ARE PRICES OF "NEW ITEMS" SLOWING YOU DOWN?

PAUL ROMANO posted:

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.

Our thinking must be from our past occupations, as we tend to be more suspicious of these newer products and manufacture's offerings.

Ralph

The beauty of .... or, is it the curse of .... having small layouts, is the ease of completely changing course rather often .... era, location, theme

I don't "hoard" engines .... I sell what I no longer use, and buy the new stuff. So, the rising prices are only somewhat relative for me.

Though, I'm a bit impulsive .... so, there is some selling low and buying high. lol

I'm nearing the point of being able to retire.  You bet I'm being more selective in what I buy.  My spending budget for trains has decreased dramatically.  Oh there are still items I hope to be made and when they are, I'll get some of them but I also want to be able to live comfortably in retirement.

Yes, prices have slowed spending. We've decided to limit our roads (and therefore purchases) to NY Central, Pennsylvania, Lehigh Valley and Reading. We would like to have one steam and one diesel locomotive for each road name.  We will purchase freight cars from other roads if we like them. 

Another thing that has slowed spending on new items is the lower pricing of postwar items. After not looking at or buying any postwar for about 5 years, I am seeing very affordable postwar items both at shows and online auctions.  This, and a newly renovated train room with more display space, is attracting dollars away from new production. 

Well, I guess I could say not really.  I can do some side work to make extra money, but I do buy smartly.  I typically save up for premier or legacy locomotives.  No doubt they are pricey, but they are heirlooms.  Unless they are sold, my daughter's will inherit them.  Lol...I guess I am spending thier inheritance.

The prices aren't what did it for me, Getting married in 2009,and having a Wife, and now 18 and 22 year old kids living at home as well as my commute going from less than 4 miles each way to almost 40 miles, plus 58-60 hour weeks were the norm before getting married, now 48-54 hours is getting common again, the PRIORITIES have changed. When I was single lived close to work and got a LOT of over-time a couple $1,000.00+ locomotives a year were nothing, it's been Quite awhile since I bought any Legacy locomotives.

Another BIG FACTOR in not buying any High end is the UNRELIABILITY of the new stuff, my TMCC Crane came DOA right out of the box, my Legacy Big Boy died shortly after the warranty did, and just this past Christmas season my Black FEF3 died, well outside the warranty period, but if it was an automobile it would have less than 5,000 miles on it. I don't have room for a permanent layout so these have EXTREMELY low use on them. There are several locomotives that I would LOVE to have, but I haven't even been tempted to sell anything to buy them, because I just don't have any faith in the newer electronics, too many low time failures already, lesson learned.

  As far as Prices go, I don't think they are all that bad, yeah, I would love to see prices lower than they are, but my JLC H7 2-8-8-2 sold new for IIRC, $1649.99 (I don't recall what year it came out) the Legacy version recently released had an MSRP of $1349.99 and I saw street prices down to $1175.00. It has more complex( I can't say BETTER) electronics, and an MSRP that is $300.00 less than 10? years ago!

I already have enough stuff to open a small train store, so it has gotten easier to pass on new releases, it is going to take something pretty seriously hard to pass up for me to buy anything expensive now. About the only thing that I can think of right now that I would really FIND the money for would be a Legacy AC-9 (where are you John Korling? you are going to be busy bit**ing for a long time) in a Skirted Daylight version (Sorry Hotwater) SP NEVER had Skirted or Daylighted AC-9's but that is a mistake that I would like to see Lionel fix, hey they Daylighted a Cab-forward, and our trains DO run on THREE RAILS. Produce a Legacy(NOT Vision Line, don't want to spend THAT much)Skirted, Daylight AC-9, and I will take the chance with the P*SS Poor Electronics QC, one more time.

Doug

Ralph Kramden made $62.50 a week in the mid fifties as a New York City bus driver. About equal to a Lionel set, at the.time.

What's a NYC bus driver make today? Maybe $2,000 a week? You can get a Lionel set for less than that, so they are actually cheaper than they were in the fifties. It is just your dollar that is worth less. Not worthless, just worth less.

