DigitalGriffinBut you can be frugal too and do a lot of it yourself without buying a lot of the fancy stuff.
Don,
Yeah, the "something for nothing" attitude applies not just to money, but time and effort. If you don't want to expend your time and effort on something, then how can you possibly believe that someone else will do it for you -- on the cheap?
Fundamentally, it's a hobby about doing and making stuff. If you want it done and made, that's gonna cost you.
As you noted, there are almost always cheaper workarounds that often take little monetary cost and only modest amounts of effort. Part of this hobby is figuring out what to spend your money on because you won't/can't do something and what to spend your effort on because you will/can do it. And if something sounds too expensive or skillfull, then it's time to take a crack about getting some skills. That process of discovery and learning is another big part of being a model railroader.
Mike Lehman
Urbana, IL
It's a matter of perception.
A lot of older modelers did it themselves from scratch from detailing, to scenicing materials.Today's modelers expect DCC, remote turnouts, lighting systems, detailed locos and rolling stock, custom roadbed, special ground foam or flock, detailed structures, certain wheels, certain paint (testors is expenssssive), certain couplers,....etc etc.
If you want the best of everything, yes it's going to cost you a pretty penny. $40->$100/sq foot is NOT unrealistic.
But you can be frugal too and do a lot of it yourself without buying a lot of the fancy stuff. Case in point, Woodland scenics lighting system...looks awesome. Looks easy to set up. Cost is gawd aweful when I can do the same thing myself for $0.50 per LED light.I find one of the best champions of this is "Broadway Lion" He does some awesome stuff on a shoestring budget. (Plus he has amusing post)
Don - Specializing in layout DC->DCC conversions
Modeling C&O transition era and steel industries There's Nothing Like Big Steam!
While the "average" person making average wages(or the average person making mean wages) may feel that the loco is more expensive, it is not when wages for both periods are brought into the equation. This is based on the population as a whole, and date based on the population as a whole. I'm sure an unemployed worker would find almost anything related to model railroading difficult to buy regardless of time period. But the "average" person is better off today, having to work less hours to get a much better locomotive.
Sounds on-topicish to me, but I'm not the mod
I think you point out something that people often forget -- or don't know because so much of what is offered new now is full of so many features that weren't available 10, 20, 30, or 40 years or more ago. Vast improvements have been made, requiring investment in new technologies.
Many people nowadays also have come think think everything else in the world acts like the computers and devices you're reading this on right now. They always get cheaper and better every year, right? And the customer should expect that, right?
Actually, no, other hardware and things that aren't based largely on software depend on the sorts of continuing investments in technology, as well as the cost of labor, raw materials, and transportation, which are always going up. It's actually rather remarkable that we get amazingly better locos and rolling stock for only modestly higher prices. Yet people still complain because of a concept found in a word I used at the end of the last paragraph -- expectations.
They read those prices in old ads and see a new F-7 loco on the shelf for $219.95 w/ sound/DCC and they somehow expect that it should cost the same as that 1960 model...somehow it's at least $200 overpriced!
Come on, get real. You get so much more and the cost is relatively the same in real dollars/hours worked/whatever no point in splitting those hairs. But expecting something for nothing? Everyone knows that's unrealistic.
So please, be realistic.
After all, that's what the hobby's about, realistic expectations, too.
It seems to me that what I'm about to say is on-topic.
How expensive the hobby is, is relative to other factors. If the companies that produce american model railroad products have an easier time selling those products to higher income areas in other parts of the planet than they did in 1948, then people living in rural Ohio may think the hobby is more expensive than it ever has been, and people living in Zurich might think the hobby is relatively cheap. It depends upon who you ask. "Expensive" is relative, and the higher end of the market has probably expanded, to which producers have followed.
I would measure it this way. Generally, when a buyer hires a company to design and tool a specific locomotive or boxcar, etc. and build it with dozens or more detail parts, that product is going to be more expensive than the kinds of generic products that were built in 1948. Any product that is customized with optional add-ons costs more than the Volume stripped-down version. By looking at the types of products being built today, it seems that more of the market wants a custom-ish product, and assembled for them, than existed in 1948. Therefore, I would think that the hobby seems more expensive to the average person today than it did in 1948, simply because product lines like P1K/Mainline and TM and Bachmann basic series are less of a component to the producers bottom line than they would've been in 1948.
