ARE PRICES OF "NEW ITEMS" SLOWING YOU DOWN?

Yes. I no longer purchase the current high priced, high tech crap!

I love the new high tech gems.  If price is a problem then I pass but I usually know what I want ahead of time and budget accordingly.

I defiantly do buy more used than new stuff. Saves me a lot over buying new. Of course there is some stuff in the catalogs that I just gotta have but the prices have made me think about if I really do gotta have em.

Yes!!
Being on a fixed income and with the outrageous high prices of newer model railroad items and then some new items breaking down right away, keeps me from enjoying these new beauties.

One manufacturer has discrepancies in the detailing of some of their second rate, new items, which used to be spot on, as their first rate items and another manufacturer also has detailing discrepancies with some of their new products. Because of these faults, I don't purchase any newer items and I wonder, who's modeling these incorrect new products?
Isn't there any more quality control? 

RJL

The prices of new items are irrelevant . My hoarding illness lasted 30 years and during that time I have acquired everything that I could ever hope for  my Eastern railroads layout. There is so much more on the shelves down in the basement than I could ever use or ever need.  As for the new stuff; look on the shelves at Toy R Us and see what $100 brings. You can also buy new windows laptops for $250 and a Garden Tractor for $500.  Engines at $500?  Unless they are hand made, highly detailed brass, I could never understand how they come up with the pricing.

My purchases are rare right now but scenic materials, the occasional (mainly USA made) NOS fill in item, books/magazines, lighting accessories, parts and maintenance supplies are still on my list.   Still go to only the local shows mainly to browse, for the fun of it,  and for the socialization.  York is officially now off the list.

I already have too much stuff.  The high prices are probably helping me!

I just wait till I find it in the area I am willing to spend new or used .. I want a nickel plate berk when i find one in the area I want to spend .I will buy one. Same goes for the newyork state express the first hobby store to sell me one for 1500 gets my money. If they don't who cares I have plenty of trains. 

No.  

Price, no. But the offerings of what I am willing to spend my money on, yes. The biggest winner for me has been 3rd Rail/ GGD. Scott has been very good for N&W fans in recent years.

Somewhat of a slow down, but a lot of it is due to having already purchased most of the engines and rolling stock that I wanted for my layout. I was lucky and got most of it before the recent price increases. I have a couple left that are on pre-order and I'm sure there will probably be another engine or two coming along at some point that I can't resist. I also have some items that are semi-scale and may eventually upgrade them with scale sized replacements? Not a high priority though. 

From here forward, more of my train budget will be going for accessories and layout expansion items. I have some of the new Lionel command control accessories pre-ordered. I also like ALL the new technologies in our trains these days and will be following that and trying to keep up there as well. I have the MTH wifi ordered and still need to get some Lionel wifi items and sensor tracks. There are still plenty of other items left to purchase and work to do on my layout.

Paul,

   It all depends, some of the new engines and one particular Transformer are IMO off limits to what I believe I should spend, on my Christmas layouts, this does not mean I will not look for them 2nd hand however.  Other merchandise like the new Menard's Military rolling stock I am spending my money on freely.  I also try to purchase form OGR member, items that I most want, when they come up for sale at a reasonable price, such as the Tin Plate Hellgate Bridge, I just made a deal on this past week.    With the advent of the new LC RTR sets, I have been able to give real nice Christmas presents, to Active Military and Veteran's families, for more than a few years now.   So you see in my case it's trying to keep my spending on my O Gauge Christmas layout, in some kind of a reality monetary spectrum.    

PCRR/Dave

Then of course I invest in some train related Christmas items, that I probably pay to much money for, but I like them very much.  The Hallmark/Lionel Christmas Ornament below is an example of bending that reality spectrum a little to far.

RJL posted:

Yes!!
Being on a fixed income and with the outrageous high prices of newer model railroad items and then some new items breaking down right away, keeps me from enjoying these new beauties.

