is no RTR company in the UK that could raise the capital to start producing here even if the skilled workers could be found.  There may be people regretting the decision 30 years ago to relinquish home production, but the companies have had 30 years of higher profits and we’ve had 30 years of ever-higher quality models at ridiculously low prices.  We’ve done well out of the exploited Chinese and most of us have no conscience about that!  Time to accept that it costs what it costs, and not being able to afford a hobby is a classic first world problem.  In fact most of us are comfortably off with good amounts of disposable income (not all, and not me!), and will moan about the price at the same time as as complaining about having orders cancelled because of over-ordering by the boxshifters; sounds a bit entitled to me!

 

[jjb1970]

1 hour ago, The Johnster said:

We’ve done well out of the exploited Chinese and most of us have no conscience about that!  

 

 

Exploited, probably, but the Chinese also exploited the developed world to develop. China and the west made a perfectly logical and pragmatic deal, they'd sell arguably their biggest assets (low cost skilled labour) in return for economic development, the Western world would transfer capital, expertise and jobs in return for cheap and high quality goods. The Chinese understood this and we should not underestimate them. Thirty years ago China was basically a third world country outside of a few small areas of downtown Shanghai, Beijing and other urban centres and you didn't have to explore very far to run into full on poverty. Now I visit China and if I look around and then compare with Europe and North America I have to question which parts of the world now looks rich. Therefore I'm not sure there's any reason to feel conscience stricken about buying Chinese made models, quite the opposite if anything.

[fulton]

3 hours ago, jjb1970 said:

 

 Now I visit China and if I look around and then compare with Europe and North America I have to question which parts of the world now looks rich.

Interesting point, I think we, in Europe, have a very outdated view of the world outside of Europe, especially Asia, a few years ago when one of my African workmates went back to The Gambia, he always took a collection of old mobile phones as they were in great demand, today he says no one is interested as they can buy all the latest phones, he also says China is everywhere, building roads, railways, stadiums, hospitals etc. in exchange for raw materials and influence.

Edited October 12, 2022 by fulton
correction

[jjb1970]

9 minutes ago, fulton said:

Interesting point, I think we have a very outdated view of the world outside Europe, especially Asia, a few years ago when one of my African workmates went back to The Gambia, he always took a collection of old mobile phones as they were in great demand, today he says no one is interested as they can buy all the latest phones, he also says China is everywhere, building roads, railways, stadiums hospitals etc. in exchange for raw materials and influence.

 

Undoubtedly. The world has been developing and Asia in particular is increasingly the centre of wealth, technology and with geopolitics shifting toward Asia. There's a reason the US is tilting Eastward. Africa has also developed hugely. This is a railway enthusiast website, the Chinese high speed railway network is quite staggering, and has developed at a pace most other countries couldn't dream of.

[Andy Hayter]

7 hours ago, The Johnster said:

 

But the cat’s been out of the bag for 30 years, and there is no RTR company in the UK that could raise the capital to start producing here even if the skilled workers could be found.  

 

 

While I agree with most of what you have written, I have to correct the idea that it is capital investment that is stopping production in the UK.  There are plenty of contract moulding companies in the UK who could produce the components.  Remember that the Chinese operations are virtually all contract moulding operations. 

 

What is lacking however as you allude to is the lack of skilled workers for the assembly who will work for sub-minimum wage income.    That being the case, these UK moulders are more interested in producing finished products than post-production assembly operations.  So food containers, crates, stillages etc are no problem.  Maybe buckets, that require a handle to be fitted, will be commercially interesting but detailed locomotive is really just beyond them.  We see this in Dapol producing some/all of their wagons in the UK (minimal and simple assembly) but not more complicated assembly operations like locomotives.  

 

Just to reinforce this point, the last time I looked in detail at a Kader annual report, the major income came from housewares and not model railways.

 

So just to make this completely clear, it is detailed assembly (skills and costs) that is the roadblock to local production and not the investment required which will be very similar whether in the UK or China.    

[Craigw]

16 hours ago, jpendle said:

 

Actually no. Roco mainly use Zimo decoders and these are made in Vienna by Zimo.

 

Regards,

 

John P

 

They will be assembled in Vienna, it is exceedingly unlikely that any components within the assembly originate from there. The very vast majority of the components including the PCB will originate in the far east

[HonestTom]

21 hours ago, Phil Parker said:

 

If people don't want all the "bling", why is it that the full-fat versions of Bachmann's Class 47 sell out first?

 

Or why you regularily read on this very forum, people talking about replacing fleets of not very old locos with the latest version?