- Douglas
Now, now, folks. While discussion of salaries and housing costs in various world cities isn't a forbidden topic, it IS off-topic. If you aren't talking about model railroading, take it to another forum. Thank you.
--Steven Otte, Model Railroader senior associate editorsotte@kalmbach.com
Few thoughts about my own model train spending habits:
I did not buy brass in 1968 when I started in the hobby, I still don't buy brass, save two pieces I found good deals on in the last 40 years.
I will pay $50 for a RTR freight car - but I don't NEED to pay that for every freight car. Much of my 800 plus car fleet is Athearn Blue Box price range stuff.......with some personal upgrades.
But I will also spend $50 on detail parts to build a kit or scratch build something the way I want it......
I'm a bargain shopper, but I not a negotiator, you offer it at a lower price, you will get my business - but I never ask anyone to lower their price (except at yard sales).
I have a narrow focus - I only buy what I need for the layout. I'm not a collector, in 40 years I can count on one hand the stuff here that does not fit the era and theme of the layout.
I don't change my mind much - so I don't buy stuff and then sell it off latter at a loss. My layout goals and theme have not changed in nearly 30 years. I can count on both hands suff I have "sold off" in 40 years.
Model trains are not an investment - they are an expense similar to taking a vacation - without leaving the house........
It is my only expensive personal hobby - I have other hobbies that at various points involved some expense, but they are all of a nature that no longer require continued high expense - and even model trains is past the "high expense" phase for me. Because I don't "collect", as I reach the end of list of items needed for the layout, it is more about building/playing with what I have - not buying more......
I skipped DCC and sound as not being valuable to me - spent that money on signals, CTC, wireless throttles, more locos, bigger layout......
As I fill in the last of my loco and rolling stock needs/wants, I am still finding great bargains out there - just picked up a Bachmann EM-1 for $155 - new in the box.
I don't buy much that is "used", I will buy "New Old Stock", still in the box kind of stuff from Ebay or private individuals - but I'm not really into "already been played with".
And while I will say some things cost more than I will pay - I will never say the hobby is too expensive........
Sheldon
Sir MadogHow many times have we wasted $ 30 a month for rather useless things (like cigarettes, drinks - fill in whatever you like)?
Good point - but in my case the answer is ZERO - don't smoke, don't drink, don't go to over priced resturants......
I spend the 40 years of beer money on the 120 locos........
Live style and purchasing choices are a personel decisions. Hours worked for goods or services is a very valid indicator. In the example of the living costs, if Atlas charged a person in a lower cost of living area $100 for a loco, but charged the person living in Zurich $250 for the same loco because wages are 2.5X higher then it would be a wash as far as hours worked. But as far as I know Atlas doesn't do that. So the man in Zurich would work less for that $100 loco than the man in the lower wage area. How one spends their money is their choice but hours worked for goods purchased show that wether you use average wages or mean wages model railroad hobbyists are in a better position today than in 1948. A case could be made that because of all the "necessities" of modern living that less disposible income is available for the hobby, but that reflects more on our lifestyle choices, and afore mentioned necessities than it does on the cost of locomotives relative to hours worked to buy that locomotive.
DoughlessA $28,000 car to a person in San Francisco might be 1/10th the price of an average house, whereas in most rural parts of the country, it might be 1/3rd or even 1/2 the price of a house. That consumer item is much more expensive relative to the rural person than it is to the San Franciscian.
This is a very good point. In Vancouver a dump of a house will cost you 1.5 million bucks. Sounds like a lot but compared to some places on the planet it is considered a bargain.
Wages are the same way. A good friend of mine that lives in Zurich, did the exact same blue collar job I did in Vancouver, yet he made two and a half times more money than I did. Real estate prices in Zurich made Vancouver prices look cheap by comparison.
