$100.00 a barrel oil

[tatans]

It finally made it, how are the profits??? I just bought gas today $1.17 per litre (what's that @ $11.00 a gallon ? )    How ridiculous is this? you can just keep charging as much as you want, and life goes on.  How soon will it be $2.00 per litre?  then $7.00 ?? --sooner than you think. I guess it's no more insane than paying $450,000.00 for a 60 year old 900 sq.ft house, but people are still doing it, so I guess that $1350.00 brass locomotive doesn't look so bad now does it?  I worked in the oil patch when oil was $6.00 a barrel and the profits then were obscene, imagine now.

[on30francisco]

It finally made it, how are the profits??? I just bought gas today $1.17 per litre (what's that @ $11.00 a gallon ? )    How ridiculous is this? you can just keep charging as much as you want, and life goes on.  How soon will it be $2.00 per litre?  then $7.00 ?? --sooner than you think. I guess it's no more insane than paying $450,000.00 for a 60 year old 900 sq.ft house, but people are still doing it, so I guess that $1350.00 brass locomotive doesn't look so bad now does it?  I worked in the oil patch when oil was $6.00 a barrel and the profits then were obscene, imagine now.

$450,000 for a 60 year old 900 sq.ft house? That's a steal in the insanely overpriced real estate market of the San Francisco Bay Area! 

[andrechapelon]

It finally made it, how are the profits??? I just bought gas today $1.17 per litre (what's that @ $11.00 a gallon ? )    How ridiculous is this? you can just keep charging as much as you want, and life goes on.  How soon will it be $2.00 per litre?  then $7.00 ?? --sooner than you think. I guess it's no more insane than paying $450,000.00 for a 60 year old 900 sq.ft house, but people are still doing it, so I guess that $1350.00 brass locomotive doesn't look so bad now does it?  I worked in the oil patch when oil was $6.00 a barrel and the profits then were obscene, imagine now.

Are you talking US or Imperial gallons? A US gallon is 3.7843 liters. That's $4.43 a US gallon.

Canadian dollar is so close to par with US that it makes no difference. $4.43 it is.

Imperial Gallon is 4.55 liters (rounded up slightly) so an Imperial gallon would be going for $5.32. Not quite $11.

Andre

[loathar]

What's a liter??

Maybe my Amish neighbors have the right idea after all...Horses or oil. It's still a load of crap!

[The Old Man]

I'm a newbie, but this is in this forum because?

[steemtrayn]

It finally made it, how are the profits??? I just bought gas today $1.17 per litre (what's that @ $11.00 a gallon ? )    How ridiculous is this? you can just keep charging as much as you want, and life goes on.  How soon will it be $2.00 per litre?  then $7.00 ?? --sooner than you think. I guess it's no more insane than paying $450,000.00 for a 60 year old 900 sq.ft house, but people are still doing it, so I guess that $1350.00 brass locomotive doesn't look so bad now does it?  I worked in the oil patch when oil was $6.00 a barrel and the profits then were obscene, imagine now.

So, tell me...What kind of car do you drive?

[tstage]

*** Moderator interjection and reminder ***

---

TOM's point is a legitimate one.  Can we keep this topic train-related somehow?  Perhaps, discuss how this might affect the pricing of new products that will be coming out.

And, may I also kindly remind you to please keep these discussions civil and cordial amongst yourselves so that it doesn't get out of hand.  (With a topic like this, the potential is there.)

Thank you for your consideration.

Tom

---

[mobilman44]

Imagine going to your local station and there is no gasoline available.............

Mobilman44

[ouengr]

I will try to tie this to trains but I may fail.  With the insane price asked for oil right now, many consumers are looking at alternative fuel sourced for their vehicles.  One possible option will be electic hybrid vehicles (assuming we can actuall make the batteries work without carrying around a toxic stew under the hood).  If the technology can be developed we will need additional power plants to power the vehilces.  This may lead to additional coal trains to power the plants.

[Heartland Division CB&Q]

It would be easier to keep the topic train-related in the Trains forum instead of the MR Forum. If America kept railways as the primary mode of transport instead of changing to highways, we would have no need for such a conversation. Trains consume 1/3 the fuel for hauling cargo and 1/5 the fuel for hauling people.

