|
|
Post by Great-Northern-Willmar Div on Jan 16, 2015 6:04:36 GMT -8
If the ever increasing prices of model railroad models and supplies is leading to the demise of the hobby, then the supermarket is on its death bed too!
Every week when I go to the grocery store to shop, SOMETHING has taken a substantial jump in price or reduced its size. Last week, I glanced at my favorite soda pop Coca-Cola Zero and saw it went from $1.69 for 2 liters to $1.89. Oscar Meyer fat free hot dogs never were cheap at $5.49 for a package of eight. But now they are $5.99. At the deli, Hormel Deli Ham was cheap at $2.99 a pound. Now its $3.99 a pound. The hot dinners at the deli all went up in price. I used to be able to get a four piece all white chicken meal with real mashed potatoes, gravy and vegetable of the day for $5.29. A few weeks ago the price went to $6.49 for the same meal.
So, if price is one of the things driving nails into the coffin of the hobby shop and model railroading. We should have no food to eat either as both grocery stores and restaurants will be out of business too in future.
|
|
|
|
Post by Gary P on Jan 16, 2015 8:18:49 GMT -8
If the ever increasing prices of model railroad models and supplies is leading to the demise of the hobby, then the supermarket is on its death bed too! Every week when I go to the grocery store to shop, SOMETHING has taken a substantial jump in price or reduced its size. Last week, I glanced at my favorite soda pop Coca-Cola Zero and saw it went from $1.69 for 2 liters to $1.89. Oscar Meyer fat free hot dogs never were cheap at $5.49 for a package of eight. But now they are $5.99. At the deli, Hormel Deli Ham was cheap at $2.99 a pound. Now its $3.99 a pound. The hot dinners at the deli all went up in price. I used to be able to get a four piece all white chicken meal with real mashed potatoes, gravy and vegetable of the day for $5.29. A few weeks ago the price went to $6.49 for the same meal. So, if price is one of the things driving nails into the coffin of the hobby shop and model railroading. We should have no food to eat either as both grocery stores and restaurants will be out of business too in future. Jim - I'm not sure if you were serious, or being sarcastic. (Can't tell from the written word!  ) While I agree that grocery prices have gone up, I do not agree with the comparison to the hobby. Our beloved hobby is funded by discretionary income, but food and groceries are not. If money is tight, I'd give up a new loco purchase before I would let my family go without food!  |
|
|
|
Post by Great-Northern-Willmar Div on Jan 16, 2015 8:56:23 GMT -8
If the ever increasing prices of model railroad models and supplies is leading to the demise of the hobby, then the supermarket is on its death bed too! Every week when I go to the grocery store to shop, SOMETHING has taken a substantial jump in price or reduced its size. Last week, I glanced at my favorite soda pop Coca-Cola Zero and saw it went from $1.69 for 2 liters to $1.89. Oscar Meyer fat free hot dogs never were cheap at $5.49 for a package of eight. But now they are $5.99. At the deli, Hormel Deli Ham was cheap at $2.99 a pound. Now its $3.99 a pound. The hot dinners at the deli all went up in price. I used to be able to get a four piece all white chicken meal with real mashed potatoes, gravy and vegetable of the day for $5.29. A few weeks ago the price went to $6.49 for the same meal. So, if price is one of the things driving nails into the coffin of the hobby shop and model railroading. We should have no food to eat either as both grocery stores and restaurants will be out of business too in future. Jim - While I agree that grocery prices have gone up, I do not agree with the comparison to the hobby. Our beloved hobby is funded by discretionary income, but food and groceries are not. If money is tight, I'd give up a new loco purchase before I would let my family go without food! And I agree with you 100% The price of living has a direct effect on all discretionary spending. Then there is give