One manufacturer has discrepancies in the detailing of some of their second rate, new items, which used to be spot on, as their first rate items and another manufacturer also has detailing discrepancies with some of their new products. Because of these faults, I don't purchase any newer items and I wonder, who's modeling these incorrect new products?
Isn't there any more quality control? 

RJL

Bravo! I could not agree more.

Yes and No. I complain about the price of this and that then end of spending $$$ to buy a 3rd rail engine; Lionel or Weaver etc..  sometimes used but still $$.  I am an "impulse guy" and tend to spend on things I like.  I tend and try to buy used; Notice the word "try".    I blew $$$ last year buying a new bow-rider boat and you think trains are expensive. LOL!  Life is short, so enjoy it will you can.

I have come to a stop on O scale purchases, because I already feel I have too much and also because prices are too high. Lately I have purchased a lot of items in N scale again because it costs less and takes up very little room. Even with N scale I am reaching my limit. So unless there is that one have to have it item I don't think I will be buying much in the near future. The last purchase I made in O has been a postwar Lionel 1033 transformer to run my accessories.

Prices, not so much--lead times are long enough to save up. Storage space is doing more to slow my purchases than current pricing. It doesn't help that the basement got too cluttered up with non-train stuff to even erect a storage rack, let alone resume construction on my around-the-walls loop I started work on almost ten years ago.

I'm in the midst of inventorying my collection in the computer. I might be halfway through in terms of numbers (450-ish records), but maybe only 1/5 of the way with records that are actually complete (I put in about 300 placeholders, not realizing I'd have to hunt them down in order to complete them later).

I put in an order for one locomotive for 2016 (the NS first responders unit). I still have about 12 locos from 2014 that are propped up in the corner of the dining room waiting to be introduced to my test track. By the time my first-responder unit gets to pull a train, it could be 2018 or later at the rate I'm going.

Rolling stock wise, I've pretty much got everything I've ever wanted or convinced myself I wanted, other than the odd piece here and there.

---PCJ

Hot Water posted:

Yes. I no longer purchase the current high priced, high tech crap!

Kind of the way I'm feeling as well. I don't have much of an interest in running trains at home - occasionally but not very often. If I do run trains at home, it isn't for much more than 15 or 20 minutes.

In addition, I'm not in the mood to pay for repairs for the high tech stuff. I like it but I want these things to be running for years to come. I recently purchased a Williams GP30 with their new sound system - Diesel engine, horn, bell. Sounds great, rungs great. What more could you ask for? It'll probably be running in 30 years as well and doesn't require a PhD in Computer Science just to fix the **** thing.

I do have an MTH engine on order and may order a 611 J after seeing the real 611 in Manassas last year (and will see it again this year). Other than that, I don't need more trains and want to keep the ones I have and really love running.

Not prices so much, it is the lack of items interesting to me.  Catalogs might as well be blank pages.  Just rereading one this morning, that in several descriptions of deja vous engines, the wording was something like, "we are AGAIN offering......".  I also think they are having a major problem with quality control from a great distance.  What is rattling my windows is the high cost of track and components, and none of it is all that great.   As the foundation upon which to run all this big-buck rolling stock, you'd think track would be a lot better (certainly for the price). In the catalog mentioned, there was only one car of interest...part of a four car set...I don't want the other cars...maybe someday somebody will break the set......

Not complaining............just saying.

In Canada, when oil falls so does our dollar against the US dollar.

And this time we are getting hurt bad.

A $100.00 item in US funds will cost me now $135.00 CND.

Add 13% tax at the border (this is always there).

Include $25.00 CND for shipping ....................and we have a grand total of $173.00 CND for a $100.00 US purchase.

The Hobby Shops in Canada buy in US dollars from the US and therefore are governed by the same economics. 

So, yes, my purchases are impacted not only by the dollar issue but the continuing high prices of new items.  This hobby is not cheap and some of the prices in my opinion are getting out of hand.