For the past 2 years I've bought nothing but older engines, mostly steam.  With my converting from DCS/TMCC to BPRC I'm trying to find quality older engines that don't have a lot in the way of electronics in them, so I'm not losing but so much $$$ on the conversion.  Unless it's an engine I desperately want, I'm not spending $$$ to gut a new engine and replace the electronics.

Of course there's the fact that I have 15 engines now (8 steam, 7 diesel) which is way more than I ever planned or care to run at one time.

Hopefully I can spend some of that cash on a nice set of SAL Silver Meteor passenger cars from GGD one of these days.  I'm also focusing more on finishing the scenery and populate the layout with peeps and other useful items.

Slowing me down?? No way. Nothing slows me down! My kids are all under 6 years of age, we don't slow down here for anything!  

But as far as train purchases go I'd say that the current pricing makes it very easy to be more selective. Sometimes I look at all of the train stuff and ask myself. "Am I a horder?" LOL! I feel very fortunate that I have not had any major electronic issues with my equipment so I'm not as down on the pricing as some here are. I am in agreement with most on here that $500 + for a plastic diesel with a few dollars worth of electronics from China does seem way out of line. Luckily my must have loco list is very short at this time so I will wait for what I want, buy it and then pull the plug on buying. 

We'll have to wait and see if the majority of our fellow hobbyists feel the same way and stop buying. If we all do then maybe the pricing will adjust to regain market. Detroit has to do this every few years, maybe O Gauge will discount more too!!!! Right now the industry seems to be going the BTO route which is the first step to see where the threshold of pain and profit lies. Very basic market economic gimmick at work.

I will buy new MTH Railking Locos if they are nice looking models and look almost real. I will only buy Cab Towards, Big Boys, Challengers and any high end semi-scales loco if and only if it is a Lionmaster loco. I eventually will buy a Lionmaster Challenger when the price is 700 way too much for the loco at 900 considering they sold a Lionmaster Big Boy years ago for 879 in 2010.

GVDobler,

     You make a real good point, when my Grandfather purchased my Fathers Christmas Present in early 1900, it took an entire months salary, to pay for the Lionel Train he purchased for my father, my Grandfather worked for US Steel, as a Mechanical Engineer/Inventor,  who's specialty was USS RailRoad Train Engine Rework/Repair.  In his era there were very few Engineers, who made his weekly salary.  If you compare actual salary for the times, our Trains today are actually less expensive, than they were when Lionel 1st released them long ago.  They have always been very expensive Toys, many middle income families at that time, were unable to afford them.  Unfortunately we are now approaching the same kind of expense level, in our modern remote control Train hobby.  Unfortunately for us all, most of these toys are no longer made in the USA.

PCRR/Dave 

The prices have definitely made me think twice - and then think again - and then close the browser window without hitting the "Buy" button. I don't buy much new stuff any more, especially locomotives, and I hardly ever commit to a pre-order. I did pre-order the Lionel Milwaukee Road Heavy Mikado, because I am a Milwaukee Road, steam era collector/operator and that particular engine was the mainstay of Milwaukee Road freight operations for about 30 years. But, that may well have been my last pre-order ever. I was considering a 3rd Rail SD9 and/or the new 0 gauge tinplate 256 and its passenger train (in fact I wanted the tinplate set rather badly) - but then I got a killer deal on a Rich-Art Bi-Polar set, and then the A/C in the workshop needed replacement, and that was the end of that. Maybe if a good deal shows up on the secondary market.

Fortunately, I bought enough trains to last the rest of my life when MTH, Weaver, and Atlas were making a lot of really nice Milwaukee Road items. 21" passenger cars, Erie Builts, Bi-Polars, boxcabs, Northerns - I've got more than I can find storage space for now, so I don't feel any great disappointment when I decide no, I'm not buying that $500 diesel or $1500 steamer. 

These days the only thing that would tempt me to pull the trigger on a new pre-order would be a Milwaukee Road steamer that's never been done before - maybe an N-class 2-6-6-2 or a K-class Prairie. And I figure the chances of that happening are somewhere between zero and nil. The 78th new version of a Challenger or NYC Hudson with some new feature, at double the price of version 77, isn't even going to get on the radar. 

