Rising gasolene prices

[steffd]

QUOTE: Originally posted by Allan Miller

I don't have a LHS, so the price of gas is not a consideration in regard to my train buying.

HOWEVER, the price of oil will eventually impact everything we buy, so we will most certainly see continually rising prices on the trains we puchase, no matter whether these items are bought locally or come from some distance via mail order. Manufacturing costs will increase; overseas freight charges will increase; warehousing costs will increase; dealer's will have to increase prices to maintain a reasonable profit margin in light of increased heating and electricity costs; shipping rates (UPS, USPS, etc.) will increase, and so on and so forth. It won't matter if you have a LHS right down the block, or have to order from one a thousand miles away, you WILL be paying more to support your hobby.

As for my comment considering alternate sources for individuals having to travel long distances to get to their “Local” hobby shop such as on-line or mail order supplier. I agree that shipping, manufacturing, utility and other associated costs will increase due to the higher cost in fuel but you still don’t have to pay the full amount to fuel the delivery truck and other costs are amortized. However, you do have to pay 100% of your fuel bill for your vehicle regardless of the destination. I’m not saying axe you LHS, just look for additional sources or solutions. If you have a good relationship with you LHS and they value your patronage, maybe they can accommodate you by shipping your items to you in consolidated orders. Just a thought!

Stephan

[steffd]

QUOTE: Originally posted by roadrat

I know some people think that owning a SUV is evil but you know what for about two hours of work a weak I can fill the tank of my wifes v6 explorer, Now if anybody else feels comfortable shoe horning there family into a geo metro and sending them out on the highway so they don't have to work the extra two hours please feel free to do so! but not me.
I did'nt buy an SUV because "esteem issues" I bought and keep it for peace of mind.

bill

As per my comments yesterday, I just wanted to make sure that it is understood that I am not trying to offend or attack SUV's in general or their owners. I'm talking about any gas-guzzling vehicle whether it is a truck or a car with Large Block engines producing unnecessary amounts of Power for “Domestic” use, Not size. Ultimately, it's the consumer's choice on what type of vehicle they want to purchase but they should be conscious of that choice when they are visiting the gas pump more frequently and having to fork out more $$$. You know there is a compromise between a Geo Metro and a Hummer or Expedition and not only SUV’s or trucks offer superior protection unless all us mortal car owners are suicidal. Some trucks and SUV's have been known to flip and owners tend to also think they are invincible. I think it how you drive and not what you drive.

Stephan

[Anonymous]

I veiw this problem with mixed emotions. I see that the price of gas effects eveything. When the cost of material goes up $1.00 the cost of the product to the wholeseller goes up $1.15 (same percentage profit just a bigger sale). His selling price goes up an additional $.25 and then the shop has to raise their price to stay at the same percent so the additional cost to us could be an additional $.35. So a cost increase of $1.00 means a retail increase of $1.75.

I've found out that after I pay the S & H the LHS prices are very close to the mailorder prices and the LHS has it today.

After getting a royal screwing from Hobby Circle it'll take a long time for the Mail Order savings to match the LHS savings.

[Anonymous]

I don't have a LHS, so the price of gas is not a consideration in regard to my train buying.

HOWEVER, the price of oil will eventually impact everything we buy, so we will most certainly see continually rising prices on the trains we puchase, no matter whether these items are bought locally or come from some distance via mail order. Manufacturing costs will increase; overseas freight charges will increase; warehousing costs will increase; dealer's will have to increase prices to maintain a reasonable profit margin in light of increased heating and electricity costs; shipping rates (UPS, USPS, etc.) will increase, and so on and so forth. It won't matter if you have a LHS right down the block, or have to order from one a thousand miles away, you WILL be paying more to support your hobby.

But we (and I'm speaking of Americans here 'cause that's where I live) have only ourselves to blame. Make no mistake about that! We allowed ourselves to become energy dependent rather than energy independent, and now we are starting--just starting, mind you--to pay the price. And it's going to get a whole lot worse before it ever begins to get better thanks to our head-in-the-sand approach to the problem.

[jwr_1986]

I drive 45 minutes to get to my LHS. Now that trip has to wait until I'm going that way which is about once every other month or less [:(]

Jesse

[IRONROOSTER]

I don't think that the cost of gas is the big problem so much as the cost of other things that will rise. A lot of power plants burn oil which will drive up the cost of electricity. That in turn affects manufacturing costs. That along with increased transportation costs will hurt because everything will go up in price which means fewer dollars for recreational activities. The gas cost can be coped with by using mass transit where feasible, better trip planning, more fuel efficient cars, etc. But the rising cost of everything we buy means less money for hobbies even if you live next door tp the shop and can walk.

