[leonpete]

I was in Omaha, Neb. today and stoped at one of the train hobby shops. The owner said that there will more than likely be a considerable price increase in all G-scale items this fall. The overseas workers are figuring out they need and want more money for wages. You may want to get some of the "want items" that are on your list this summer before we get hit with a big price increase. Hopefully not like the one we got with TRACK!! He sounded pretty sure of this happening. Just thought I would pass this along, it could save you some big dollars.

 

[jbwilcox]

I just looked at St Aubin Station and noticed that the Bachmann prices have increased by quite a bit since the last add in Garden Railways.

I guess it is a fact of life: Everything will be going up and it happens just as I am retireing.

I am trying to get the majority of my railroad purchases out of the way right now.

John

 

[markoles]

No surprise here. Metal and oil prices are way up, with no end in site. All the increased costs are passed along to the consumer. This goes for everything, not just non-essentials like trains.

What I don't see is my salary following suit!! So, raise the prices all they want, I can't buy it anyway!

Mark

 

[Guest]

Yup, i agree with Mark but i went to my local deli for my favorite snack...RING DINGS just cant get enough of those but any way they raised the price from 99 cents to a 1.29 now that really hit me where it hurts kinda pisses me off. 1st the trains increase then the snacks 2 things a man cant live without....../DesktopModules/NTForums/themes/mls/emoticons/sick.gif dont mess with a mans ring dings/DesktopModules/NTForums/themes/mls/emoticons/w00t.gif
Nick...

 

[markoles]

Nick,
Never mind the ring dings. Down here in PA, beer is sold at the distributor (by the case). Beer prices for locally made beer (less than 2 miles away) has gone from an average of $25/case to about $30/case. And I don't think they have gotten that much more popular either. What I think I need to invest in is a kegorator. I can get a 1/6 or 1/4 barrel of my favorite brew for less than the cost of two cases. We don't consume that much beer, maybe a case every three to four weeks so a keg would last a couple of months.

 

[wchasr]

LOL! I'd noticed food price creeping up a few months ago. As I went on a diet I quit buying drivethru but last weekend on the road we needed to eat so we broke downa d went thru. Holy COW the price of the regular meal I got had jumped 50%! the Happy Meals for the girls are now the same price I was paying a year ago for my meal.

Chas

 

[Guest]

so a keg would last a couple of months.


wrong!
if you use kegs, everyday you have to throw away the first glass. (that, what had been in the pipe)
you might end up with more expensive beer, than with bottles.

 

[markoles]

NEver thought of that! Wouldn't it still be cold if in a keg-o-rator? I mean, the hose up to the tap is a big cylinder, which from the looks of the install, actually is an extension of the refridgerator. So..why would it be thrown out?

 

[blackburn49]

Posted By markoles on 05/09/2008 10:02 AM

NEver thought of that! Wouldn't it still be cold if in a keg-o-rator? I mean, the hose up to the tap is a big cylinder, which from the looks of the install, actually is an extension of the refrigerator. So..why would it be thrown out?


I sell a lot of draft beer. You definitely want to go that route. It is usually better beer than the bottle equivalent, there is not all that much waste and the only problem with the first one through the tap is that it tends to foam. The savings per glass are considerable.

 

[blackburn49]

Posted By leonpete on 05/08/2008 11:23 PM

I was in Omaha, Neb. today and stoped at one of the train hobby shops. The owner said that there will more than likely be a considerable price increase in all G-scale items this fall. The overseas workers are figuring out they need and want more money for wages. You may want to get some of the "want items" that are on your list this summer before we get hit with a big price increase. Hopefully not like the one we got with TRACK!! He sounded pretty sure of this happening. Just thought I would pass this along, it could save you some big dollars.


Where is the surprise there? It is only a question of how much a of price increase.  I would plan on this hobby becoming a whole lot more expensive very soon. 

 

[cmjdisanto]