[Lillen]

It finally made it, how are the profits??? I just bought gas today $1.17 per litre (what's that @ $11.00 a gallon ? )    How ridiculous is this? you can just keep charging as much as you want, and life goes on.  How soon will it be $2.00 per litre?  then $7.00 ?? --sooner than you think. I guess it's no more insane than paying $450,000.00 for a 60 year old 900 sq.ft house, but people are still doing it, so I guess that $1350.00 brass locomotive doesn't look so bad now does it?  I worked in the oil patch when oil was $6.00 a barrel and the profits then were obscene, imagine now.

 

Here in Sweden we have been paying almost two bucks for years now! It's mostly taxes though as is anything else in this country!

 

About trains, in the real world I think this will help things like Amtrak.

 

On the model front, we will see prices increase on petroleum based products, like plastic buildings and such. Even though the cost of the materials might not be much they do ad up. And when they are going to sell it they can't just cell it for 10 cents more  because that is the increase in cost, that will be more like 50 cents or a dollar.

 

Magnus

[tetonjack]

I think the point is as I see, is the cost of oil is driving the prices. All over and over. The poor manufactures and buying public are being driven to make choices, like a new engine or not, but it may get to the point of hobby or not. The whole world is crazy, except of course model railroaders...........

Merry new WHAT????????????

[concretelackey]

Two obvious railroading/oil price ties are-1) the cost of plastics produced from oils and 2) shipping fuels, whether it be gasoline, deisel or jet fuel it takes alot of oil to transfer that peice of track or that loco from the manufacturing plant to the distrubution warehouse to the shipper's terminal to your door or your LHS. Also, the employees involved in just the shipping process are probably paying about the same in increased fuel costs to get to work and back home.

[SteamFreak]

Which makes it very apropos that Atlas sent their email announcement about prices increasing due to the rising costs of petroleum, shipping, etc. I'm sure the other manufacturers will be following suit. Where it stops, nobody knows.

I can bide my time and bargain shop for model rr items, but skyrocketing gas and food prices are impossible to avoid. 

[Anonymous]

The gas cost to me is irrevelant.

I will probably be able to withstand 12.00 gallon gasoline before being forced to make changes or cut back on vehicle and weekly mileage.

We have carefully selected employment extremly close to home and can use a bike if necessary.

10 years ago I would have laughed at the idea of 100 dollar oil. But back then it was 15.00 and would have been a very profitable investment.

The best way is to create electric cars of some quality and same for big rigs and trains. Removing the USA from reliance on oil except for plastics and other necessary products is necessary.

However, if the gasoline prices get much higher.. say 6.00 gallon it's probably going to break the people.

[R. T. POTEET]

I'm a newbie, but this is in this forum because?

..........because whether we like it or not oil is one of the cornerstones of this hobby.

Styrene plastic is a petroleum byproduct; the diesel in a locomotive burns it and if the price increases the transportation company will pass that increase on to the consumer through increased transportation charges; even if you were to opt to model in wood instead of plastic the cost of movement of that product will increase - I will be building a new layout in the next two years and I suspect that the price of my 3/8ths inch CD ply will be approaching $25.00 a sheet in short order; and that UPS truck that drops the Walthers' order at the back door of your local will cost more for that delivery.

This subject of the increased cost of the hobby crops up about once a month; it is not irrelevant to the subject of model railroading.

I need to add a P.S. at this point: I rotated from Germany with the Air Force in July of 1973 and picked up a Chevy Malibu with a 350CC engine in New Joisey; in going across country I found the price of premium - 100 plus octane - gasoline to be somewhere in the vicinity of $0.419 per gallon. Israel and the Ay-rabs went at it again that fall resulting in the Ay-rab oil embargo which sent the price skyrocketing to the vicinity of $0.859 per gallon by years end. They are now talking about gasoline being at $4.25 per gallon by mid-February and $4.75 per gallon by mid-Summer. Somehow or another I suspect that I am not too awfully far from $100.00 a tank fill-ups for my Toyota van.

I had hoped to attend the N Scale convention in Louisville, Kentucky this coming June; visiting grandkids in Florida and Alabama makes this a 4500 mile round trip from the far, far reaches of the wild, wild west; driving the van will set me back close to eleven hundred smackers in gasoline; driving the sedan - which is admittedly, less comfortable - will cost me more than seven hundred. Staying home will cost me nothing - except, as John McCain related, after loosing the South Carolina primary in 2000 he slept like a baby - slept for two hours - cried for two hours - slept for two hours - cried for two hours! If gasoline does get to more than $4.00 per gallon I will probably have to forestall Louisville and settle only for Anaheim this summer. 