Between Lionel's prices and the total lack of MTH parts, I'm done. 

Pine Creek -your grandfather in 1900 did not live at all like we do today. No real comparison is possible. Make up a list of what you enjoy in life today and half or more didn't exist then.  Life in those days was much more austere and basic. A lot of houses didn't even have electricity, no cars, no TV or games,  even in to WW II things were more basic.  Today's prices based on dollar value are not higher but lifestyles and expectations have changed quite a bit.  Back in those days a lot of mill workers walked to work carrying their lunch. You got a present twice a year, at Xmas and birthday.  In 1947 I got a Lionel Scout set for Xmas-the ONLY thing I got because of the price-less than $20.  Just like new cars-a lot of fancy gimmicks made in China to go wrong.

Retirement and high prices are making me divert to other projects on the layout that will keep me busy and take my money for a long time. No problem with buying trains, I have all I need.

Now if I hit the lottery, all bets are off!

Unfortunately yes it has slowed me down.

I only buy new engines that cost less than $400, and same with sets such as Lionel Conventional Classics.

Fortunately, I have most of everything I want or need for years now, none of the sport and fantasy themed stuff interests me.

I slowed down to a virtual stop for reasons all cited in previous posts. The biggest is having looked around at what I have, and at the space I have to run or store it. I realized I had gone beyond the realm of a hobby and into an addiction, buying more for the satisfaction of acquiring than for the enjoyment of operating or displaying.  

The price, combined with a level of technology I didn't want, at least for an increasing number of the new engines available, played no small part in my purchasing halt as well.  You can buy other toys and household items with similar or even greater levels of technology for a fraction of the cost. But they have us by the you-know-what because it is a much smaller market and many of us suffer from at least some level of addiction in this hobby. Build it and they will come.

If my collection was wiped out and I had to start from scratch I would focus on postwar and the more recent secondary market. The old Williams made engines at a level of detail and technology and at a price I was happy with but that company is a different beast now. Weaver made slightly more scale-like equipment than what my tastes had settled on, but I derived satisfaction from buying the last equipment still made in the US. And now they are gone. 

So I'll settle with what I have. I have more than enough. 

Wow, There are so many opinions out there it's hard to know who is hurt by the higher pricing, ( it Affects us all), and whom is actually giving up the hobby. As the mainline buyers, WE SENIOR KIDS WHO GREW UP IN THE 1940's 1950's 1960's, Model trains are in Our Blood....We are keeping the Hobby Alive, the Youth of Today are Interested in Other Forms of Pleasure, I-Pad Games, Other Electronic devices..Therefore, with lots of our friends passing away, going to there Eternal Resting Place, it's the relatively few of us keeping these Manufacturers in Production. This is why I feel the prices are rising. A limited market.

The answer is a resounding Yes, I have had to really curb my buying. I have to be very selective and get a good deal, or I can not afford the item. When, in 2017, I retire, it's going to be a lot harder to turn loose of money for trains. After all is said and done, I have been Blessed to have what I presently have. We will just have to wait and see....Happy Railroading Friends.....It is the Best of Times in Our Hobby. It just takes $$$$$$$$$$$. Lots of It.....

How about to a screeching HALT?!

Priced right out of the  market for new items.

But I still can find items I want used on the secondary market. I just have to be patient.

I have slowed down from new prices because Locomotives are beyond my repair capabilities (why buy something you can't fix?), Cars use the same tooling they did since the end of the Korean War, and I am not about to waste my hard earned $$$ on something just because it has the words "NEW" associated with it.

In a word, no.

But that's because: 1) I pretty much have all the trains I'll ever need and -- in fact -- if I stopped buying ANY MORE trains today I'd be fine, and 2) I run mostly Lionel PW and conventional so those newer expensive items aren't even on my radar.

To each his/her own, but I can say with a high degree of certainty that I will never buy a -- say --  $1200 train. Heck I'll never buy a $700 train. And so on. Just not happening. 