Other than the sarchastic comment every now and then, God knows I've been doing my best to not get involved with the price type discussions...especially since the last increase priced us out of the hobby. Yet I gotta say what I gotta say.
As Blackburn states it's no surprise especially since greed is it's own master. Manufacturers (think bigger picture than just trains folks /DesktopModules/NTForums/themes/mls/emoticons/whistling.gif )in general have enjoyed a great profit margin over the years and just don't want to loose it. Please do not tell me the profits haven't been there since I know for a fact that at least one Hobby manufacturer head owns and drives a Hummer H-1 and at 115,000.00+ they ain't cheap!!!! Hey that's great but there has to be an approach to look at the long term effects it has on the business instead of the short term gains just so the standard of living that has become accustomed to being lived....... Not to mention all the other industries out there (yes there is the occasional exception but in all honesty I think you'd be hard pressed to convince me that there's not a substantial amount of padding profits going on by many manufacturing execs. They gotte get their golden parachute from somewhere/DesktopModules/NTForums/themes/mls/emoticons/blink.gif Ya just won't convince me that it's economically responsible to keep raising prices until no-one can afford the products. None the less it's getting to the point where any further price increases in just about any industy, necessity or hobby, is going to start costing that industry in the longrun.
Our "train of thought" (pardon the pun) has become one that if it ain't needed then it won't be bought. Guy's, if we're not there already...... the 70's are gonna look like the 50's! Unfortunately this hobby is so far down the line on the "ain't needed" that unless things ever (doubtful) fall back to the prices of just 3-4 years ago we have made all the purchases, new or used we will ever make.
Even after I became incapacitated and fell outta the mainstream, we considered ourselves well settled in the middle class. Unfortunately that class is now shrinking and will soon be gone. We are looking at a future of "those that can and those that cannot". Three classes? Huh! The saddest part is the manufacturers are on the threshold of pricing themselves out of existance or being available to only those "elite" enough to afford things and from the sound and looks of things that base will be substantially shrinking over the next 5-15 years.

I can't remember who said it but in the restaurant industry we had a saying......"It's better to have 1% of a million dollars that 20% of nothing"! Now that 5-10% profit margines have given way to 50-60%, it's costing us greatly in more ways than one. /DesktopModules/NTForums/themes/mls/emoticons/crying.gif BTW I may have sounded off different earlier but after a good amount of refelction I think we're off base by blaming foreign countries like China or anyone else for that fact, for our issues. But it is really all with-in US to control and repair. Yet as someone just mentioned here all therest of the world wants is the same piece of the pie that we have had a stock hold on for so long. Who can blame them? The world has finally come up to our level and now we don't like it. I for one am far less concerned about the price of some "toys" when the price of a fricken loaf of bread is close to 4 bucks here not to mention milk at close to 5 bucks a gallon. What about beef at close to 5.50lb for crappy select grade or how about other necessities like the 25% increase in our water and sewer charges. So.....................

The rest would be too heated a discussion for here so......................... Rant over and soap box neatly tucked under bed.

 

[Mik]

Posted By cmjdisanto on 05/10/2008 1:25 PM
greed is it's own master. The manufacturers have enjoyed a great profit margin over the years and just don't want to loose it. Please do not tell me the profits haven't been there since I know for a fact that one manufacturer head owns and drives a Hummer H-1 and at 115,000.00 they ain't cheap!!!! Not to mention all the other industries out there (yes there is the occasional exception but in all honesty I think you'd be hard pressed to convince me that there's not a substantial amount of padding profits going on).





Okay, just the facts, ma'am.... I sell hobby stuff. My greatest margin is a whopping 30%...In contrast, if Wally Wulrd can't get at LEAST 115% they won't sell it.

The manufacturing head drives a Hummer? Cool. But I'll bet the place makes more than just toy trains.

I think you will find that a very LARGE portion of the hobby suppliers either make most of their money producing other stuff or are small basement one or two man operations doing it (mostly) for the love of the hobby. (I know the guy who owns LaBelle Woodworking (Rick Steele).If he hadn't made his money working for Unkle Pete, he sure wouldn't have any to work in the toy train biz)

 

[vsmith]

I have a Cunning Plan....

...or have had, I call it the "Swap Meet" strategy, get it whiles it there, cause it wont be when you come back on the next round. Which was namely buying up as much USA track as I could right after AC raised there prices but before USA matched it, combined with biting the bullet and buying alot of stuff when San Val closed its doors and an almost ruthless pursuit of bargains on ebay and elsewhere...

So, if prices do indeed shoot thru the roof, I still have a collection of almost every Ted Stinson plansets, I still have all my plastic wheelsets, and thru this site I have learned enough alchemy and wizardry from the Book of the Modelers Necronomicon to build from scratch if needed any new rolling stock, and I have several engines that I can always resurrect parts from to keep even just a few in top shape if need be, I still have enough track left over from the indoor layout plus the track I picked up earlier this year to build an outdoor layout. And I've gotten good at converting cheap Xmas tree trainsets to reasonable looking G rolling stock.

I can become a complete hermit and still continue in the hobby without the need for any outside purchases if I chose to do so.

 

[Guest]

and still continue in the hobby without the need for any outside purchases

that is the point!

the hobby will not perish by high prices. - only the manufacturers themselves will perish.
the hobbyists will convert from checkbook-modellers to scrap and junkbuilders.

if i read these first wold forums.... a couple of hundreds of $ for a loco... or similar...
... sometime it makes me a little sad, to know, that i never will have all those expensive goodies.
but somehow i think, that being able, to buy everything must be less fun, less satisfying.
all those cheap workarounds, one finds out, if one can't simply buy - they give a lot of satisfaction.

when the last manufacturer is broke, we will build locos with gears from alarm clocks, run them on curtainrails and will have fun, till one day some entrepeneur will make G-scale products again.

korm
.