[Anonymous]

It has great revelance to trains.

I used to drive to the hobby shop for pleasure. Jump in the car and go. Now I only stop by one of the local stores if Im already in the area on other business or medical needs that require me to be there.

What happens when my gross wages for the DAY's work no longer covers the gas for the commute?

Sure I can get out the credit card and charge it... but that would be stupid.

[selector]

We are an avaricious and self-absorbed population, we N. Americans.  We throw stuff out that 5/6 of the world's population can only dream about. 

Today I hoisted a three gallon plastic pail of cat litter out of our trunk when my wife returned from shopping.  It must have weighed 30 lbs.  (Not our cats...adult daughter's who has returned to stay for a period).  Now, how much fuel do you suppose it took to provide me (my daughter) will that pail...all the way from wherever it came from?  Thirty pounds in a plastic tub!

We drive a Corolla.  Thank goodness I had the foresight to trade in our Tundra last summer because that little car is about to become much more expensive to drive.

And just this week GM announces that they have decided to cancel their plans to produce a V-8.  Wow.  Good call, fellas!  Better 7 years late than never.

We have no idea.  I seriously feel that we just don't get it.

This is somewhat relevant to our hobby, but hobbies enrich our lives only so far.  There are other far more important costs to living well.  I'd say transportation is one of them, and not just for cat litter. 

[betamax]

Most of the "oil derived" products made in North America are in fact, from natural gas. Crude is mainly used for fuels and lubricants, with the leftovers going into petrochemicals. Industry switched to natural gas because it is domestic production, so it doesn't have supply interuptions or wild price swings, and it was very cheap years ago.

Of course, the gas you burn at home is the leftovers. They've already stripped off the good stuff.

The price of the feedstock is going to have an impact in the future. Transportation companies can only eat the extra costs for so long, before they need to raise the price. Materials suppliers will be in the same position.

Which in turn will eat into the margins manufacturers and retailers have. So they will have to adjust accordingly, and you'll see that in the not to distant future.

Meanwhile the speculators are having a field day...

Remember, there is a lot of heavier oil grades out there too, and they don't sell for the same prices as the light sweet (meaning 'gasoline') grades do. They are a good source for oils, greases, and other products.

[Fergmiester]

Keeping topical

Cost of living: UP

Less money for LHS

Cost to make plastic products:UP 

Cost of manufacturing: UP 

Cost to run LHS due to heat, lighting, etc: UP 

It's all UPs fault! Priceless!

Seriously though this has been a long time  coming and like all the storms before we will ride it out, bear and grin or whatever. We as MR'rs will over come even if it means going back to the "Old Ways" of scratch building, paper mache, etc.

Just my with 13% GST and everything else 

Fergie 

[jacon12]

 

And just this week GM announces that they have decided to cancel their plans to produce a V-8.  Wow.  Good call, fellas!  Better 7 years late than never.

 

Crandell, I agree with you 100 %.

I pull into a parking space at some store in my 35mpg Civic and the space in front of me is occupied by a HUGE vehicle whose grill and hood block out any view of the sky from my position.  It's a V8 monster of a car that seats 8, at least, and it probably carries 1 or 2 people 90 percent of the time.  Then I realize it's my daughters and  I remember it gets about 14 miles to the gallon.  Her argument is, Dad.. I can afford it and it's safer.

Experts have said that Americans, and this probably goes for all North Americans, won't really change their ways til fuel is $5 a gallon. 

Jarrell

[IRONROOSTER]

I suspect the biggest impact on train model costs will be the increased cost of shipping.  Our models don't have that much plastic in them so that increase should be small.  Of course the bigger impact is on the economy and how much discretionary income do we have left to buy models.

Paul 

[UNIONPACIFIC4018]

Ya;ll really think all of those oil fat cats are ready to give up their huge profits?  They will do the usual little dance of getting us used to a higher price then lower it when we all grumble.  I was listening to the debates and the usual supply and demand crap being blamed.  Do any of you realize it was a trader who pushed the price of oil up just because he wanted to be first at 100.00 a barrel.  Yeah we do drive big stupid vehicles, had a friend who owned a hummer H2 and it was just him in the car.  Wife and I have jeeps, a wrangler and a liberty not too small but not huge. 

[Driline]

*** Moderator interjection and reminder ***

---

TOM's point is a legitimate one.  Can we keep this topic train-related somehow?  Perhaps, discuss how this might affect the pricing of new products that will be coming out.