I seldom buy "new" or make reservations for items nowadays. My last "buying frenzy" was in 2012 when there were lots of great deals on new Legacy steam locomotives. I've become very selective nowadays and primarily search for gently used locomotives and rolling stock from previous years. There's a LOT of new and like new product out there. My focus now is building the layout and that's going to take years. I hate to admit it, but the prices are now really out of hand.I don't see how this trend can continue. I expect another big shakeup coming soon in the O gauge world. I also see golden opportunities to some manufacturers,Menard's,for instance. They're filling a much needed void in the market with good looking, affordable rolling stock and accessories. When Menard's begins to offer affordable locomotives and train sets (I see this happening this year) it will be a game changer. It will be an interesting year.

Hasn't Lionel always been expensive? Going back to the 700E Hudson back in 1938 it was priced at $75 dollars, heck of a lot of money in the Depression era days. Leapin Larry and others are curbing their buying are the Big L and Big M listening? The Build to order is the new order, higher priced niche market in the future.

Good comments on the state of things. I wonder if Lionel and the other toy train companies factor into their planning the age demographic of our hobby = older and less of us. What is the future of the toy/model train market?  I would like to be a fly on the wall during a long term strategic planning meeting at Lionel or MTH.   Do they plan just for the here and now 1-3 years or for the long term.

George Zander posted:

I only buy new engines that cost less than $400, and same with sets such as Lionel Conventional Classics.

Fortunately, I have most of everything I want or need for years now, none of the sport and fantasy themed stuff interests me.

This is something else I've been thinking off. I've got enough engines to last me a life time and don't need anymore.

I've got either Lionel/Williams conventional engines or MTH Railking engines. A few years ago I bought an MTH Imperial N&W Y6B 2-8-8-2 as I got a very large tax refund and it was an engine I'd wanted since it was first made by MTH years and years ago. I think I paid about $800, the most I ever had and probably ever will spend on a toy train.

I've told myself recently, and stuck to it, that I will not spend more than $300 to MAYBE $350 MAX (in very rare circumstances) for an engine, if I buy a new one (not likely). I did order an MTH Premier 44ton switcher and will honor that order but outside of that, I will not spend more than $300 with a $50 "stretch" on very occasional basis. I rode N&W 611 out of Manassas last year and will do so again this year. Despite telling myself "no" last year, I may try to set aside some $$$ for a N&W J after seeing/riding the 611 two years in a row. The Railking Imperial is nice but for the price, I'd be pretty darn happy with a Williams Postwar 746 reproduction at half the price of the RK engine. I've been very impressed with the Williams equipment with their new sound system. Does everything I want and like I said, if it goes bad, I don't need a bank loan and a PhD in Computer Science to swap the board and fix it.

I'm also not interested in sports things, "advertisement" cars such as those MTH Flashing Stop, Look, Listen boxcars, etc. Being a DC area native, I was intrigued when I saw the Lionel Smithsonian Boxcars but not at that price. I'll look for them secondhand or live without them. I try to stick to very local engines - Pennsy, B&O, CSX, C&O, Chessie. Rolling stock I buy what I like but again, I've got more freight and passenger cars to run to the moon and back so I'm not really buying more than what I already ordered from the dealer.

Yes it has....but if I see I vision line blue goose or vision line santa fe F3 setup....well. A bigger problem for me is space.

rat

The train marketplace is very similar to other markets.  If a product has durability, then you must expand the demand of your market to sustain your existence.  If you make something that lasts forever and everybody only needs one, then you are out of business pretty quick.   There are some solutions for this.  The easiest is to add new features that your market "has to have".  Like making phones mobile, then adding a camera, then texting, then more connectivity, then cloud storage, etc as well as performance increases along the way.  You can also lower your price and bring new customers into the market.  You can develop a monopoly like Microsoft.  When you change your operating system, then eventually everyone needs a new one, especially after support is cut off.   Replacement demand is common in all industries, but for Lionel it is very handy to reissue past classics when few people can afford the originals.  The lower price and brand new train aspect of a previous unobtainable classic has sold well in the past.

