This level of detailing on

This level of detailing on some of these new products is fascinating,...BUT aren't all these superdetailing add ons subject to handling damage in a lot of our usage?

These cars are made for display cases more than use on our everyday layouts. And $50 plus for one freight car is certainly getting out of my price range,....and I imagine a lot of the younger generation just getting into the hobby.

Cost

Scratch building is looking more appealing maybe. I have quit buying freight cars as I have more then my RR can hold. Same with locos.

One of the things I have picked up from the small layout topic is that there must be a huge number of small layouts around the world. My next door neighbor who is into 3 rail and On30 works in an industrial plant. He says there are around 10 or so other model railroaders working there. All of them have the typical 4 x 8 in a spare room or their basement.

I have been waiting for the new Peco turnouts to show up and wondering what their cost will be. Inflation will eat up a lot of extra money laying in bank accounts. When sales start to drop if they do prices will start to drop maybe. If you look at the economic history in this country prices go up and up and then they drop and drop a lot. That cycle is way over due.

Jack

A learning process

I find some things now kinda strange in HO rolling stock.

It has to be a  rare car for me to buy R-T-R.

The history of the cars I build or kit bash makes the project even more of a joy.

From PROTO 2000, to old Front Range and even McKean that I built,  agree with Brian, "some ARE too fragile for me to set on rail".

But a strange thing over at Hobby-Lobby outlet last wk.  Had Bachmann Rail Chief (DC) for $65.00.  Never been opened.

Cars had body mount, some had end ID.  Not what I found in past yrs.

GP-40 runs very smooth w/ TECH II.

Is the Hobby going to make train sets too high as investment  for beginner and the Christmas Tree crowd?

Or do we see the creative part of the modelers increase?

Comes down to disposable income I guess!

Boudreaux,  Shop foreman B.C.E.  some times

Inflation, do to the flood of money in the system

Not sure where all of you have been over the last 12 something months,  Inflation is going way up.  No one notice that free money handed out by the US Government?

Between Me, The Wife and the Kids.  The US Government sent us ridiculous amount of FREE Money that we did not ask for.  Last year we got more money back than we paid in Taxes,  I find rather odd.  considering that I'm so used to paying lots taxes all my life and never breaking even or getting something back.  I have always paid and paid a large amount.

What I can ask for the Rental has gone up in the last year, Fuel Cost and Transportation have gone up.  Wood Products (Common Topic on MRH) have gone up.  Food cost have more than doubled,  What used to cost us around $80 every 2 weeks is now just a little over $200 every 2 weeks at the grocery store.  We no longer go out to eat,  when the cheap plates run around $12 to $15 per person add in the kids and drinks we are looking at $80 to $85 and that does not include Taxes or a Tip...

On the other hand my Property values for what I own have gone through the roof,  I dread the Taxes that I will owe on them in a few years.   

with the constant flood of newly printed money, the actual value of that money drops do to inflation,  I just found out that Joe will be giving us something like $750 every month starting in July.  Basically every one with kids will be getting a welfare check.   Do we need it no or did we need any of those stimulus checks?  no.   This influx of money reduces the value of money that people save and adds to inflation.

Not sending it back,  At the moment it is balancing out the value lost to what we have saved, but the sad part is if you saved money inflation is stealing that value,  but if you are up to your eyeballs in debt and credit,  inflation could save you if you know what your doing and not adding to your debt.

https://fred.stlouisfed.org/series/CURRCIR

Here we go again

People have been saying "wow" for years and years as the prices of our toys rises ever higher.

I've been on train forums for 25 years and this is a regular feature - so much so at Model Railroader forums the moderators decided to consolidate them all into a single topic.

As for the Athearn Genesis CF2600 GATC Airslide, those were going for $48 and change at Klein's.  Tangents latest boxcars are $52.95 and Moloco are $55.99.  Oh, and Athearn has announced 45' TOFC trailers at MSRP $34.98 for a single regular trailer and $39.98 for those that are "primed for grime".  I bought those same trailers around 8 years ago for ~MSRP $26 2-pack.  So they have gone from $14 each to $35/39 each.  

