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I think the most interesting part of this is exchange rates - stores over here seem very quick to put prices up when the $ is stronger but they take far longer to cut them back when the £ is up. I would agree that prices seem to have gone up, often without a noticable increase in quality - in the past 10 years the price of some locos has doubled but the build quality and detailing is much the same. Interestingly Lifelike seem intent on charging prices not much higher than BB for their P1K locos - my LHS had a bunch of their new RS11s for little more than what I paid for a BB SD9 a couple of years ago, and the higher price was more than justified by the extra detailing and lighting (would cost more to buy the parts and upgrade a BB loco). Compared to the prices for some UK market locos the US brands are still inexpensive - list price on some of Bachmann's big steamers is over $200, you won't find much below £80 new even at discounters. That $900 large scale loco sounds pretty much the standard for big locos in that scale - RhB electrics go for between £400 and £800 ($800 and $1600). I regard this as expensive but reasonable value considering they have a useful life of over 20 years assuming no accidents or damage and all proper maintainance is done. However, it doesn't have to be that expensive - a start set will set you back far less and if you're interested in traditional narrow gauge lines (as opposed to the Swiss metre gauge) your most expensive loco will probably be around the $400 area for a "pride of the line" big tank loco. The same goes in HO - building and stocking something like the "Turtle Creek" will not cost you a horrendous sum while building a large basement layout will cost more. I think it's still possible to build a good layout on a budget.
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