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I do have to admit that the hobby has changed drastically over the last 20 years or so. I am now 28. I started into it all when i was like 10. Granted, my whole fleet was composed of birthday presents and christmas presents. But when you look at the technology incorporated into todays product i can see the need for increased prices. That is for certain goods. part of what drew me into the hobby was knowing that i built what was running. I had loads of athearn rolling stock and engines. I loved to put it all together and say i made that! Now, kits, besides becomming tromendously difficult to find, are very much overpriced! Lets take Walthers rolling stock for example. Now not too many order directly from walthers direct, so i won't focus on SRP's! But even then..... <br />45 dollars for one passenger car? I remember when i could get the same style in kit form, super detail it, paint it, and still save money! Maybe the walthers example is a bad one. So lets look at athearn. The engines from the genesis line run wonderfully. Sure they are more expensive, but the quality has improved and the incerase in out of the box details is much better. That is a price increase that is justified. But lets look at the rollling stock. 25 dollars for rolling stock? 10 years ago i was able to buy the same thing in kit form, have fun building it, and pay only 7 bucks! And honestly, i think it looked better back then also. I have such a hard time finding kits today. I would pick up a branchline kit, but they are expensive. I used to be able to walk into a hobby store with 100 dollars and walk out with a whole crapload of goodies. I would have been able to get 5 cars, an engine, and a building kit or two. Now i am lucky if i can get an engine and one passenger car. Forget about the building. <br />Bottom line, the price increases have pushed me from the hobby. I still enjoy working with what i have, and i do enjoy new items rolling down the main line, but all i can say is that it is just not the same. I don't feel the same pride i felt a few years ago. Now, with the new stuff, all i can say is that i pulled it out of the box all by myself instead of being able to say i built that and added all the details myself! All of the kits that are available, (still severely hard to find) are way too overpriced to enjoy! ....And i am not talking about the old stock athearn kits that places like trainworld still have. I am talking about new release items! <br />I am not bashing r.t.r. equiptment, i am just bashing the abandonment of kit form equiptment. ......And the rediculous pricing.
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