I will buy used whenever I can and until the dollar comes up, I'm limited to small purchases if any.

Dave

I know this is a very small sample size, but this should be the biggest fear of the big name companies. Those of us who are already deeply and passionately into the hobby have either been priced out of new stuff or have a hard time justifying more at the prices offered when we already have a large collection....often beyond what we can use or even display. And it speaks nothing of trying to get new people into the hobby.  

Rick

Short Answer?  YEP!

Chief Bob (Retired)

PAUL ROMANO posted:

With today's prices of new items,  such as  diesel engines reaching $500.+,  I've slowed down in my purchases.  Are you affected too? 

I've definitely become much more selective with my purchases, although I still have one foot in O-Gauge and the other in Standard Gauge.  I don't know if that's a blessing or a curse. 

Bottom line... I don't pre-order nearly what I did back about 10-15 years ago.  But I will say this about prices... they have DEFINITELY downplayed my eagerness to await any new catalogs.  And quite frankly, I don't care if ANY catalogs were published for a year or two.    Just being very honest.  Of course, we know that's not gonna happen.  But if it did, life wouldn't skip a beat one iota... and I'd be perfectly content with my current roster of toy/model trains for years to come.

When I stumbled across a mint MTH Bicentennial GG-1 w/PS2 a few weeks ago, that pretty much sealed the deal that I'd pass on the Vision Line GG-1 and save some big bucks there.  And I really have no interest in a rumored Vision Line steamer for 2016 either.  I'll admit the recent Atlas-O trooper car announcements caught my eye, so I'll grab a few of those.  So aside from a few heavy hitters already in the pipeline for delivery in 2016, unique pieces of rolling stock "here and there" pretty much describes the types of net new purchases I might make in 2016.  And even those kinds of purchases are far from chump change.    In fact, I don't consider anything in this hobby is to be chump change anymore.  We can walk out of a train store nowadays, and not think twice about spending $500.  And that's sad when we think about it.  The only thing that's more sad is those very same items would be lucky to fetch $200-$250 at most when we go to sell them on the secondary market after a year or so (or more).  So if you DO decide to splurge a bit today, make sure you enjoy those goodies now knowing you paid a handsome premium for them.  Those Lionel Hybrid ES44's are far and few between when it comes to products holding their value by sitting on a shelf.  I had more fun purchasing some of the OLR products recently... and truth be told, probably enjoyed those transactions more than some of the high-end product transactions.  And that should be sending a huge message in its own right to that little voice inside that's all too often looking for the next best thing.

David 

The prices reaching an uncomfortable point, coupled with me emerging out of the hoarding stage have curbed my spending to a trickle. I've been thinning down the collection and will cap at 20 locos  - none of these in the large, articulated, vision line pricing spectrum. 

Die-cast steam prices have exceeded some brass costs. I won't be purchasing anymore die-cast.  The recent ridiculous prices for rehashes confirmed that.

the stock market is what is slowing me down.

Martin H posted:

I already have too much stuff.  The high prices are probably helping me!

+1. I no longer upgrade existing models. Legacy for TMCC for example. Anymore, someone will have make something in my road that has never been done before I would consider buying new.

Pete

No, but I never was too fast in the first place. I don't have unlimited funds or space so I'm always moving something to acquire something else.

I do not subscribe to the one who dies with the most toys win theory! 

The marketing gurus pull down some big bucks at the big-name importing companies nowadays.  And they're no fools, to say the least.  Even with BTO stepping into full gear, they know the market is super-saturated right now with expensive stuff.  So I wouldn't be at all surprised if the big-ticket items they catalog in 2016 will have late-2016 or even mid- to late-2017 delivery dates.  There's no way the market can absorb any more "net new" big ticket items for much of 2016.   For those who can swing it, God bless ya!!! 

