18B Posted August 28, 2013 Share Posted August 28, 2013 Given all the interest that the model railway part work has generated with it's £3:99 coach, it begs the question, (out of interest) "if" a range of these sorts of quality vehicles were available at say £4:99, would you buy one/or more? I appreciate there has been some OTT interest in the novelty value that these have brought and thus on a more general sale, there might not be the same enthusiasm, especially as they would not be as widely available as the magazine version. For example I've often wanted a garden railway, and liked the idea of a rake of 8 or 9 MkI's behind a Peak, these would seem ideal. Be interesting to hear others thoughts. I appreciate also that there is a Hornby Railroad Range. And I can see that they have brought a new MkI range out, at £17:95, http://www.Hornby.com/shop/Hornby-railroad/railroad-rolling-stock/?page=3 now unless hachette were making a loss on each of these issue 1's (unlikely?) take away the track piece and the magazine etc, it would appear that these coaches have been made for around £3 each? Thus could a limited range be made and sold at under £5 each? Link to post Share on other sites More sharing options...
Baby Deltic Posted August 28, 2013 Share Posted August 28, 2013 To be honest, in a lot of ways I prefer the £4.99 coach to the Hornby 'Railroad' coach. It has the correct sized wheels, a nicer coupler and the flush glaze looks better. If they were 'off the peg' by a manufacturer, I'd buy more if I needed to 'bulk out' my coaching stock. As a cheap 'entry level' (for want of a suitable marketing bullsh*t term) they are ideal. Also, if they are damaged by a youngster, its would be cheaper for hard up parents to go and buy another replacement. Link to post Share on other sites More sharing options...
RMweb Premium Trainshed Terry Posted August 28, 2013 RMweb Premium Share Posted August 28, 2013 I have had a look at the coach in question it needs a lot of work as the do not have any running numbers, but you could put your preferred running numbers on. It looks as it is a hybrid Mk1 from 2 company's, the chassis looks like Bachmann and the body shell is from Hornby. Link to post Share on other sites More sharing options...
stewartingram Posted August 28, 2013 Share Posted August 28, 2013 I strongly suspect if this a partwork, then the Issue 1 WILL be very much a loss-leader, to drag you into buying the entire series! I also suspect the manufacturing costs (NOT including the R&D costs, already paid for in a previously releaed model) are acyually cheap, possibly doubling at every stage of the retail chain from factory to end-user?. An established model from a previously issued range, bought in bulk by a publisher like this, would be seen as manna from heaven for the manufacturer, especially if it also had a downgraded specifiacation. Stewart Link to post Share on other sites More sharing options...
gordon s Posted August 28, 2013 Share Posted August 28, 2013 Sorry guys, this must be the third of fourth topic on the same subject... See http://www.rmweb.co.uk/community/index.php?/topic/52594-model-railway-partwork-your-model-railway-village/ Link to post Share on other sites More sharing options...
18B Posted August 28, 2013 Author Share Posted August 28, 2013 At £17:95, the Hornby Railroard mkI would have to dam good to beat the £3:99 coach for value. What I;d like to see, Passenger: The coach already produced, A half brake A BG Freight, A TTA tank (Railroad to be fair already do 3 for £15:99 ish) so would need to be below that. 16 ton mineral wagon VEA or similar, 20 ton brake van Link to post Share on other sites More sharing options...
18B Posted August 28, 2013 Author Share Posted August 28, 2013 Sorry guys, this must be the third of fourth topic on the same subject... See http://www.rmweb.co.uk/community/index.php?/topic/52594-model-railway-partwork-your-model-railway-village/ this thread is specifically asking the question, "can it be done - a coach under £5, would you buy more and what would you like to see" it is not discussing the partwork magazine adn the coach that came with that, this thread was approved by the moderator. Link to post Share on other sites More sharing options...