and take with the money that is left. Maybe instead of having the HBO, Showtime and 300+ channels at your fingertips for your viewing pleasure or boredom, you cut the TV package to the bone and use that money on your hobby. The family eats out less and has extra money for some family outings. People will chop up the old family budget in order to afford other things. Price HAS to affect this hobby and all others. If it doesn't then I'd love to know why not. But, someway and somehow manufacturers like Athearn, Bowser, Rapido, Intermountain, Atlas and a bunch of others still pump out new products each and every month. Someone must be buying this stuff. So for all the people in this hobby blowing taps on their bag pipes, time to catch a breath, because model trains AIN'T DEAD YET! What has changed in this hobby is the way the MAJORITY shop. When I got serious about model railroading and not just running trains in 1976....yes, I'm a dinosaur.....I bought an Athearn FP45 in Santa Fe red warbonnet from one of the retailers that used to run one of those big five or more page ads in Model Railroader. It took weeks from the time my dad sent the payment to the time my mailman gave me my package. Then I discovered Park Lane Hobbies in Calumet City, Illinois. Park Lane stocked at least three of everything Athearn manufactured. They had walls with every Athearn model and paint scheme on display. Park Lane had a very nice discount, but was a few dollars higher than the big mail order place in MR. I started doing all my buying with Park Lane and rarely if ever did mail order. Park Lane's prices were ever so slightly higher and I had to pay sales tax, but the convenience of being able to drop in and get what I wanted and NOT have to wait weeks for a purchase was worth the couple of dollars. In 1976, that Athearn FP45 cost about $17. Today, an Athearn Genesis FP45 has an MSRP of about $169.98. The price is $129.98 at Klein's compared to $135 at my LHS, EngineHouse Services in Green Bay. If I buy at EHS, it is only 5 dollars more but I have to add sales tax of $7.43, plus either the cost of driving 80 miles round trip or having EHS ship it. Klein with shipping will be in the neighborhood of $145. EHS with tax and gas would be about $150. Again, only five dollars. Even with shipping, it would still be less than a $10 difference. But, I'm lucky to have a hobby shop like HO and N scale only EngineHouse Services. Many do not have a shop within a reasonable distance. Plus, not many hobby shops stack up to an EHS when it comes to selection of locomotives, cars, scenery, tools, vehicles, track and so much more. I'm spoiled by EHS. Few general interest hobby stores can offer the selection of trains, model kits, R/C, etc. to satisfy the avid hobbyist in those fields. Few stores have the buying power of a Klein's or an EHS. EHS doesn't order 10 Athearn Genesis locomotives at a time. EHS orders hundreds. Many are for customers both locally, via internet or out of town sales. So, EHS like Klein's has a broad selection of the latest and greatest and their prices help them move those expensive items FAST. What is gone is the day of the 9 to 5 hobby shop with everything priced listed at MSRP. Retail is survival of fittest. So when some old time or even newer store closes down, many times the reason, besides old age or health of the owner, it is because the store is in a tough location, behind the times (lack of internet presence, hours, etc.) or a whole bunch of other reasons. Just because some store closes doesn't mean the hobby is on life support. It just means that money wasn't flowing in the direction of that particular retail outlet. In the animal world, animals which either strong, can adapt or are intelligent, survive. The ones which are weak, unable to adapt or not too intelligent, become diner for the others. |
|
|
|
Post by Gary P on Jan 16, 2015 9:59:55 GMT -8
Wow, EHS sounds like a great place to shop. You're lucky! Wish there was something like that around here. Closest shop is an hours drive....
