This discussion comes up all the time, and people are right that lionel trains were never a cheap item, they were expensive, especially before you really had discount places out there. It gets very hard to compare prices between eras, it always seems to me when comparing prices people use the 10 factor as a rule of thumb. CPI itself is not necessarily a good comparison, because not everything follows the CPI, things like housing prices have outpace inflation as have things like the cost of medical care (I am talking here even what we pay after insurance). One measure is in salary, 45-50 bucks based on the supposed median income in this country would be somewhere between 800-900 a week (they say the median income is 44k). If you look at it that way, then a set that cost 45 bucks in 1952 would be , if a weeks salary is the gauge, 800+ these days.
When Lionel came out with the 700e, it was 75 bucks in 1938...that would translate into at least 2k today by any measure, roughly 3 weeks salary in that late depression time, and that is the closest thing we have to the scale engines of today (crude as it was).
"Lots of folks like to trot out the good old inflation / cost caculator. But what of other things? What does a T.V. cost? How about a washer or dryer?" In 1953 a high end washer and dryer set was nearly 500 bucks, today a comparable set would be in the 1200 dollar range (obviously, I can't compare features, I am using something comparable in one sense, a speed queen washer and dryer), and even if you go upscale to the really high end sets, 2k is a bargain comparatively. A 21" black and white tv set was around 400 bucks, today you can get for 400 in our dollars a 55" flat screen HD set with smart features, no comparison. Technology wise that tv set or washer and dryer is likely light years more sophisticated then even the top end engines coming out.
This is where inflation is a problem, as the poster said, because some things are a lot cheaper than they were in the past, which CPI doesn't really measure, or measure well. So yep, some things are dirt cheap comparitively. Others, if you look at features, are way cheaper. For example, I hear a lot of old grouches tell me how expensive cars are these days, how in the good old days they were so great, and it is not true. For example, a car in the early 1950's was about 1500 bucks, today a typical car is roughly 30k or so. Appears to be well above inflation, but then take a look at some things, and it isn't so obvious:
1)that car in 1950 would likely last you only a couple of years, if you lived in areas they used salt they would rust out, and things like engines and transmissions wore out by 40k-50k miles. The typical life of a car today is somewhere around 11 years, cars today have duty cycles on their engines, across the board, pushing 200k miles easily.
2)Cars today get easily well over 20mpg, a base corvette with 450 HP does 24 on the highway, a car in 1950 was likely getting 7-8 mpg or so, maybe a bit above 10 for a smaller engine.
3)Despite the fact that they could be fixed with a screwdriver, pliers and a wrench, the cars back then were not that reliable and required a lot more maintenance. The oil change interval was less (typical factory is 7500 these days) back then, you had to change spark plugs every 10k miles or so, and things like brakes had to be replaced far often, tires of the day lasted maybe 20k by industry standards, and you had delightful things like Mechanics having to pull the heads to de-carbonize engines (remember dieselling?).
Add all that up, and a car in 1950 was a lot more expensive to operate (and yes, gas was seemingly cheap back them, it was 18c a gallon...but even using 10 as the cpi number, that was 1.80...average is 2.50 at the moment, but factor in fuel efficiency that is 3 times easily what it was back then, and it is a lot cheaper.
The fact that some things are cheaper, like cars and tvs and appliances (in terms of features, reliability and length of service), is offset by other things that are a lot more expensive, and in the end it is why they use CPI or salary to determine relative costs, because other measures are fraught. The reality is that based on inflation or salary Lionel/3 rail trains are roughly as expensive as they were in the 1950's. Few kids had huge collections of engines, huge collections of cars, huge layouts, most had relatively modest collections because they were so expensive, kids would be lucky to get an engine or an accessory at Christmas. Part of the myth that Lionel trains were somehow affordable IMO is likely that by the 1960's and 70's in the secondary market you could get a huge haul of things for really cheap as people cleared out what had been their kids or their own as a kid, 50 bucks could buy a lot of stuff in that time period...and that has translated in some people's minds they must have been cheap new.
As far as why the trains are expensive, as opposed to tv sets, the answer is volume, pure and simple. Appliances were expensive in the 1950's, tv sets were expensive, because they were both expensive to build back then, and also because the cost of designing and tooling was spread over a relatively small market. In the ensuing years as getting a tv or appliance was common, where people bought more than 1 tv, etc, the market became huge, millions and millions of units, and between that and efficiencies of scale and new technology (for example, the transition from vacuum tube to solid state), and prices dropped. Even with that, tv's were relatively expensive until the flat panel area, in 1974 a 19" color tv was costing a good 3 or 400 bucks, compare that to what you have today.
The reason the trains were expensive back then, and are expensive today, are likely the same cause, that the market for them was/is relatively small compared to mass items like tv's. One thing has remained constant with them, there is a definitely cost for tooling and so forth, and even with using third world labor building these things is relatively labor intensive from what I know of how they are made, tv sets and appliances these days are made on assembly lines more and more utilizing techniques like lean production and automation that doesn't scale well down to something like toy train making, so to recoup cost and make a product each item is priced higher, because they sell so relatively few. If a legacy engine could sell millions (doubtful, given how many people are in this hobby), it would likely cost a significant fraction less of what it costs today, they would churn them out in mass production (rather than BTO)...but that isn't the case.
That doesn't mean I don't understand why people think the prices are too high or why they don't buy new, I understand it perfectly, while in theory I could afford 1200 for an engine or 80 bucks for a freight car, I have a lot of other things to fund, like retirement savings and catching up from the college tuition years, things that need fixing around the house, and other things, so like others I am not likely to be buying the latest stuff either, and with my layout (that I might actually be able to start on soon, once I finally finish the basement), I will try and find cost effective ways to do it, splurging where I may (if Miannes is anyway affordable, for example), or in buying track and stuff used as much as possible, as they say, it is what it is. I would like eventually to have command control on my layout, but will be happy initially being able to run what I have with things I am able to afford. I see a lot of beautiful steam engines, especially if it is NY central, or other things I like, but in the end I do what I can with the trains. I wish this was a mass hobby, but the reality is looking at prices on new stuff in HO it isn't exactly cheap these days, with DCC RTR standard engines from Athearn and other manufacturers are getting up there, too, and they have a bigger market, but they have the same problem despite the number of manufacturers, the hobby is limited in size.
Forward, with positive energy!