Since there is a huge percentage of all Lionel, Ives, Marx, Hornby, Flyer, etc trains still in existence and running, you need something to create demand for your "new" stuff.  The miniaturization of electronics basically saved the Lionel type train industry.  The electronics features can and have created demand for newer products as well as new product angles from a smoking everything to weathering to multiple road names.   The prices however, don't seem to be coming down.  For replacement demand, just about everything made in prewar and postwar has been reissued by somebody multiple times and most were successful.  For Lionel there is no monopoly yet and likely won't be.  However the operating systems have been changed in going from conventional to whatever to whatever-2.  So the older stuff is now less desirable to those using the newer electronic systems.  Hence the postwar price drop.  Same thing for price drops in collectible MPC, LTI, etc.   If one of the operating systems can dominate the other, such as MTH vs Lionel, then the monopoly advantage may become significant.   The bigger problem for these manufacturers is the increasing age of their market.  For each person that dies or gets out of the market, an equal number of newcomers must step in with enough money to absorb the value of that person's trains and their demand for new products.  Hence, the push for starter sets and kids clubs.  The advantage of the older market segment is they have significant disposable income, and they tend to want to relive their childhood toys through their kids or grand kids.

The train market is almost the exact opposite of the phone market, where younger people are sucked in at an early age.  They quickly develop a lifelong demand that becomes a dominant factor in their daily lifestyle.   Whether it is affordable or not, they will make the sacrifice to be able to buy it.  Just my observations.

I have totally stopped buying any new items and I have also sold 90% of my collection. I just don't have any room plus the prices have soared way too high. 

Being retired has also been a problem, my pension was cut by 70% after the company I retired from went out of business and could not pay us retirees. So it was turned over to a govt. agency. Then they cut our promised retirement by 70%, Nice!

It isn't the prices as much as the realization that looking at things on the shelf is just not satisfying.  My Ah Ha moment came from an ORG article about a layout that was more focused on the state (layout) instead of the trains and an editorial about adopting a theme.  I have now assembled a roster of Jersey Central locos that fit my theme.  I also plan on leaving the peoples republic of new jersey at some point and am unwilling to pay to move things I never use.  I will only move what I plain on using so my purchasing has declined to zero. 

GVDobler posted:

Ralph Kramden made $62.50 a week in the mid fifties as a New York City bus driver. About equal to a Lionel set, at the.time.

What's a NYC bus driver make today? Maybe $2,000 a week? You can get a Lionel set for less than that, so they are actually cheaper than they were in the fifties. It is just your dollar that is worth less. Not worthless, just worth less.

 

NYC bus drivers make $104,000 a year?

I'm in the wrong profession.

I hope you guys don't take offense to my observations, but a couple things come to mind:

1. A lot of you are older and have already collected "everything." There really isn't anything truly new coming out, so frankly I think it's that more than prices that are curbing your purchasing.

2. Prices really can't be compared to times past because there was no such thing as "high end" as we have it now. Comparatively speaking, buying a starter set in the 50's, 60's, 70's and even the 80's was a SACRIFICE for the average working man. From a dollars and cents perspective, a basic starter set today costs about what it did in 1980, but those dollars and cents are worth a whole lot less. From a pure inflation standpoint, a basic starter set should cost as much as that BigBoy you dropped a cool $2000 on in 2014.

david1 posted:

I have totally stopped buying any new items and I have also sold 90% of my collection. I just don't have any room plus the prices have soared way too high. 

Being retired has also been a problem, my pension was cut by 70% after the company I retired from went out of business and could not pay us retirees. So it was turned over to a govt. agency. Then they cut our promised retirement by 70%, Nice!

 

 

What the heck?

Sounds like what Enron did.

I feel for you David, my Director way back in 2002, when he was getting ready to retire after 35 years with the same company, almost had a heart attack and was sick to his stomach, when the company informed him he would not get what he was supposed to.

They were not even having money troubles!

He had to hire an attorney and he was able to get most of it back but not all.

Still, it affected his health, which he did not deserve.

Don't even get me started on the government...so strange that an institution who puts billions into preventing fraud waste and abuse is the king of fraud waste and abuse.