The Dorset Wanderer Posted August 28, 2013 Share Posted August 28, 2013 This is a loss leader with a length of straight track- if anyone really thinks that this will spawn a spate of coaches at £3.99 get real- there will be ructions if the wagons are more than a pound- ain't going to happen. Coach doesn't match anything previous?- of course it won't! Make the most of this there won't be a range at this price. Steve Link to post Share on other sites More sharing options...
18B Posted August 28, 2013 Author Share Posted August 28, 2013 if anyone really thinks that this will spawn a spate of coaches at £3.99 get real- there will be ructions if the wagons are more than a pound- ain't going to happen. Coach doesn't match anything previous?- of course it won't! Make the most of this there won't be a range at this price. Steve The question was whether it could be done for £4:99, if Hachette Partworks were losing £2 on each £3:99 sale, that would still make them only £5:99. The question is how much realistically can they be made for? Link to post Share on other sites More sharing options...
The Dorset Wanderer Posted August 28, 2013 Share Posted August 28, 2013 I doubt wether any industry would publish their production costs. Chinese copies are on the rise so these may be from a non manufactured source -see copies on e-bay sometimes- so cross my palm etc. Not a question I fear that will recieve a meaningful answer. Link to post Share on other sites More sharing options...
andyman7 Posted August 28, 2013 Share Posted August 28, 2013 To be honest, in a lot of ways I prefer the £4.99 coach to the Hornby 'Railroad' coach. The new Hornby Railroad Mk1s (the £17.95 ones) haven't yet appeared so I'm not sure how you can objectively compare them! Link to post Share on other sites More sharing options...
Baby Deltic Posted August 28, 2013 Share Posted August 28, 2013 The new Hornby Railroad Mk1s (the £17.95 ones) haven't yet appeared so I'm not sure how you can objectively compare them! Ok, compared to the 'standard' Hornby MK1. Link to post Share on other sites More sharing options...
RMweb Gold The Stationmaster Posted August 28, 2013 RMweb Gold Share Posted August 28, 2013 I remember years ago seeing a breakdown of production, packing, shipping and advertising costs for some model railway vehicles produced in China and I think the factory gate price was around about 10%-15% of the UK RRP. I know Chinese costs have risen but also models have got more complex and that has further increased cost but you can reckon still, and on their own figures that Hornby are making a trade level markup of around 25-40% on many items. Allow then that the trade price for the present year is around 20-30% below RRP depending on what the item is and you can get pretty close to the gross cost. So on very rough figuring a Mk1 coach at £18 RRP would be sold to the trade at a price somewhere between £12 and £13.50, knock off Hornby's mark up at, say 30% and you get a basic cost (including allocated overheads) of c.£8 - 9. Take out the overheads and the packaging and you can probably knock off another 20%, maybe more- which gives a 'back of the fag packet cost off the assembly line of c.£6.50 -7.20, possibly a bit less. But then if your reduce assembly costs with a simplified underframe, moulding, only one colour application of bodyside printing and self coloured plastic for the body plus one piece bogies with just wheelsets inserted it begins to look as if the most labour intensive part of the job was assembling the couplings. Throw in minimal tooling costs based on using tools from an existing or past line of models and only make a single version which requires the production line to be set up once. I don't know what the experts thing but you're probably looking at a cost of less than £3 and certainly not much more - possibly even less for a large order? Go back to making what the Uk market - or a goodly part of it - seems to want and you're back to the bigger cost numbers. Link to post Share on other sites More sharing options...
andyman7 Posted August 29, 2013 Share Posted August 29, 2013 Ok, compared to the 'standard' Hornby MK1. Fair enough - but remember the current Hornby offering is basically an updated version of the original (1962) Triang tooling, and I would agree that the Hachette Mk1 is a few generations ahead! BTW, the current Hornby Mk1 one isn't sold as a solo item anymore - it's just used in train packs. I would expect that the new Railroad versions will have considerably better underframe detail than the highly simplified Hachette offering, as well as being fully decorated (i.e. numbered etc!). Anyhow, we shall see... Link to post Share on other sites More sharing options...