 

[Jerry Barnes]

I think you are looking at a HUGE change in the United States. Transportation costs will drive up everything, not just gas. This will bring changes in what/how you buy everything. I see the tourist industry really being hurt and any other 'frills'. The world you knew is going and will be gone soon, so lots of adjustments will have to be made. Retirees on a fixed income(a large number in our hobby-like me) will probably not be buying more things for it. Just my rambling observation. Hope I'm wrong! Jerry

 

[Dan Pierce]

Since most of the trains we buy come from other countries, the dollar being devalued plays a big part in the price increases we see.
Some of the price is related to material costs have gone up.
Then there is the transportation costs from fuel costs increasing.
We as end users will always pay and pay more.

 

[flatracker]

China is growing by leaps and bounds, just like we did quite some time ago. Since it is such a huge country the demand is also huge. You can't blame them for going our route, but their huge military buildup sure gets my attention. Never knew of a country that did that without intentions of using it.

I believe we are our own worst enemy by not drilling in Anwar and other places that would have helped us to be self sufficient and not dependent on other countries for our energy needs. I did see that Mobile earned $10.82 billion in the last quarter and that it was the 2nd largest amount of any company in the US. Of course stock holders are happy. Also biofuel is NOT the answer. I saw a program on the History Channel about corn. The end result was it takes 1 gal. of fossile fuel to produce 1.3 gals. of bio and the bio only takes you 3/4 of the milage as fossile fuel. End result..much higher costs for much that we eat, including the soon to rise in cost for chicken and pork as they eat corn. It ahs already happened to beef.

I agree we are having to tighten our belts (I have) and also some of it is greed, but for the most part, capitalism is at work on the old supply and demand process. Some others posting above have hit the nail on the head, most of us will be doing with less, except for the fairly rich.

Now my soap box is neatly stuffed under the bed!

P.S. Spell check, not being available, CAN produce errors on my part/DesktopModules/NTForums/themes/mls/emoticons/tongue.gif

 

[John J]

Since most Alarm Clocks are Digital today./DesktopModules/NTForums/themes/mls/emoticons/blink.gif" border=0> Where are we going to get Gears for our trains?/DesktopModules/NTForums/themes/mls/emoticons/w00t.gif" border=0>

PS Not to worry. In a few years we will doing "ROAD WARIOR" for real

 

[Guest]

Since most Alarm Clocks are Digital today

you will find enough, when you start to seek:
(this type of clock costs about one dollar)

that little car cost about six dollar. it will donate the electronics for my next control-remote steered loco.
(with a stronger motor. this motor will replace a burnt one in a 32mm gauge loco)

just be inventive!

In a few years we will doing "ROAD WARIOR" for real

i doubt that.
lived through ten years of dictatorship down here, then through a revolution and, worst of all the following nineteen years of democrazy (no tipo... democracy means, that every politican steals, not just the boss)
all those little games, they play, they tend to leave the "normal people" in peace.
even politicans don't kill the cows, they want to milk...

 

[blackburn49]

Posted By flatracker on 05/11/2008 5:43 AM

I believe we are our own worst enemy by not drilling in Anwar and other places that would have helped us to be self sufficient and not dependent on other countries for our energy needs. . . biofuel is NOT the answer. I saw a program on the History Channel about corn. The end result was it takes 1 gal. of fossile fuel to produce 1.3 gals. of bio and the bio only takes you 3/4 of the milage as fossile fuel. End result..much higher costs for much that we eat, including the soon to rise in cost for chicken and pork as they eat corn. It has already happened to beef. I agree we are having to tighten our belts (I have) and also some of it is greed, but for the most part, capitalism is at work on the old supply and demand process. Some others posting above have hit the nail on the head, most of us will be doing with less, except for the fairly rich.


What is happening here in the USA is the radical environmentalism is winning. Not only will this false dichotomy of polar bears, caribou and whales versus us developing our own American oil reserves cost us far more in energy, but it will likely plunge us into a full-blown recession. I am already seeing it begin to happen right here where we in Alaska are floating in oil but can no longer afford our own product. My energy costs are now about double what they were three years ago, but my revenues have not kept up.

I am very concerned that by the end of next winter I may not even have a business due to escalating heating oil costs. However, for the time being I have model railroad projects to complete. I will follow through, continuing with the project to completion. But at the same time, I will make no further major purchases in this hobby. The rapidly rising costs of energy definitely threaten to take it all away. I will have a much better idea when I see how this tourist season develops.