And it is not even at high levels..we are talking about worker bee level.

Anyway, every time I see Lionel release a Vision Line Locomotive, especially the last one, i.e. GG-1, I could care less, because the price tag is just silly.

Moreover, I have a Post War Celebration remake and a wonderful MTH Rail King PS3 GG-1 that does everything the Lionel one does except for the sparks (whoopy doo), for a fraction of the price.

http://mthtrains.com/sites/def...1_Daily_E-News_O.jpg

Wow! A lot of interesting and different responses here. I happen to agree with everyone.

I used to pass on all the high tech stuff as I just couldn't afford it.  I then found out that a lot of them have layaway and if you shop around you can save a lot of money and get what you like without putting up your mortgage payment for that Legacy locomotive.  I still can't afford Lionel's Legacy steamers as no one offers that long of a layaway to get it paid off but so far the diesel's have been okay. A couple of the forum sponsors here have great programs with superb customer service.

J Daddy posted:

How about to a screeching HALT?!

Priced right out of the  market for new items.

But I still can find items I want used on the secondary market. I just have to be patient.

Likewise! I'm a dyed-in-the-wool secondary market guy, and a relatively recent convert to 3-rail because I'm easily distracted by old tinplate. New stuff? Hah!

       Hey GVDobler:  Ralph:  "Shut up!  I don't want my salary to leak out."   Alice: " You're salary couldn't   drip out." 

johnshorse posted:

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

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

3. No room left. 

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

Agree with these points.

Prices have slowed purchases big time, and also am spending more time with other things. There's a lot of other ground to cover.

New purchases from Lionel have come to a screeching halt for me.....unless I find something on sale....with a hefty price reduction.

I find the BTO program.....obscene.  I will not participate in it.

I find the BTO program, coupled with high prices, lack of quality control, and an uncertain delivery schedule.....intolerable.

Can someone explain to me why Lionel's new FEFs are so much more expensive than the ones that came out in 2008?  Please keep in mind that other than the addition of whistle steam, the tooling had already been created. 

Can someone explain to me why Lionel's new FEFs cost almost the same as MTH's new FEFs....and four premier passenger cars?

Folks, Lionel's pricing on their Legacy Steamers is starting to approach that of 3rd Rail....without the incredible details....and in much larger production runs.

I know what's in the new catalogs, am somewhat interested in it, but will not buy at these hefty prices.

The modern toy train market left me, I didn't leave it. Someone mentioned the new Lionel GG-1 has "sparking" pantographs ??   Really  ??  Talk about gimmicks !!   I want the  story to read "Crazy old man was crushed when his collection of Lionel toy trains fell on him. His body was found with his hand still on the handle of the transformer".

Berkshire President posted:

...

Can someone explain to me why Lionel's new FEFs are so much more expensive than the ones that came out in 2008?  Please keep in mind that other than the addition of whistle steam, the tooling had already been created. 

Can someone explain to me why Lionel's new FEFs cost almost the same as MTH's new FEFs....and four premier passenger cars?

...

Be careful folks... Lionel "enthusiasts" out there will think we're "complaining" instead of just calling it as we see it. 

Seriously though... I don't think there IS any good explanation for the stratospheric price-points... other than the fact that Lionel's new management thinks they can set any price, and folks will buy anyway because of the "LIONEL" name.  And now that all the big-ticket stuff is BTO, they have absolutely nothing to lose in terms of overall risk.  True, they may jeopardize some revenue due to lower pre-order sales (if prices are set too high).  But the risk of holding excess inventory at their NC warehouse has been shifted into the dealer network.

For me, the decision is a no-brainer whenever MTH has an equal or similar locomotive offering.  Case in point:  Look at the NS SD60e locomotives for Veterans and First Responders.  MTH got my pre-order for THREE  SD60e's, because the Lionel offering was priced $150 more for no good reason.  It's really that simple.  Vote with your wallet.

David

When mth offeres smoking whistle steamers  I am done with Lionel. 

jojofry posted:

When mth offeres smoking whistle steamers  I am done with Lionel. 

I believe MTH's newest Big Boy will have the "smoking whistle" feature.