Glorious NSE Posted August 29, 2013 Share Posted August 29, 2013 Thus could a limited range be made and sold at under £5 each? I suspect it's technically possible if they sold direct (or maybe packaged via high-st stores) - but: 1. Who is going to develop that into a business model? 2. How likely is that to remain a profitable business model past the initial blip where everybody says 'wow!' and rushes out to buy multiple numbers of the first release. Link to post Share on other sites More sharing options...
cheesysmith Posted August 29, 2013 Share Posted August 29, 2013 I wonder using this priciple of simpilfied model how much you could make a bog standard 16 ton dia 108 mineral wagon for? Let's brake it down. 1 mold for the self coloured grey body. 2 mold for the under frame in black 3 mold for the brakes A pair of axles A pair of Hornsby/Bachmann copies/couplings Make the above clip together, then 2 printing passes, 1 for the black box for the data panel and a second for the white for the wording in the data panel and the white line for the end door. Pack in a plastic bag with a card label stapled onto the top, with whatever printing on the card? I could imagine something like this on modelshop racks cheaply hung up, just waiting for people to pick up a few at a time. Link to post Share on other sites More sharing options...
Glorious NSE Posted August 29, 2013 Share Posted August 29, 2013 What are you doing that's different to the Hornby 'railroad' range? Link to post Share on other sites More sharing options...
RMweb Gold Ramblin Rich Posted August 29, 2013 RMweb Gold Share Posted August 29, 2013 What are you doing that's different to the Hornby 'railroad' range? Selling it for much less money! Link to post Share on other sites More sharing options...
18B Posted August 29, 2013 Author Share Posted August 29, 2013 Selling it for much less money! Given the £3:99 and what a couple of pounds at the manufacturing stage could do, at say £5:99, for a coach with basic lettering, etc, the Hornby railroad coach at £17:99 would have to go some to beet that. Link to post Share on other sites More sharing options...
298 Posted August 29, 2013 Share Posted August 29, 2013 I must be getting old.... not so long ago you could get coaches for a fiver and wagons for a bit less at swapmeets, and the secondhand trays under the tables must still be full of them. I think we've found the next "Limby Railroad Green Warship" model, any talk of über cheap models is just a waste of materials and production slots when there is so much secondhand tat available. Link to post Share on other sites More sharing options...
Glorious NSE Posted August 29, 2013 Share Posted August 29, 2013 Selling it for much less money! I think that's my point - if 'Railroad' haven't managed to get it 'cheap enough' for people (and you can get brand-new £5 wagons) using existing, simple, fully depreciated tooling, then you'd need to be doing something fundamentally different to the way they do things already.....and that's not what's being suggested. One of the keys to how cheap you can make it is how many do you expect to sell, as the bigger run you can spread your development costs over then the cheaper the unit price is. So - what's the market size for a £3 (retail) mineral wagon, the same as the Bachmann one (currenly about £8.50?) but effectively with much less chassis detail? How many will you sell? Link to post Share on other sites More sharing options...
cheesysmith Posted August 29, 2013 Share Posted August 29, 2013 The other option is how much the assembly costs in china would be for a basic wagon like a 16 ton'er would be, and would it be better supplying it as a complete painted model just requiring clipping together like the Dapol coaches ? Link to post Share on other sites More sharing options...
(The) Youth Posted August 29, 2013 Share Posted August 29, 2013 The advert is becoming rather tedious already Link to post Share on other sites More sharing options...
cheesysmith Posted August 29, 2013 Share Posted August 29, 2013 have to admit that I haven't even seen the advert yet, any free second I use to either tidy up after my little spawn of satins I call my children or if its tidy to try and build some kits. the only thing I used to watch was top gear, nowt else interesting on the brain fader lately. Link to post Share on other sites More sharing options...
(The) Youth Posted August 29, 2013 Share Posted August 29, 2013 on nearly every break on itv4 when I've been watching it today Link to post Share on other sites More sharing options...
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