BR(S) Posted December 24, 2014 Share Posted December 24, 2014 According to yesterday's City AM, there was an increase in the sale of "electric model trains and their accessories" from £8.6m in 2008 to £20.6m in 2013. Not many specific details, but a small paragraph and graph here: http://www.cityam.com/206195/christmas-trends-turkey-sales-163-cent-wine-loses-its-sparkle?utm_medium=Email&utm_source=Email&utm_campaign=141223_CMU "In 2013 people spent £272.7m on toys manufactured in the UK. The ONS identifies toy trains as a perfect barometer for Christmas opulence, and the value of train sets (and similar toys) sold in 2013 was £20.6m, a 138.5 per cent increase on the 2008 total of £8.6m." Link to post Share on other sites More sharing options...
RMweb Gold TheSignalEngineer Posted December 24, 2014 RMweb Gold Share Posted December 24, 2014 Is that at base price or including inflation? I didn't but much new in 2008, but what I did get and is still available (or very close equivalent) is about twice the RRP now. The biggest jump on the graph is 2011-13, whet the amount spent doubled. Did we really buy twice as much? I suspect we bought the same amount, or possibly less, but at the new prices. Link to post Share on other sites More sharing options...
Poggy1165 Posted December 24, 2014 Share Posted December 24, 2014 I find this intriguing in context. On the one hand it's clear the hobby isn't dying. On the other hand, the text seems to be talking about the sales of 'train sets' particularly at Christmas. I should have thought the days when every little Johnny got a train set for Christmas are long gone. In general (I'm sure there are exceptions!) children seem to have moved on to other toys. So I wonder what it is they are actually measuring. Is it actually everything spent on model railways, or some subset within that? Link to post Share on other sites More sharing options...
gordon s Posted December 24, 2014 Share Posted December 24, 2014 The sub heading 'manufactured in the UK' is pushing the truth a little…. Link to post Share on other sites More sharing options...
Pacific231G Posted December 24, 2014 Share Posted December 24, 2014 This is slightly curious. The chart indicates "electric model trains and their accessories" Manufactured in the UK. So who would that be? Not much of the sales by the mass market firms like Hornby and Bachman surely who still mostly manufacture in China. That leaves who? Peco I suppose and the many but relatively small specialist suppliers (assuming that the ONS picks them up in their statistics) but who else? It seems that the ONS has identified "electric model trains" as toys and they or City AM have simply assumed that the traditional train set Is still the backbone of model railways as a market. I rather doubt whether the "train set" market that the ONS identifies as a Christmas marker is that large a part of the market for "electric model trains and their accessories". I could be wrong but aren't adult collectors now a far bigger part of the market than youngsters being given model trains as toys? Link to post Share on other sites More sharing options...
Pacific231G Posted December 24, 2014 Share Posted December 24, 2014 I've now taken a closer look at the category and it covers a lot more than model railways. 32402000 (CN 9503003) - Electric model trains and their accessories; other scale models; scale model assembly kits; construction sets and constructional toys. This would presumably include Lego (possibly larger than the whole model railway sector) and Meccano which are both imported from the EU, along with model cars, plastic construction kits and so on. I'm not sure where City AM got the figure of £20.6M from as the ONS PRODCOM figure for UK manufacturing in this category is £22.625 M but they may now have final rather than provisional figures for 2013. If you go to the ONS website the relevant spreadsheet is Division 32 - Other Manufacturing - 2013 Provisional Estimates (Excel sheet 1108Kb) category 32402000 is about a third the way down the very long spreadsheet. This shows that most imports in this category are from the EU rather than the rest of the world which is interesting given Chinese production but 80% of our exports are also to the EU. The value of exports from the UK is much larger than the value of UK production so I assume that it includes goods imported to Britain then re-exported. The overall and rather depressing figure is that Britain only exports a fifth of what it imports in this category so we clearly need a lot more companies like Peco. Link to post Share on other sites More sharing options...
34theletterbetweenB&D Posted December 24, 2014 Share Posted December 24, 2014 ...the 2008 total of £8.6m." As ever, one first needs to know what that figure actually represents. I think it is plain wrong if that's retail value of UK model railway sales, because of a single memorable event in 2008 for which an ordinary member of the public actually knows the sales figures. In early 2008 the NRM shipped 500 x £150 DP1s, and 2,500 x £100 DP1s = £ 325,000 at retail, best part of 4% of that quoted total figure for 2008. That's too large a share of the total market for that single limited edition. IMHO. I might believe the quoted numbers relate to a single large and successful retail outfit's annual take... Link to post Share on other sites More sharing options...
Pacific231G Posted December 24, 2014 Share Posted December 24, 2014 As ever, one first needs to know what that figure actually represents. I think it is plain wrong if that's retail value of UK model railway sales, because of a single memorable event in 2008 for which an ordinary member of the public actually knows the sales figures. In early 2008 the NRM shipped 500 x £150 DP1s, and 2,500 x £100 DP1s = £ 325,000 at retail, best part of 4% of that quoted total figure for 2008. That's too large a share of the total market for that single limited edition. IMHO. I might believe the quoted numbers relate to a single large and successful retail outfit's annual take... The PRODCOM figures relate to UK manufactures so would be at trade not retail prices. Most, about 90% in 2013 and more in the preceding three years, of the UK market for these products of which model railways are only part anyway* is satisfied by imports. The NRM Deltic Prototype 1 models were made by Bachmann so presumably manufactured in China and would thererfore only represent 0.3 or 0.4% of the total UK market. The overall figures for Toys and Games manufactured in the UK shows a steady decline between 2008 and 2012 so the part of that sector that includes model railways seems to be doing rather better. Industry: Manufacture of games and toys (SIC 32400): 2008 £205M; 2009 £210M; 2010 £171; 2011 £162; 2012 £155 (source ONS: UK Manufacturers' Sales by Industry for 2008 to 2012) *The Combined Nomenclature (CN) code in the ONS stats (CN9503003) seems to include 3 EU categories. 95030030 - Electric trains, incl. tracks, signals and other accessories therefor; reduced-size "scale" model assembly kits 95030035 - Construction sets and constructional toys, of plastics (excl. scale model assembly kits) 95030039 - Construction sets and constructional toys (excl. of plastic and scale model assembly kits) From this is does seems that the EU if not the ONS realises that "electric trains" are not necessarily toys. Link to post Share on other sites More sharing options...
Vanders Posted December 25, 2014 Share Posted December 25, 2014 Even if we allow for inflation, both actual inflation and rising prices, prices haven't nearly tripled since 2009. So that's certainly very positive; it wasn't long ago that Hornby were giving profits warnings. Hang on, 2009 is roughly when I got back into modelling. I didn't realise I'd bought that much... Link to post Share on other sites More sharing options...
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