And, may I also kindly remind you to please keep these discussions civil and cordial amongst yourselves so that it doesn't get out of hand.  (With a topic like this, the potential is there.)

Thank you for your consideration.

Tom

---

I see Selector broke your rules. Are you going to "Lock" him out of this thread?

[Midnight Railroader]

I was wondering the same thing.

[Anonymous]

I have some experience with the variety of larger vehicles. Those that are accepting of different fuels, programmed to shut down cylinders and possibly coupled to electric drives do quite well.

The United States is a large Nation that requires big cars. The road I drive on is built in the 60's and has not yet been rebuilt to modern standards. Because of this I see many cracked windshields, viberation damage and various problems related to worn out front ends and poor power output from engines too small to withstand the commute.

The cars I rarely see are those with big V6, V8 or Desiel (Particularly Cummins...) and all around large construction with robust suspensions etc.

What I dont accept is the Trucking running 5 miles to the gallon 20 years ago, still running 6 or 7 miles to the gallon today and having to run a 500 horse engine to turn a 3 pound compressor to stay cool in the summer night burning 3-5 gallons overnight. I see that some truck stops have equippted shore power to provide the trucker with a engine off environment but usually it is the driver that has to take it out of his pay. Not the company.

Finally one posted a comment about us being a throwaway society. Consider the Cadillac Motor Company. They make fine vehicles. But I see them get processed for resale at prices 5% of retail because they are junk. 50,000 dollar American Luxury reduced in a year or two; to something that fetches perhaps 5 grand on the used market and carry a variety of serious problems. Just replacing a key set on one is two paychecks for some people.

[TheK4Kid]

Hmmmmm,

Guess my layout and I are living happily in the past.As steam powered trains roll about, the local gas staion is advertsing  21 cents per gallon for Ethyl.

Larry' New and Used cars has a couple of used Ford sedans for $300 and $400 and a brand new Chevrolet for $1695.

And I am STILL driving my 1968 Ford Mustang Coupe hardtop I bought used in 1970 for $1695.

Let's see, I can remember filling it and my previous 1967 Mustang GT fastback up with gas, and being able to have enough to buy a hamburger , fries and a coke with the change left over from my gas purchase, and I only had $5 to start with!

Those really were "HAPPY DAYS!!!"

TheK4Kid 

[Heartland Division CB&Q]

When I looked at Exxon Mobile's financial statements, I observed that one in three revenue dollars ends up going to the tax collectors. Meanwhile, the hapless shareholders received dividends representing about 7% of total revenue. Exxon Mobile's after tax income of about 10% of sales can not be described as excessive. As noted below, the commodity traders are running up fuel prices. that's true but tax collectors tend to be price gougers, also.  

Model railroaders may observe the impact on the protoypes of high fuel costs.  Railroads are more fuel efficient than trucks and have increased market share with intermodal business. Also, railroads are hauling more coal and ethanol. Locomotives are designed to be more fuel efficient, too, and there are currently hybrid locomotives out there.

 

[tatans]

I guess I should have stated the $100/bbl statement was in regard to oil prices in the context of fuel for locomotives, (a railroad topic I hope) this must have an enormous impact on railway costs and very soon the price will be passed on to the consumer, however, I cannot really see a giant increase in the cost of a plastic boxcar---just how many boxcars can be made from a barrel of oil???? quite a few I would think. I got jumped on for being off topic, so all you guys with stories about your cats demolishing your layout, watch out, you are being monitored.

[Milepost 266.2]

I guess I should have stated the $100/bbl statement was in regard to oil prices in the context of fuel for locomotives, (a railroad topic I hope) this must have an enormous impact on railway costs and very soon the price will be passed on to the consumer, however, I cannot really see a giant increase in the cost of a plastic boxcar---just how many boxcars can be made from a barrel of oil???? quite a few I would think. I got jumped on for being off topic, so all you guys with stories about your cats demolishing your layout, watch out, you are being monitored.

 

Transportation costs are rising faster than passenger vehicle fuel costs.  When gas was $3 back in the good old days (a few weeks ago), diesel was $3.50.  It's only going to get worse, too.

As for manufacturing, remember that there's a good bit of waste product involved.  Test shots, bad copies, sprues, overruns, etc.  All that adds up, and trying to cut corners to keep costs down can have an impact on quality.