At this point, while some people are affected I think the economy as a whole can absorb the current cost. I worry about it going to $4+, at that point everything will suffer and just covering the basics will be a major concern for a lot of people.
Enjoy
Paul

[okiechoochoo]

QUOTE: Originally posted by SpaceMouse

If there is an effect, it will be, like Lothar says, in the shipping. Everything comes by truck these days and a 25% increase in fuel will trickle down.

Right now we are feeling a crunch becasue the incresase prices are in our face, and true some people who drive a long way to work are getting slammed. But this little hike will be nothing compared to what is coming next month. Two laws are going into effect. One will prohibit bankrupcies for people over a certain amount and the other will double minnimum credit card payments.

That will hurt most people far more than gas prices.

I had heard about the bankruptcy law but only heard yesterday about the credit card law.
I keep my card paid off so I really don't care but I agree that will really hurt a lot of people who have maxed their credit limits and live making minimum payments. Wow, this could be interesting[^][^]

[roadrat]

I know some people think that owning a SUV is evil but you know what for about two hours of work a weak I can fill the tank of my wifes v6 explorer, Now if anybody else feels comfortable shoe horning there family into a geo metro and sending them out on the highway so they don't have to work the extra two hours please feel free to do so! but not me.
I did'nt buy an SUV because "esteem issues" I bought and keep it for peace of mind.

bill

[sunsetbeachry]

my VINCENT gets a full tank for 5 bucks. The truck gets 55 bucks, the turtle 69 toyota motorhome 15 mpg ;town car 69 Plymonth about 8mpg So when kathy and chuck go to the store use right foot thru floor and use all 400 hp When I go to the store 150mph VINCENT wwwwwwwwwwweeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeee Astoria Or. Costco 2.62 reg; Seaside Or. 2.92 That is where all the tourists have to buy gas and I won't tell them any different as you can see I don't like the way they treat us here on the coast.;but I still love my hp and speed and I' m guess still stuck with it . Even though we are now in our 60's Chuck and Kathy

[gvdobler]

Fergmiester

What's the "big R" ???

[steffd]

Just my 2 cents but perhaps those individuals working in or near city centers should consider public transit such as the commuter train instead of driving to work everyday. You can park your car, carpool or get a ride from your home to the nearest train station. Even with the cost of a monthly pass, you should still save substantially on fuel and possibly even parking expenses and may in return have more disposable income left over for your hobbies. However, the current fuel prices must not seem to bother those consumers who still insist on buying and driving their big V8+ cars, trucks and SUV’s. I mean really, who needs that much power in a domestic vehicle unless you have esteem issues and need to compensate for something.... [(-D] Also, I think when your LHS is more than 150KM from your home, it's not really a “local” hobby shop anymore and maybe it's time to cut back on the frequency of visits. Perhaps considering alternate sources such as on-line or mail order could be an option if fuel cost is becoming a concern.

As for the environmentalist issues, I think there is a happy medium and a way petroleum companies can produce fossil fuels safely while placing an emphases on protecting the environment at all costs which should be of GREAT CONCERN to Everyone Everywhere. We have so many resources and technology available to us that both groups could work together. The problem is that there are still to many old-timers and politicians around who don’t really care about environmental issues and are only concerned about amassing wealth and power because they know there are going to die before the impact of their greed and recklessness affect them. [}:)]

Stephan

[on30francisco]

All the LHSs in this area are on city bus or Metro (subway) routes. If I have to go there, I just use my Fast Pass if I bought one or just pay a fare of $1.25 for a round trip. One LHS is within walking distance although their stock is skimpy and high priced. I usually buy most of my supplies either on-line or at arts & craft stores.

[CP5415]

My LHS happens to be on my way home from work, so no, it won't have a negative affect on the # of trips I make. [:)]

Gordon

[Anonymous]

QUOTE: Originally posted by Kiel-Holtenau



Hannover (around 20 miles away) is where I tend to go by train anyway; I can commute there for free.

You forget the first rule of economics: TANSTASFL (pronounced tans-t-awful), there ain't no such thing as a free lunch. I don't know about Germany, but if you don't pay for a ticket or have a free pass, and maybe you do, because you work for them or something, I bet you still pay for it out of your taxes.