So that $ 500.00 locomotive is either a lot or a little depending on where you are on the food chain of the planets wages and cost of living index.
Brent
"All of the world's problems are the result of the difference between how we think and how the world works."
The problem with using averages is that it can skew the extremes...how many people are in the upper categories and how many people are in the lower categories and how many people are near the middle...if any.
The cost of housing generally reflects the cost of labor....or wages. The average price of similar houses can be very different from one location to the next. OTOH, the cost of consumer goods are relatively constant from place to place.
A $28,000 car to a person in San Francisco might be 1/10th the price of an average house, whereas in most rural parts of the country, it might be 1/3rd or even 1/2 the price of a house. That consumer item is much more expensive relative to the rural person than it is to the San Franciscian.
So how many people live in places where hobby items are out of reach for them economically? That's the question. Because if more people are in the lower income brackets relative to the average than in 1948, the universe of possible buyers has shrunk....the market has gotten smaller...and the few at the top who drive the profits drive the product development.
Model railroading - just like any other hobby - is only as expensive as you let it be. I wouldn´t say it is really cheap, but even with a very tight budget, you can "stay in business" if you are prepared to cut down on your wants and must haves.
I have just started work on my new layout - more of a toy than a real layout. I have literally no budget for it, so I need to revert to freebies, hand-me-downs, gifts and really cheap materials. At first, I was very skeptical about it, but it works.
Start with the tool I did the planning with - it´s a freebie software, which does not have all the bells and whistles of those rather expensive CAD tools advertised. It works and I am happy with the result:
Making that plan was already a lot of fun!
In the meantime I have built the cabinet, which will hold the layout. The only parts I had to pay for were the legs, the casters and the paint, all other materials I got for free at my local carpenter´s - right from their dumpster!
The track was a gift from a friend in Switzerland and the buildings were a gift from my son and my Swiss friend, who also gave me some of the rolling stock. The locos were bought for really small money - used, but no abused - from "The Bay". In their previous life, they never saw any track, just sat in a display case. The discount on them went up to 75%...
The actual benchwork will be built next week, again from free materials.
OK, I will have to spend some money to actually get this layout built and finished, but it´ll be an amount well below $ 350 for all I need to do the job- that´s about $ 30 a month for the next year - most of it for the rather expensive catenary system from Sommerfeldt. How many times have we wasted $ 30 a month for rather useless things, like cigarettes, drinks ...( fill in whatever you like )?
My first thought when I saw the "how cheap things used to be" was that it's simply the other side of the "how expensive things are" coin.
Folks it's a hobby and it's about disposable income. No one NEEDS model railroading (much as I hate to admit it myself, while depending on it for mental health time on almost no budget recently). No point in whining if your dreams far exceed your reality.
For example, if you're on a Porsche forum, it sounds a bit, well, odd to be complaining that Porsche's are expensive. No one needs a Porsche to get to work. Same here. It's your choice, not your necessity, to engage in the hobby. If it really is too expensive, reconsidering your hobby tastes might be the most prudent move. Blaming the "high cost of the hobby" is rather disingenuous.
That said, unlike Porsches, the entry level price to get into this hobby ranges from free to a few hundred dollars. It is the ideal hobby for those who are on a tight budget, because between the used market, lots of affordable options, kitbashing and scratchbuilding, and the incremental process that building a layout involves it really is the hobby virtually anyone can afford if you have reasonable expectations.
The latest and greatest -- and have it RTR? As with Porsches, that will cost you. And all the whining in the world won't make any difference.
Remember, folks, this thread exists as a place to collect all the "oh woe this hobby is so expensive" complaints that inevitably crop up on any hobby forum.
However, it is still subject to the MR Forum rules, which includes no politics. And the word "politics" encompasses union wages and made-in-USA vs. made-in-China debates.
So talk about what things cost now vs. then, and how much people earn now vs. then, and ways to model on the cheap (though wasn't there another thread for that, too? ), but avoid those two trouble zones and I won't have to bring out the mod hammer. Thank you.
This thing is still alive?!?!?!?