I'll admit to jumping at a terrific sale that Henning's Trains offered on New Years Day.  But I've been good since.    The nice thing about that sale was it applied to everything in the store across the board.  So it was quite tempting to say the least!!!    However, I've fended off other "forum sponsor sales" thus far in January.  And I know in other years, I would have jumped at nearly all of them by now.  To a large degree, we're also much more savvy buyers now too -- thanks in large part to various price discussions here on the forum.  Some dealers have started to limit certain items from their discount sales this year, and that's their prerogative to do so.  But don't expect us to believe that those items aren't part of the store-wide discounts  because they're already "priced on sale".

Lionel's MSRP's continue to push the envelope and are largely a joke.  We all know that.  And even Lionel fanboys would be hard-pressed to not admit it.  So dealers hoping to sell at or close to MSRP are living on borrowed time, IMHO.  While BTO has certainly helped smaller dealers fight for pre-order business vs. buying large amounts of inventory "on spec" to sell at a later date, BTO has also brought back memories of the pricing games some dealers were known for back in the collector heydays of the 1980's, when street-prices would change weekly (or even daily!!!) -- based on whether Lionel short-shipped dealer quantities on certain product.  The big difference between now and the 1980's is we have the Internet today, so consumers can quickly scan street-prices across the board.  So it's pretty straightforward -- and sometimes even entertaining -- to watch prices changing more frequently on some of the "hotter" items... just by checking around.  Back in the 1980's when print ad was king, these items often were listed in the ads with "CALL" in place of a specific price.  How many here remember those days? 

I never cared for those practices in the 1980's, and I still don't think much of them nowadays either.  It never exemplified the finer side of this wonderful hobby.  And it certainly doesn't help bring new blood into the hobby either.  It's bad enough when hobby veterans can see this coming a mile down the road, but I feel for some of the newer/younger blood in the hobby who just don't have the battle scars to see it for what it is. 

David

Until yesterday I would have said no. Today I am a different person. I am a bit angry and feel taken advantage of. I will take responsibility for it as some would say it is my own fault. I ordered a Lionel World Series Commemorative boxcar because my wife, whom I love dearly, is from Kansas City. I did not even ask the price because I simply assumed it would be fairly expensive (royalties to MLB and such) but Lionel has come out with other commemorative boxcars for $60-$75. I received my boxcar yesterday and with shipping it was $100 (shipping was about $13). That is my last commemorative boxcar. Was it worth it for my wife? Yes. I love her and would have paid it anyway (so I guess I have my foot in my mouth) but $100? Really? C'mon, man. $100 for a 6464 style boxcar?

Scrapiron Scher posted:

Until yesterday I would have said no. Today I am a different person. I am a bit angry and feel taken advantage of. I will take responsibility for it as some would say it is my own fault. I ordered a Lionel World Series Commemorative boxcar because my wife, whom I love dearly, is from Kansas City. I did not even ask the price because I simply assumed it would be fairly expensive (royalties to MLB and such) but Lionel has come out with other commemorative boxcars for $60-$75. I received my boxcar yesterday and with shipping it was $100 (shipping was about $13). That is my last commemorative boxcar. Was it worth it for my wife? Yes. I love her and would have paid it anyway (so I guess I have my foot in my mouth) but $100? Really? C'mon, man. $100 for a 6464 style boxcar?

My exact feelings when I saw the Smithsonian boxcars...yikes!

Seacoast,

    George I agree with you 100%, after my Agent Orange Widow Maker Heart Attack 2 years ago, that I was incredibly lucky to live thru, my perspective on some things changed drastically.  I now tell my wife of 40 years, we are not 25 any more, never worry again about purchasing something you would really like to have , just purchase it somehow I will find the money.  I was bless by God, live well and have a wonderful wife, but life is short, live life for all it's worth.  