As for the ATC 2600 hoppers, you can find older versions as RTR Athearn for less and a few less details.

For people who are not retired and don't have much hobby time, the high detail models are very nice.  I'm sure when I am retired and on a fixed income, then things will change.  

The bottom line here is high detail models will continue to sell as long as customers continue to buy them.  Tangent has sold out of 2 of 3 of their 40' combo door boxcars in less than 2 months and sold out of their 86' Greenville auto parts boxcars in a matter of days.  Someone must be buying them.

International Exchange Rates Affect Prices

The value of the US Dollar against principal trading currencies started falling last year and has remained lower.  Nothing in this hobby can fix that as long as RTR cars and locomotives are imported.  Domestic resin box car kits now cost about $65 plus $10 minimum shipping.

The only thing you can do is build a smaller layout that requires less rolling stock. Segue to long debate on smaller layouts.

The value of the dollar,

The value of the dollar, increased labor costs in China and the cost of shipping containers are all affecting model prices.

Like some, I have plenty of trains.  At this point I'm only filling in holes here and there and am also selling rolling stock I don't need, which helps fund those new purchases.  And as prices rise, I'll probably be able to purchase less than before, etc.

For those on a budget, there are bargains out there at train shows and on the secondary market.,

You can find deals....or spend more.

I just purchased an ExactRail hopper for $19.99 on sale from ExactRail. When I ever I shop, I look at the clearance items first....often times I find some pretty good deals. And Friday, I got an email from ExactRail telling me these items were on clearance. 

But, also, I pre ordered from Moloco for the next item. I cant wait to own that car, but I see that as almost an investment and I probably wont take it out of the box till my layout is further along. 

Devin, Are you talking about

Devin,

Are you talking about the PS2-CD 4427 hoppers ExactRail has on special?  I paid $29.99 for mine.  All of the ones they show on their site are the same price.  Still, a good deal.  I try, where possible to get sale priced models too.

I've put in a pre-order for several of the new Moloco SP PC&F repaint box cars.  Those will be very nice.  My layout is under construction so most of my models are still waiting to be taken out of the box.

They had a few other road

They had a few other road names on Friday for $19.99. Scoular and one other road name. They quickly sold out. I was able to get a Scoular one right after I got the email. Got home from work and asked my wife if I could buy another, and they were sold out,  but I grabbed a DRGW one for $29.99(I must  be behaving myself lately). 

Moral of the story, there are deals out there on high quality models if you are willing to make some sacrifices. 

Cars ? Have you looked at Flex track ?

While cars have been getting more and more detailed Flex track is pretty well Flex Track. Now Atlas has improved their code 100 with a new mold with smaller spikes and they have introduced their new code 100 turnouts so I can see that BUT. A few years back I was paying $ 2 - 2.50 per section for Atlas Code 100 now it's $ 5.00 a section.  To build a RR now using flex track and any turnouts will require a large dollar outlay and that's the base cost for most model layouts . Code 83 is doing the same thing. Glad I am done adding new staging and pretty much done with track work. Gad I remember stock piling track back in the early 90's for the existing Buffalo Line. I was paying $102.00 per case for code 100 Atlas Flex. Today that would be close to $500 !!

How to save?

How about you shop for old Blue Box cars? Get out your skills and update them. I quit buying cars when Kadee went to $25. I absolutely refuse to pay these "exorbitant" prices. I must confess that I did have to buy 2 BLI tank cars - at $32 each. And I cried. When received, they are beautiful cars and are worth the money. But I will never buy any more. (I had to buy them because they are unique and I didn't have any other option.) But what I am doing is working with my older cars and trying to update them - with weathering and such. So I guess what I'm suggesting is to go to swap meets and find some worthwhile models that you can "fix" the way you want. Use the skills you have. And learn techniques to improve those cars.

Now Atlas has improved their

Your "few years back" must be around 25+ years back.  Anyway, I have purchased two boxes of Atlas code 100 flex track during the past year from modeltrainstuff and it was $99 for a box of 25, which comes out to $4 a stick, not $5 (and that's their current price - I just checked).

I did noticed the improved tie spikes and the rail looks much nicer too.  I'm using all Atlas code 100 in staging and have purchased Peco code 83 for the visible part.