I got everything I needed for the layout lo' these past 3 years, in between bouts of farging cancer and MRSA stupidities...
Any argument carried far enough will end up in Semantics--Hartz's law of rhetoric Emerald. Leemer and Southern The route of the Sceptre Express Barry
I just started my blog site...more stuff to come...
http://modeltrainswithmusic.blogspot.ca/
richg1998 Wonder how many here have ever run any kind of company making and selling products? Opinions abound. Rich
Wonder how many here have ever run any kind of company making and selling products? Opinions abound.
Rich
I have been saying this for years on here - it is more than clear that most of the price complainers have never run a business, or produced and marketed a product.
We all decide what we will, or will not pay for some things - but those choices are opinions - not facts about value or cost to produce.
PS - and most don't understand the dynamics of economics or inflation either. The "hours worked to earn" model is the most accurate - and using that the hobby is no more expensive than it ever was - maybe cheaper - but it has NEVER been an inexpensive hobby if done on any kind of medium or large scale.
Inflation - $3.00 per gallon gas, and $28,000 cars are effectively the same price in "work hours" that they were in 1968 at 30 cents and $2800.
[edited by admin for political content]
Model railroading in any scale seemed really, really expensive to me when I was a teenager, back in the late '60s and early '70s. Still seemed really expensive when I was a an adult struggling to make a living.
Nowadays it's still expensive, but the difference is, I'm at the stage in my life where I can finally afford it. (And I ended up in what is probably the most expensive scale of them all.)
So yeah, model railroading is "expensive". So are a lot of other adult hobbies.
But just how expensive it is, depends on what you want to get out of it. If you want a huge empire with dozens of locos and hundreds of rolling stock, you're going to pay more than the guy who's happy with a few yards of track, a couple locos and handful of cars. If you insist on having everything RTR, you're going to pay a lot more than the guy who's happy scratchbuilding and kitbashing all or most of his stuff.
If money's really tight you can always just build individual models or small dioramas.
If you ever fall over in public, pick yourself up and say “sorry it’s been a while since I inhabited a body.” And just walk away.
tatans I have a hard time imagining some of the results of polls taken on the forum as to the vast amount of "stuff'' people actually buy, 120 locomotives, 400 cars, 200 buildings, I'm sure these purchases run in to the many thousands of dollars over a period of time.
I have a hard time imagining some of the results of polls taken on the forum as to the vast amount of "stuff'' people actually buy, 120 locomotives, 400 cars, 200 buildings, I'm sure these purchases run in to the many thousands of dollars over a period of time.
I started model railroading again in 2006 and I calculated last year with my diesels, freight, passenger cars close to $5,000. I believe it might be around $6,000 if I find the rest of receipts.
Amtrak America, 1971-Present.
tatans I think this topic arrives by people reading this column and seeing what some hobbiests actually spend on the hobby, I have a hard time imagining some of the results of polls taken on the forum as to the vast amount of "stuff'' people actually buy, 120 locomotives, 400 cars, 200 buildings, I'm sure these purchases run in to the many thousands of dollars over a period of time, I believe you can spend as little (lots of used stuff) to massive amounts of cash outlay, or maybe the amounts of hobby equipment is exaggerated, I tend to think not.
I think this topic arrives by people reading this column and seeing what some hobbiests actually spend on the hobby, I have a hard time imagining some of the results of polls taken on the forum as to the vast amount of "stuff'' people actually buy, 120 locomotives, 400 cars, 200 buildings, I'm sure these purchases run in to the many thousands of dollars over a period of time, I believe you can spend as little (lots of used stuff) to massive amounts of cash outlay, or maybe the amounts of hobby equipment is exaggerated, I tend to think not.
I still have the first Athearn blue box boxcar I bought for myself in 1970. Lots of model railroad equipment just doesn't wear out. Spend a little pocket change every week, maybe take a sandwich to work instead of buying lunch... over the course of 30 or 40 years it's not hard to accumulate 600 cars, 100 engines, and Lord knows how much other stuff.
Disclaimer: This post may contain humor, sarcasm, and/or flatulence.