|
|
|
|
Post by Great-Northern-Willmar Div on Jan 16, 2015 12:30:25 GMT -8
Wow, EHS sounds like a great place to shop. You're lucky! Wish there was something like that around here. Closest shop is an hours drive.... Browse. |
|
|
|
Post by atsfan on Jan 16, 2015 17:41:27 GMT -8
Jim - While I agree that grocery prices have gone up, I do not agree with the comparison to the hobby. Our beloved hobby is funded by discretionary income, but food and groceries are not. If money is tight, I'd give up a new loco purchase before I would let my family go without food! And I agree with you 100% The price of living has a direct effect on all discretionary spending. Then there is give and take with the money that is left. Maybe instead of having the HBO, Showtime and 300+ channels at your fingertips for your viewing pleasure or boredom, you cut the TV package to the bone and use that money on your hobby. The family eats out less and has extra money for some family outings. People will chop up the old family budget in order to afford other things. Price HAS to affect this hobby and all others. If it doesn't then I'd love to know why not. But, someway and somehow manufacturers like Athearn, Bowser, Rapido, Intermountain, Atlas and a bunch of others still pump out new products each and every month. Someone must be buying this stuff. So for all the people in this hobby blowing taps on their bag pipes, time to catch a breath, because model trains AIN'T DEAD YET! What has changed in this hobby is the way the MAJORITY shop. When I got serious about model railroading and not just running trains in 1976....yes, I'm a dinosaur.....I bought an Athearn FP45 in Santa Fe red warbonnet from one of the retailers that used to run one of those big five or more page ads in Model Railroader. It took weeks from the time my dad sent the payment to the time my mailman gave me my package. Then I discovered Park Lane Hobbies in Calumet City, Illinois. Park Lane stocked at least three of everything Athearn manufactured. They had walls with every Athearn model and paint scheme on display. Park Lane had a very nice discount, but was a few dollars higher than the big mail order place in MR. I started doing all my buying with Park Lane and rarely if ever did mail order. Park Lane's prices were ever so slightly higher and I had to pay sales tax, but the convenience of being able to drop in and get what I wanted and NOT have to wait weeks for a purchase was worth the couple of dollars. In 1976, that Athearn FP45 cost about $17. Today, an Athearn Genesis FP45 has an MSRP of about $169.98. The price is $129.98 at Klein's compared to $135 at my LHS, EngineHouse Services in Green Bay. If I buy at EHS, it is only 5 dollars more but I have to add sales tax of $7.43, plus either the cost of driving 80 miles round trip or having EHS ship it. Klein with shipping will be in the neighborhood of $145. EHS with tax and gas would be about $150. Again, only five dollars. Even with shipping, it would still be less than a $10 difference. But, I'm lucky to have a hobby shop like HO and N scale only EngineHouse Services. Many do not have a shop within a reasonable distance. Plus, not many hobby shops stack up to an EHS when it comes to selection of locomotives, cars, scenery, tools, vehicles, track and so much more. I'm spoiled by EHS. Few general interest hobby stores can offer the selection of trains, model kits, R/C, etc. to satisfy the avid hobbyist in those fields. Few stores have the buying power of a Klein's or an EHS. EHS doesn't order 10 Athearn Genesis locomotives at a time. EHS orders hundreds. Many are for customers both locally, via internet or out of town sales. So, EHS like Klein's has a broad selection of the latest and greatest and their prices help them move those expensive items FAST. What is gone is the day of the 9 to 5 hobby shop with everything priced listed at MSRP. Retail is survival of fittest. So when some old time or even newer store closes down, many times the reason, besides old age or health of the owner, it is because the store is in a tough location, behind the times (lack of internet presence, hours, etc.) or a whole bunch of other reasons. Just because some store closes doesn't mean the hobby is on life support. It just means that money wasn't flowing in the direction of that particular retail outlet. In the animal world, animals which either strong, can adapt or are intelligent, survive. The ones which are weak, unable to adapt or not too intelligent, become diner for the others. With the closing of hundreds of train stores, there is no way that the same amount of money is now flowing in the direction of some new retail outlet on the internet. |
|
|
|
Post by jamesbrodie67281 on Jan 17, 2015 2:36:44 GMT -8
I think this one Limey is helping keep this wonderful hobby afloat. I know 'render unto ---- 'In my case $134.64 extra paid on top for two really good passenger cars. One GGD and one Weaver. I bought them through a model shop in America but because of the distance I buy by post ie mail order. In my case the adage 'it pays to advertise ' works. After seeing coaching stock adverts and some are from ''boneyard sections'' I've bought or even used a 'lay away scheme.
As a railway pensioner I cut my cloth according to my purse. The hobby shops have even told me where stock I'm looking for may still be purchased.
I think I shall continue wearing my pink glasses so maybe there might be another Limey helping keep the American market afloat as well.