---

QUOTE: Originally posted by Overduff



Who is keeping track of the automotive ads, while out of one corner of their mouths they are touting SUVs and full size cars, they are whispering vehicles at 30+ miles per gallon. It isn't the price of the vehicle, it's what it's going to cost you. Maybe someone will wake up finally to the fact that we have sold our soles to the devil, and we need some new technology that is not petroleum based.
Will

I would hardly call it selling our souls (not soles, unless you mean shoes), to the devil. Part of the problem with other sources of energy if that it would cost more to use than sticking with oil based methods. Take a look at hydrogen, how do you get it to run cars, well the easy way is to pass steam over hot coals. Lets use fossils fuels to produce hydrogen, for our clean cars. Or better yet we can build wind turbines that the great American bald eagle will fly into, and die. Since science has proven that we are not running out of oil, some places where the thought the well had run dry now have more oil in them, I think that if we could get the environmentalist to let us drill for oil off the coast of California, the gulf of Mexico, and Alaska, we could drop the price of oil significantly.

---

Nuclear power is a very good option for using less fuel, but the environmentalist also blocks that path. I was scoffed at before when I said that disposing of nuclear waste was not a huge problem. Here is what I heard from a retired officer of the Navy, who severed on diesel and nuclear subs, and worked directly under Admiral Rickover. What you do is you take the waste, the size of a marble that can run whole cities for years, and even then can be put into another reactor that uses the waste from the first reactor, coat it with glass and dump it into the Marianas trench. No radioactivity will contaminate the ocean and nothing lives that deep, and it couldn't be filled up for thousands of years. Of course you can't convince people of that, but it would work.

I drive a Geo to my Local Hobby Shop, and get 50+ miles to the gallon. I always want, that when I build a bigger layout to have my local hobby shop, with an old Geo in the parking lot.

[peterjenkinson1956]

i notice that a lot of you are now feeling the pinch and are going to get smaller cars or get a second car and only use the pick up for short trips......... over here in australia the main cars are the gm commadore and the ford falcon both much larger than the camry.and where i live 30% of vehicles would be 4 x 4's (landcruiser).when i have been to the u s a i have noticed that your sedans are getting smaller and have smaller engines... V8's are very popular over here with 5.7l and 6l cars very popular and very fuel efficient... the commadore 'monaro' is sold in the usa as a two door muscle car chev... so it just goes to show that the cost of fuel only has a small effect for a short time we have a hyundai in the carport and never gets used we (wife and i ) much prefer the big car ....thanks peter... ps its cheaper for me to fly to the hobby shop than drive ha! ha!

[timthechef]

Since my favorite hobby shop is a good distance from where I live and I already had to plan my trips there it will definately effect weather I go or not.

[Anonymous]

From what I've seen, diesel engines have yet to catch on over there? My Land Rover has a 2.5 TDI (Turbo Diesel) that gets 30mpg+ average, the petrol version (a 3.9 V8) gets 22mpg tops (usually under 20mpg). Unsurprisingly the majority in this area have the TDI powerplant! In other words, by building it to a sensible size and fitting a TDI you can have a 4x4 that costs about the same to run as a 1.6 petrol car (I get better average mpg than a new Mini Cooper S, according to the official figures).

[Anonymous]

Fortunetly I live 5 minutes away for my LHS by bicycle. With gas shooting up to 1.09/ liter last week we're trying to keep the Camaro off the road as much as possible, at least until I get a raise! As far as plastic prices going up I'm not sure about that, plastic it a by-product of refining oil and I understand that there is always a surplus. Think of all the items packaged in plastic, if it was scarce would it be used as much?

[Anonymous]

Who is keeping track of the automotive ads, while out of one corner of their mouths they are touting SUVs and full size cars, they are whispering vehicles at 30+ miles per gallon. It isn't the price of the vehicle, it's what it's going to cost you. Maybe someone will wake up finally to the fact that we have sold our soles to the devil, and we need some new technology that is not petroleum based.
Will

[Darth Santa Fe]

I say it will have little effect. Nothing can keep a serious railroader from his LHS!![^][^]

[roadrat]

The price of gas is bad enough but the price of heating oil is whats going to kill me this winter, I'm thinking of putting in a pellet stove but there not cheap , The real bummer is that I was planning on doing alot of work on the layout this winter but with the high price of oil it may be slow going..........Oh yea my LHS is about 45 miles away so I buy alot online, but try to stop in there with my work truck on rare occasions( I drive a tractor/trailer " I had to take Rt1 boss there was ahhhhhh traffic on 295 yea traffic thats the ticket. "


bill

[Anonymous]

The plastic stuff uses petroleum in manufacturing, the manufacturers ship to the distributors who ship to the LHS-all done in vehicles that use fuel-so it will show up in the cost of out hobby products. I drive a mid sized pickup that gets about 19 mpg on the highway, my wife has a mid sized Mercury that gets about 30 mpg. She would like something newer and I would like to get better milage since I have to drive to see my customers. We're talking about getting her something newer, relegating the pick up to hauling lumber for the layout ;o), and me driving the little Merc for business. Might save a dime or two on fuel which would make me happy. Regular unleaded peaked at 2.67 per last week, currently at 2.52 here in Kansas City today.