Michael Mornard
Bringing the North Woods to South Dakota!
DRfanRecently I decided to stop worrying about super detailed fragile models and now just enjoy the hobby.
I agree!
Although I'm amazed at the level of "eye candy" on many of my recent models I fret over handling and breaking details. I get as much enjoyment out of some of the fifteen-year-old Proto 1000 engines I have that just keep on running and never seem to give me a bit of trouble.
Have Fun! Ed
I collect both US and German trains. I became really concerned about the cost over the last several years. Recently I decided to stop worrying about super detailed fragile models and now just enjoy the hobby. I have begun purchasing Athearn RTR (just bought a great Chessie GP40-2) and Walthers Mainline (recently purchased an RS-2 and SW1). I am really happy with the models and have a great deal of fun running them. I also discovered Piko German trains (Hobbyline and Expert) which have turned out to to be great locomotives and rolling stock. You just have to shop around and find something you are happy with.
floridaflyer The going hourly rate for a machinest at GM in 1965, seventeen years after the base line of 1948, was $2.73 per hr. However I do agree that hours worked to attain a good or service is a valid measurement. Googled wages and found the average wage for a production worker in 1948 was $1.41 vs. $29.40 today, unskilled labor was $1.09 in '48 vs. $18.43.So I used the average wages in '48 which was $1.25 and in '14 was $23.92 Boiled down that is an average increase of 18.88 times the '48 wage. So a loco priced at $20 in '48 would take an average of 16 hours of work to pay for it, assuming no deductions to keep it simple. A loco priced at $197 today would take an average of 8.2 hours of work to pay for it. For the '48 loco priced at $30 it would take 24 hours and a loco priced at $297 today would take 12.4 hours. Bottom line is we would work about half as much and get a better product today than in 1948. Using averages assumes that some people would make less and have to work more in either case, just as some make more and would work less.
The going hourly rate for a machinest at GM in 1965, seventeen years after the base line of 1948, was $2.73 per hr. However I do agree that hours worked to attain a good or service is a valid measurement. Googled wages and found the average wage for a production worker in 1948 was $1.41 vs. $29.40 today, unskilled labor was $1.09 in '48 vs. $18.43.So I used the average wages in '48 which was $1.25 and in '14 was $23.92 Boiled down that is an average increase of 18.88 times the '48 wage. So a loco priced at $20 in '48 would take an average of 16 hours of work to pay for it, assuming no deductions to keep it simple. A loco priced at $197 today would take an average of 8.2 hours of work to pay for it. For the '48 loco priced at $30 it would take 24 hours and a loco priced at $297 today would take 12.4 hours. Bottom line is we would work about half as much and get a better product today than in 1948. Using averages assumes that some people would make less and have to work more in either case, just as some make more and would work less.
Look at it from another point of view. You buy a new loco for $297 today and sell it in a few years for $30 on eBay.
Alton Junction
floridaflyer Calculating for inflation, that $20 loco would go for $198 today, the $30 loco would go for $297. Given the added detail, DCC etc prices today are not too bad using 1948 as a base.
Calculating for inflation, that $20 loco would go for $198 today, the $30 loco would go for $297. Given the added detail, DCC etc prices today are not too bad using 1948 as a base.
Tossing that inflation calulator out the window and putting it in real world terms that $7.95 was around 2 1/2 hours of work at most skilled factory jobs.
Today's prices its a large chunk of the average paycheck.
Larry
Conductor.
Summerset Ry.
"Stay Alert, Don't get hurt Safety First!"
I got some mrr items from someone yesterday, 2 boxes of books, a box of model railroadin magazines (mostly 1960's a few from the 1950's and a few years of the 1970s). Also a box of upgraded cars with knucle couplers and about 100 feet of track. When I went thru the books there was a Jan 1948 issues of Model railroad. The prices of some ofthe engines were pricey. They were as much as $30 dollars. Basic engines were upwards of amost $20 without motors. its a time warp to look at the magazines to see what was popular during a certain period of time.
Sean, the unknown train travler,