James 67281.
|
|
|
|
Post by curtmc on Jan 18, 2015 23:26:22 GMT -8
For those who think the online dealers are making up for all the shops lost I've got news for you... Two manufacturers have told me that isn't so. Also, I watch MBK (major online dealer - described by one manufacturer as their largest dealer) web site like a hawk - several times daily looking at the HO items. I see most of the new items - and the quality in stock directly listed - usually within an hour or so of the listing being added. The quantities of most items they typically get has dropped from what it used to be. I remember the days of the Kato SD70MACs arriving and the HO manager at MBK telling me they had ordered 8 CASES of each number. Now I see the Athearn SD70ACe units arriving, usually 4-10 units per SKU, and seldom ever a restock. (And by the way, that initial number includes those preordered/requested because they no longer hold them, having been shorted by manufacturers too many times)
I also watch EHS (and Trainworld, and TTH, and Caboose Hobbies) and many items they never even list (and their site is one of those where you can indirectly find out how much of an item they have by trying to increase the quantity in the shopping cart). I just made a small EHS order last month, (getting a few items I'm sure had been on the shelf for several years plus one newly released Genesis unit that they must have only had one of because day after it was showing out of stock). I also saw what EHS had at Cleveland and the quantities of each unit was a few at most... And then there are the online shops that haven't updated their web sites in 6 months or more... You can't tell me that they are doing large amounts of online/mailorder business without updating their sites for that long...
Back about 2000 there were probably 20+ very large mailorder/online outlets... Several are now gone and what's left isn't making up for those lost. Most are ordering lower quantities because of being burned by overproduction and items that set on the shelves too long (recent examples IM SD40-2s)
|
|
|
|
Post by atsfan on Jan 19, 2015 6:57:46 GMT -8
People apply false logic by equating other retail stories to Model Railroading.
Amazon is online, and large, and new. Therefore it makes up for sales from all of the closed stores.
Ah ha, same is true for Model Railroading. False conclusion.
Kleins is not new. Their store is smaller than it was. Where are these new Amazon's and Zappo's. etc etc in the Model Railroad business? Especially when the two largest companies in Model Railroading require you to have a brick and mortar store.
|
|
|
|
Post by NS4122 on Jan 19, 2015 8:32:11 GMT -8
I think curt and atsfan should go to Springfield MA this weekend as ambassadors of “Gloom and Doom” and greet the thousands of attendees at the entrance to the train show and tell them the hobby is doomed and that they should return home as all hope is lost.
By the way, do you two ever buy anything? Maybe it would help the hobby if you did.
|
|
|
|
Post by atsfan on Jan 19, 2015 14:18:57 GMT -8
I think curt and atsfan should go to Springfield MA this weekend as ambassadors of “Gloom and Doom” and greet the thousands of attendees at the entrance to the train show and tell them the hobby is doomed and that they should return home as all hope is lost. By the way, do you two ever buy anything? Maybe it would help the hobby if you did. False conclusion again No doom and gloom stated only made up by the reader Do you know of anything to add to the conversation factually? Do you know the whereabouts of these new online outfits that were not stores that are selling more product overall today to replace all of the closed stores? That is what the discussion is. |
|
|
|
Post by curtmc on Jan 23, 2015 3:56:42 GMT -8
The crowd at Big E show in Springfield is... (1) likely to be less than 15-20 years ago (2) cooped up north-easterners in one of the few remaining regions (SoCal being the other) where a show like that could draw such a crowd... (3) now attended by many who see it as one of only a few chances per year to see/get stuff in person (now that so many NE shops have closed) That show is so large because it is only one time per year, and it's so sad that come Monday it will be another 12 months before most of those attendees get to go to another big train show... Not that it's anybody's business, but my model railroading purchases were down in 2014, but still well over $4,000 for the year... Down from some years that were double or triple that. How much were your purchases CSXT? By the way, here's an article that mentions the state of the hobby and quotes editor of Model Retailer magazine... www.jsonline.com/business/greenfield-news-and-hobby-closing-after-50-years-b99422457z1-288145821.html****** From That Article****** "Across the country, the ranks of hobby stores have been thinning over the last 10 years or so, said Jeff Reich, editor of Model Retailer, one of the magazines of Waukesha's Kalmbach Publishing Co. The biggest reason, he said, is probably the aging of the market. "A lot of kids aren't picking up these hobbies either because they're being priced out ... or because they'd rather go to online or home video games, and it's hard to counteract that," Reich said. Gordon said much the same thing. He guessed that the average age of his customers is over 50." ******* According to that article, what we're saying isn't so much "doom and gloom" as it is reality. |
