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Well. China has very many people and they can make a widget for 10 cents. America needs 1.50 plus expenses per worker to make the same widget. Alot of things changed in the past 12 years. National Intermodal Capability, Internet use by businesses and cutting costs by either doing it in house or having a overseas firm make it for you. The increase in shipping into all of our ports as well as air freight. Everything moves faster and cheaper. America will always have fast food, gas station, service and retail jobs everything else seems fair game to be looked at via a excel spreadsheet to cut costs. Eventually peoples of the far east where the cheap labor is will acquire skills and demand a higher standard of living. Once this occurs they then will have the power to have products cost more while all of our "Irreplaceable" tooling is over there. We will find ourselves in a position to have to start all over again or be left behind. I choose to enjoy the hobby by acquiring r/h or athearn kits where I can find them. I think that Horizion will continue to make these items availiable in RTR. I suspect dealers are fighting to get large shipments of kits and blue boxes out of the system as fast as possible so they can have some stock on hand. There is also a new danger that I must express. This is a trend towards direct marketing to the hobbist via the internet IF this proves profitable then manufactors may sell directly to the model railroader and cut out the hobby shop dealer in a effort to cut prices. I recently acquired some computer parts for my ailing system sight unseen across the internet and had em delivered within days in mint and perfect condition. If I had to drive to the store to get these same parts prices would be higher. And there is the sales tax. I did not in my state have to pay any tax so I save a large amount of money on internet purchases. Ebay will probably be close to number one for out of production items for a long time. I cannot imagine how many attics, basements and boxes of trains over the last 30 years are sitting across America. I suspect there is enough stock to keep us happy for at least 10 years. I look forward to a positive out look on the future offerings from Horizion and hope that they do not just make 100 items and tack a 1 year advance order prepaid at outrageous prices. After seeing what happened to athearn last year I think we are in for a smooth transition with Round house.
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