I think then the question is, would people want these features if they weren't available? I don't recall anyone clamouring for opening cab doors etc. It was simply accepted that they were things that weren't practical and, for the vast majority of modellers, were of little use. 

 

19 hours ago, Northmoor said:

And those specialist machines will be purchased by manufacturers knocking out complex components equivalent to an entire locomotive production run in two hours.   The machines will get better and relatively cheaper, but they will still be devoted to markets that demand far more units an hour.  Programming the robot won't be cheap, this is specialist work so consider £50/hr minimum, probably double or treble that.  You then need to write that off (and all the testing, prototyping etc.) over no more than 2000 units. 

 

Couldn't similar things be said of any new manufacturing technology? For that matter, what's to stop the manufacturers from cranking their own models out on their own machines?

 

Technology advances incredibly fast these days. It's not so long ago that 3D printers cost thousands of pounds and could only produce models that looked like they'd been carved out of a stack of cards. These days you can buy a high-fidelity printer for less than the cost of a new locomotive, and there are people on eBay cranking out models comparable to those of the main manufacturers at a fraction of the cost.

[jjb1970]

3 hours ago, Craigw said:

 

They will be assembled in Vienna, it is exceedingly unlikely that any components within the assembly originate from there. The very vast majority of the components including the PCB will originate in the far east

 

This is why the whole 'made in x' thing is so problematic. I think it has been true all my life that there are very very few products which are completely made in a single country other than the most simple, but in todays world of global logistics chains products can have components and sub-assemblies from all over the place. Probably not so much model trains, but larger items really do utilize globally integrated supply chains.

[Phil Parker]

25 minutes ago, HonestTom said:

I think then the question is, would people want these features if they weren't available? I don't recall anyone clamouring for opening cab doors etc. It was simply accepted that they were things that weren't practical and, for the vast majority of modellers, were of little use. 

 

On that basis, go and buy some Hornby Dublo. However, modellers have been clamouring for more and more detail since the Airfix GMR days. More importantly, they have been putting their money where their mouth is and buying the hi-fi locomotives. Look at any of the new entrants in the market, they are aiming at the top end because that's where they see the sales. No-one is producing a cheaper less-detailed range apart from Hornby's Railroad. Cab doors may be a red herring, but there has certainly been demand for all the dangly bits on the front of diesels - firstly supplied by the aftermarket and later by the manufacturers themselves. It's the same with seperatly fitted handrails.

 

29 minutes ago, HonestTom said:

These days you can buy a high-fidelity printer for less than the cost of a new locomotive, and there are people on eBay cranking out models comparable to those of the main manufacturers at a fraction of the cost.

 

Go on then. Point us at a 3D printed RTR loco at a fraction of the price and the same standard.

[Free At Last]

38 minutes ago, jjb1970 said:

 

This is why the whole 'made in x' thing is so problematic. I think it has been true all my life that there are very very few products which are completely made in a single country other than the most simple, but in todays world of global logistics chains products can have components and sub-assemblies from all over the place. Probably not so much model trains, but larger items really do utilize globally integrated supply chains.

I recently bought a new portable radio, it has on the back 'BUILT IN ANTENNA', I don't even know where that is.

[TheQ]

It's not the plastic body that is the  real cost, that could be 3 D printed it doesn't take long to pay of the mould costs these days. It's the mechanics and their assembly  into the body, that is the big cost. if you could 3d print those. then the cost would come down.

Edited October 12, 2022 by TheQ

[jjb1970]

It's often been said as a joke, yet a joke with a some truth in it, that some of the finest railway modellers in the world are Asian ladies in China, Japan and Korea. If I look at the standard of assembly and finish of factory made Asian brass models they're quite remarkable, and those really are basically just batch built brass kits.

[D9020 Nimbus]

23 hours ago, Phil Parker said:

 

If people don't want all the "bling", why is it that the full-fat versions of Bachmann's Class 47 sell out first?

To answer that , I'd need to know how many of each version they make. Perhaps they make only a tiny amount of the "sound fitted deluxe" versions?

[jjb1970]

There's more than one way to skin a cat (though I'd hope nobody takes that one literally and actually does skin cats). Japan is an example of two rival companies which have gone in different directions, and which appear to have found their own niche. Kato Japan HO (1/80) models were simplified a few years ago. The standard models are superbly moulded and finished and with Kato's trademark silky smooth mechanisms, but they binned the mountains of add on parts and ship as very good but basic models (they're still very good). Kato then sell super detail packs to upgrade them, some of which include templates for drilling out holes to fit parts, avoiding holes dotted around the body if people don't go in for the super detail kits. Tomix decided to offer a split range but their core offering from what I can see is the high end prestige series which are rather expensive. Both companies seem to do OK and have found a market for their products.