|
|
|
Post by atsfan on Jan 23, 2015 6:43:26 GMT -8
The crowd at Big E show in Springfield is... (1) likely to be less than 15-20 years ago (2) cooped up north-easterners in one of the few remaining regions (SoCal being the other) where a show like that could draw such a crowd... (3) now attended by many who see it as one of only a few chances per year to see/get stuff in person (now that so many NE shops have closed) That show is so large because it is only one time per year, and it's so sad that come Monday it will be another 12 months before most of those attendees get to go to another big train show... Not that it's anybody's business, but my model railroading purchases were down in 2014, but still well over $4,000 for the year... Down from some years that were double or triple that. How much were your purchases CSXT? By the way, here's an article that mentions the state of the hobby and quotes editor of Model Retailer magazine... www.jsonline.com/business/greenfield-news-and-hobby-closing-after-50-years-b99422457z1-288145821.html****** From That Article****** "Across the country, the ranks of hobby stores have been thinning over the last 10 years or so, said Jeff Reich, editor of Model Retailer, one of the magazines of Waukesha's Kalmbach Publishing Co. The biggest reason, he said, is probably the aging of the market. "A lot of kids aren't picking up these hobbies either because they're being priced out ... or because they'd rather go to online or home video games, and it's hard to counteract that," Reich said. Gordon said much the same thing. He guessed that the average age of his customers is over 50." ******* According to that article, what we're saying isn't so much "doom and gloom" as it is reality. Kids play .99 cent apps all day long. Rare is one in 2015 who will sit still long enough to build a train layout. |
|
Deleted
Deleted Member
Posts: 0
|
Post by Deleted on Jan 23, 2015 9:00:29 GMT -8
The crowd at Big E show in Springfield is... (1) likely to be less than 15-20 years ago (2) cooped up north-easterners in one of the few remaining regions (SoCal being the other) where a show like that could draw such a crowd... (3) now attended by many who see it as one of only a few chances per year to see/get stuff in person (now that so many NE shops have closed) That show is so large because it is only one time per year, and it's so sad that come Monday it will be another 12 months before most of those attendees get to go to another big train show... Not that it's anybody's business, but my model railroading purchases were down in 2014, but still well over $4,000 for the year... Down from some years that were double or triple that. How much were your purchases CSXT? By the way, here's an article that mentions the state of the hobby and quotes editor of Model Retailer magazine... www.jsonline.com/business/greenfield-news-and-hobby-closing-after-50-years-b99422457z1-288145821.html****** From That Article****** "Across the country, the ranks of hobby stores have been thinning over the last 10 years or so, said Jeff Reich, editor of Model Retailer, one of the magazines of Waukesha's Kalmbach Publishing Co. The biggest reason, he said, is probably the aging of the market. "A lot of kids aren't picking up these hobbies either because they're being priced out ... or because they'd rather go to online or home video games, and it's hard to counteract that," Reich said. Gordon said much the same thing. He guessed that the average age of his customers is over 50." ******* According to that article, what we're saying isn't so much "doom and gloom" as it is reality. The closing of many brick & mortar shops does not equal a declining hobby. That has been explained to you repeatedly. Recall my Mom & Pop video store anology "teh store closed, video dead!" Model railroading has always been a hobby where most of the participants (and their spending) are over 50 years. That's when people retire and have more time and money to spend on the hobby. Nothing new. You're tired "end is near" arguments have been heard (and dismissed) for decades. |
|
|
|
Post by riogrande on Jan 23, 2015 10:01:59 GMT -8
It doesn't look like we are going to change each others minds. Lets drop this.
|
|
) While I agree that grocery prices have gone up, I do not agree with the comparison to the hobby. Our beloved hobby is funded by discretionary income, but food and groceries are not. If money is tight, I'd give up a new loco purchase before I would let my family go without food! 