[Anonymous]

We pay ~ € 1.30 for a litre of 98 octane... go figure.

Me and my friends try to carpool whenever possible, and even though my car has a great milage (we measure it in litres per 100 kilometers over here, which would be 4.9 for my car), I try to go by train whenever possible. Besides, when I want to go shopping in, like, Hamburg, which is around 100 miles away from here, the ICE will take me downtown a lot faster, without the hassle of finding a (expensive!) spot to park my car. Hannover (around 20 miles away) is where I tend to go by train anyway; I can commute there for free.

[grayfox1119]

Mr Beasley, I see that you live about 45 miles from me, what are those great HS that are near you, I may want to visit them soon.
Thanks Mr. B

[MisterBeasley]

I'm going to get rid of my gas-guzzling SUV, personally. Besides, it doesn't have a CD player. With a good sound system in a fuel-efficient car, I'll enjoy the trip to the LHS even more!

I'm lucky to have a great LHS literally within bicycling distance, and a few more that are within 20-30 minutes of home.

[Anonymous]

Drove past our nearest fuel station today - 96.9p for a litre of diesel. We now pay about $9 for a gallon of fuel here. I think I'll be buying more by mail order than by visiting my LHS - a pity, but when P&P from my two favoured suppliers is £4 per order and it costs me around £5-£12 to visit my LHS (depending on which one I go to), it's not economic to drive over there despite the advantages of buying in person. I foresee a growth in online sales and probably price hikes for shipping the goods as a result of this, as well as a general slow-down of sales of top-end items as people see their disposable income eaten away by their rising living costs.

[joeyegarner]

Hi, I have only been a member of the site for a few weeks. Myself I won't let the fuel prices stop me from geting to my favorite hobbyshop, I live in North Alabama and they are few and far between. the one I go to is about 100 mile round trip in Huntsville. Like the man from Austraila said (peterjenkinson1956) our gas prices aren't really that expensive, it's just a matter of what your used to (relative). I have been to Sout America several times in the past couple of years and the prices in Peru are about $1.00 a gallion higher than ours. Ask some of the people from Europe how much they pay. But just like you I don't like filling my tank on my Chevy Colorado and having to spend over $40.00 to do it. Just my opinion.

[retsignalmtr]

i go to three hobbie shops. each is a 30-35 mile trip from home. i'm retired and on a fixed income so i try to combine trips where posible. my clubs meeting place is 48 miles away. the distances i travel to these places does not effect me too much as i've cut down on my driving since i retired. no longer having to drive 40 miles each way to work means i can drive a little more now but the price of fuel is more than double that of when i was working. one benifit of these trips is i have found that there are several gas stations where the price of the gas is 20-25 cents less per gallon than the stations where i live so i fill up there and also fill up a five gallon can to bring home for my other vehicles. i use my escort that gets 38 miles per gallon. my ranger pickup gets 21 miles per and my 32 year old toyota landcruiser gets only 12 miles per. the high price of fuel might mean that the lhs will be losing some business to the internet sites not only because of fuel prices but that their prices are quite a bit cheaper.

[Fergmiester]

QUOTE: Originally posted by SpaceMouse

QUOTE: Originally posted by Fergmiester

This will cause a rise in inflation and I think we are looking down the barrel of the "Big R", which in turn will cause a domino effect. Leisure activities are always the first to get hit.

Hold on we're in for a rough ride and one that will last a while. Though prices might normalize the Oil companies, once they realize people can't reduce consumption will keep the price up.

Fergie

There is the other side of the coin as well. Oil companies have been keeping the price unrealistically down for fear that some bright engineer or entrepreneur will develop a cost effective alternative for the internal combustion engine. The higher gas prices go, the more likely this will occur as the potential market increases.

I suppose this would explain their sagging and poor profit margins of the past.

What was I thinking?!?

Barnum said it best