[melmerby]

1 hour ago, HonestTom said:

These days you can buy a high-fidelity printer for less than the cost of a new locomotive, and there are people on eBay cranking out models comparable to those of the main manufacturers at a fraction of the cost.

You must access to a different eBay to me, I have yet to see 3D printed loco bodies that come near to the fine detail on injection moulded ones.

OK for niche models where some after market fettling is acceptable but not the Main Range stuff.

 

[Halvarras]

4 hours ago, Andy Hayter said:

 

What is lacking however as you allude to is the lack of skilled workers for the assembly who will work for sub-minimum wage income.    That being the case, these UK moulders are more interested in producing finished products than post-production assembly operations.  So food containers, crates, stillages etc are no problem.  Maybe buckets, that require a handle to be fitted, will be commercially interesting but detailed locomotive is really just beyond them.  We see this in Dapol producing some/all of their wagons in the UK (minimal and simple assembly) but not more complicated assembly operations like locomotives.  

 

Just to reinforce this point, the last time I looked in detail at a Kader annual report, the major income came from housewares and not model railways.

 

So just to make this completely clear, it is detailed assembly (skills and costs) that is the roadblock to local production and not the investment required which will be very similar whether in the UK or China.    

 

That's much the conclusion I came to when I did a quick random survey of products on sale in a local establishment which offers a broad (ahem) 'Range' of goods - the only items I could find NOT made in China were plastic storage containers (UK) and nylon dog chews (USA) - neither requiring any assembly (even the box lids were available separately!)

 

I didn't give the model assembly situation much thought until I bought a Kernow Adams '02' and examined the exploded parts list - crikey! Not only are we paying for very nimble fingers to assemble complex kits, and do so consistently over several thousand, these kits are to a large extent assembled in the reverse order to the approach we would adopt as modellers, i.e. individual parts are sprayed and tampo-printed first, then assembled with masses of exterior detail glued on. It would scare me doing one model this way! Since doing so requires just the right amount of glue to be used, again consistently and a skill in itself, it's perhaps not surprising we often receive models with odd bits loose in the box.

 

We did have it too good for a time, a conclusion I came to when I was buying fully-finished Bachmann Presflo cement wagons for not a whole lot more than an unassembled Dapol ex-Airfix 1960s-era plastic kit - that was great, but frankly a bonkers situation. Considering how complex modern locomotive models have become, especially the features and electronic circuitry in diesel locos, IMHO I don't think it's necessarily a question of new models being too expensive - our view was skewed by previous locomotives being too cheap for what they were, e.g. Bachmann Class 25s for £50 (and that was the version with lights too). That wasn't realistic - what we have now probably is, with prices closer to those on the continent. With the standard of living rising in China - and who can argue with such aspirations - this was surely inevitable.

 

One other point, I don't see cutting costs by supplying many parts on sprues for purchasers to fit as a solution - ViTrains tried it and it wasn't popular. In magazines and at exhibitions I've seen disc-headcode diesels running without discs and Dapol Class 22s without side valances fitted, and in many cases with  weathering applied despite being incomplete! Fitting detail parts doesn't bother me, but then I've been in this hobby since 1966 and was building Airfix kits years in advance of that so I've had a bit of practice.....🙂

[HonestTom]

5 minutes ago, Phil Parker said:

 

 

Go on then. Point us at a 3D printed RTR loco at a fraction of the price and the same standard.

I can't and I never said I could. I simply said that manufacturing technology is advancing very quickly and gave an example of a way in which this is happening, not "it is possible right now for a bloke in his shed to be Hornby."

 

It's kind of beside my original point, but since people asked, what I specifically had in mind was these wagons, with which I have experience. These duplicate Bachmann's own Talyllyn slate wagons. Now, it is fair to say that they aren't quite ready-to-run - they do need painting and couplings fitted. However, they come with wheels fitted and the couplings included, plus loads. I got my entire rake running on my layout, including basic painting and light weathering, in under an hour. I'm by no means a skilled modeller. The detail is crisp, certainly on a par with Bachmann's version of the same model, and the build quality is also to a high standard. Three of the Bachmann models will typically set you back a little over £40 from the box shifters and this gentleman is offering six for £25 (in both cases, this is before P&P). While there is a certain amount of fettling involved, it's no more than is required to fit the additional details to a modern RTR locomotive and for the cost saving, it's worth it IMO.