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I too have found out the hard way about the cost of modeling these days when I got back to the hobby this winter after a 15 year absence. It hurt. IMO, the bottom line on the general price increases is due to demographics. One of the last times I went to my LHS, one thing struck me - where is the younger crowd? Fifteen years ago, when I was a kid myself, it seemed like it was kids that were pushing sales at the LHS I visited. Nowadays, after about 20 visits to various LHS in my area this winter, I can only remember one instance where there was a kid browsing the model train shelves when I was there. Meanwhile, the middle aged sucker such as myself walks in and puts a $200 dent in his wallet everytime he steps out the shop's door. Now that I can afford to run trains, if I need a certain piece of equipment badly, I will not hesitate to get it for (say) 30% more, whereas when I was a kid I used to just leave it on the shelf or walk away. Don't get me wrong, there's still a lot of the younger folks hanging around model railroading (thank goodness), but i'd be curious to know who spends the big bucks in the hobby shop these days compared to a few years ago. Perhaps the marketing people at MR could answer this one. Kids are too busy bying video games now. And boy, is there hot competition in that market! What is the price difference between an Xbox and a Playstation 2 these days? Last time I checked, around zero. They are keeping their prices as low as they can to get the (poorer) kids from buying their product. On the other hand, more kids these days don't even know what a real train sounds like because they've never seen one in real life(thanks to railroad downsizing), let alone being inspired by them. Regardless how much it costs to produce a particular unit, it would be "bad business" for a supplier not to take advantage of raising prices if the market is there to support it. People in the hobby are older and therefore richer than they used to be. Don't blame Athearn for this. We, "the market", are cheering them on! Sadly, I think model railroading has become a sport for the "elite", much like golf is (relatively speaking), unless there is a John Allen-like "Tiger Woods" who can magically appear and bring the hobby back to the younger crowd, therfore bringing prices down. My two cents, Calaille
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