Cost justification of 3D Printer getting closer

if I was modelling the modern era, I’d print my own cars and stand-off scale would be fine since the prototype is covered in graffiti anyways.

But I’m stuck around “1968-1970”so I regularly hunt the “surplus section” of my LHS.  Often finding new, never built or barely started HO cars in their inventory that they bring in from buying collections for $4.50 - $10. Got 6 brand new CP Boxcars for $15 each.  

Nothing would compel me to spend more that $25 on a freight car. I did order three cabeese from Rapido, but those have full interiors, etc. and are more like passenger cars. 

Right now I can run one car trains given the amount of locos I’ve bought. Lol.  Unit trains are a distant fantasy. I see CP is playing with 28,000 ton potash trains. 2 miles give or take. 

Wait for....

...the price increases when there is a dramatic environmental control over the refining of petrochemicals.

It's all relative...

I've been working on a few HO scale hopper cars that I bought ages ago. Here's a progress shot.

I bought these special run Accurail cars for $13 each in 2006. I recently updated the brakes to KD, removed free-standing plastic details and replaced those with wire, and added the train line. I changed the trucks to Tahoe Model Works Andrews trucks with semi-scale wheelsets and installed Accurail Proto:HO scale couplers. I used a rattle can of flat brown to change the interior car color and sprayed a grimy flat fade coat as an initial weathering layer. Then I applied spot gloss to a few areas and installed decal paint patches and new weigh and repack stencils. I just applied a gloss coat on those to seal the work.

The hard costs are $13 per car, $10 for each pair of trucks, $1.10 for each pair of the couplers, and about two dollars for the wire, extra details, and paint. The hard costs total is $26.10 per car. But how much is my time worth? Certainly not $10-15 an hour for this specialty work. I've probably put about three hours of total work time into both cars, so we can split that time for 1.5 hours per car. What is my time worth? I'll let you decide.

Of course, it is a hobby and I've enjoyed detailing these hoppers. I've still got more work to do as additional weathering layers are applied. In the end, I'll have a couple cars that are worth much more to me than the RTR freight car cost. Even when I do purchase a RTR freight car, I often make detail adjustments and add a few weathering layers.

How much is your time worth when you build or improve a model?

Eric

Downsize your Dream Layout

Less is more.....Buy less and model more.

You paid

almost as much for each pair of trucks as you did for cars, you didn’t mind that cost?

Accurail has always been good enough for me

  It's just hard to put your hands on certain road names and eras sometimes. Haven't checked lately but Model Train Stuff seemed to be really low or not have a lot of their stuff the last I looked.

Amusing

It's amusing how a person starts a topic by tossing a hunk of red meat into a pool of sharks just to sit back and watch a feeding frenzy!   Yeah, I took the bait.  I am so so soooooo sorry!  

I didn't know about Morgan Town

Laughing! Eric. I saw your pix and thought "When did I have a town"? Looked it up and it was abandoned in 1971. And was part of the B&O. Great. Too bad it wasn't my town. LOL

If there are enough rich customers

So. You can make 100 transactions at $1000, or 10,000 transactions at $10 . As long as you can find 100 rich guys the first option involves less admin and associated costs.

What is my time worth?

Well for most entertainment we pay by the hour, movies, golf, concerts, etc. So how much would you pay to be able to be entertained by your trains? I'm pretty lucky I guess that I have enough cars  stashed away to last the rest of my life so my rolling stock costs are mostly glue, paint, etc. I do need a lot of scenery though which can cost quite a bit but the pace I work at  is slow enough that the cost at anyone time is not significant( doesn't catch my wife's eye) ..DaveB 

conscious thus far

As I read thru the responses thus far it appears as thought there are quite a number of us older modelers that are NOT willing to pay more than 25 per RTR run freight cars. We just do without, ....or VERY limited purchases,... or just get along on what we have collected up in the past.

Makes me wonder how long these modern day creators of these very detailed/high price cars can continue to stay in business? If they happen to make a mistake in choosing their next prime product, and don't find that many enthusiastic buyers , things can go sour quite quickly,...cash flow.