PCRR/Dave 

I m glad that there are a lot of folks buying new stuff to keep the industry alive. I have not purchase new trains since 2001 as I've shifted my interest to prewar/conventional. So far the highest price I paid for a prewar engine is $130.00 and the others were purchase just to restore (to far gone to keep as is). Restoring old junk is my hobby.

Seacoast posted:

Yes and No. I complain about the price of this and that then end of spending $$$ to buy a 3rd rail engine; Lionel or Weaver etc..  sometimes used but still $$.  I am an "impulse guy" and tend to spend on things I like.  I tend and try to buy used; Notice the word "try".    I blew $$$ last year buying a new bow-rider boat and you think trains are expensive. LOL!  Life is short, so enjoy it will you can.

Same for me; however, I took out a 2nd mortgage to finance avionics upgrade to my airplane.

With today's prices of new items,  such as  diesel engines reaching $500.+,  I've slowed down in my purchases.  Are you affected too? 

Yes. I have been for a while. However, just like Dennis L. and other forumites above, I have a huge collection of stuff acquired so all I am doing is "refining" my collection [Purging] minimal detailed Items with better detailed items. Unless its a new and "must have item" like a new diesel model for Modern Conrail, Modern Amtrak, First, Second, & third Gen Diesel Demonstrators, or the PRR, I typically will look at the used market- [auctions, esp] to buy. At this point, I am at the pinnacle of many scale items for the PRR and Conrail produced so farand  I am going Custom.  [ which unfortunately costs a LOT more than the new stuff!]

Yes. My engine purchasing days are over for sure. Just too many other things of more value to me if I'm going to spend maybe upwards to $500-$1000 on an engine. Fortunately I did my real spending before I retired because I couldn't afford to now.

Scrappy,

    I know what you mean about these Commemorative Box Car prices, I have the original 1960 World Series Billy Maz Box Car that I payed average money for brand new, when they came out.  When I looked to acquire one just recently for my brother, a sealed NIB Bill Maz Box Car is now going for above $100.00 - Somebody has got to be Nuts!

PCRR/Dave

Yes prices have slowed me down some. I would be tempted to buy more items if the price was right and in the railroad name I want.

WBB has seen some of the largest price increases in the past 15 months. A steam engine now costing around $600.00 from Bachmann's website.

A side note about prices; Lionel has gone up a bit as well.

RMT and MTH seem to holding prices down.

Lee Fritz

Nope..done for over a year or so.

1.  Tired of it being all about me...give more to family and charity.

2. Lack of quality control make me sick.

3. Way too much stuff..it began to own me.

4. No room left.

5. The worship of stuff (materialism) was making me depressed.

6.  Don't trust the integrity of the modern manufacturers.

7.  Save more in my IRA and of course government stealing more with taxes.

I spend what little I still spend on O Scale craftsman kits and scenery products.

I am a much happier human being after dropping the addiction.

Retired, living on a fixed income so pricing has always been an issue. I like the old stuff so would buy it now even if I had more income-just nicer versions of the old Lionels. I love the Standard gauge originals and look at them at train shows but some prices are high.  I am in to RRs now but I have collected old things since I was a kid-Still have a few items. So my purchasing still goes on and is based on appeal and value which pretty much rules out the new stuff. 

The high prices and poor quality have had no effect on me at all.   I can't remember the last time I bought a "new" unused engine.  Like automobiles I would rather someone else take the price hit and sell me their used merchandise.  I would also like for the market place to work out all the quality problems as well.  Even MOB stuff now takes a big hit due to the saturation of redundant issues of the same engine and rolling stock.  How many Hudsons and N&W 611 engines can you justify owning?  Just because they put a new piece of chain or a new pipe on the model somewhere doesn't mean I will be interested.  Even the electronics packages are being obsoleted over and over by new releases.

I prefer to just sit back and watch the fallout over which models are good and which ones aren't.  After that I might be interested in buying something used.  The only apparent winner in all of this are the manufacturers and I'm not sure about that.