Helijan O Gauge

I would think the answer to your implied question is that the market for a Hymek is very much smaller than the market for an American diesel.

You are not comparing like with like.

Paul

No sign of these on the Bachmann website, where did you find them? (0n30 is not 0 gauge!)

Keith

"John Ruddy" wrote

Don't know how true this is but I was told today that the development costs of the O-gauge 'Hymek' was 'only' around GBP80K and that Heljan need to shift around 400 to break even.

If that is the case I think they're being terribly silly and in effect pricing the loco out what could be a mass sale market and a real boost to

John.

If Heljan really wanted to get into a "mass sale market" why have they gone for a prototype with a geographic restriction (ie the old Western Region) rather than something with a wider prototypical applicability. Disregarding shunters, why not (for example) either Class 24, 25, 31 or 47, or even Class

David Costigan

Using a loco they already researched reduces the extra investment, expect a 47 next if this is successful. Keith

One of Heljan's biggest retail outlets is Antics which is based in the west country, hence the western region bias.

(kim)

There is no connection between railway models and mass sale markets of any kind.

Model railways are an extremely complex and poorly served niche market.

A mass sale market is when you buy in 200,000 teddy bears from China at 24p each delivered, pay 10p each for a snazzy bag, then pile 'em high in department stores and flog them out at £3.99 each. All gone in two days, phone call to China, get me 250,000 more right now, must be here before Xmas. That's a mass sale market, and no research, development, or marketing costs of any kind. And no-one writing reviews about how the teddy bear doesn't exactly replicate the prototype and the makers should be treated like scum.

If I was a department store buyer, I know what I'll be filling my shelves with this coming Xmas.

Cheers, Santa

Disregarding

I hope they get the width right this time!

:-) Mick

Disregarding

Hi David.

As I recall they were remarkably well travelled and somewhere I have a load of pictures of them around Fareham. In fact when the club gets its new premises we will be looking to start an O Gauge project and one of these could well be on my cards...

The other thing about them is that as a "quirk" the western region hydraulics seem to have a sort of cult following; another reason why I will consider buying one (but then again I have a real soft spot for lost causes).

BTW, will you be coming to our exhibition on the 1st & 2nd of October? May have some news about our new premises.

Elliott

(Yes folks, The Druid is sort of back again)

Hi Elliot,

whats the news on the new club room?

Paul Stevenson

"David Costigan" wrote

I don't understand this choice either. It had been widely suggested that an O-gauge class 47 was likely, and despite the fact that the 'Hymek' was the first official announcement of a 7mm scale loco by Heljan, we've had firm orders for ten times the numebr of 47s compared with the class 35.

John.

"Steve W" wrote

Of course strictly speaking you're right, but at the end of the day it's all relative.

Why aim for a loco with extremely limited geographical appeal, when one with almost universal appeal has similarly been researched and also produced in

John.

Hi Paul

The present situation is that we are being offered the use of the former Cams Alders Social Club building in Alexander Grove, SUBJECT TO safisfactory SURVEY by FBC Estates and agreement about the work to be done. Unfortunately there is a lot more than meets the eye behind this very simple statement and although we are keen we are no longer holding our breath.

The real problem, however, is finding a new exhibition venue. One of the community schools we were told to approach clearly doesn't want to have anything to do with community groups and one of the 'ordinary' schools, well, the words party and brewery spring to mind in a very negative sense...

We have tried The College but practicallities seem to doom that idea (Sports Hall only has 2 x 13A sockets).

We have looked at another venue who are very keen to have us but when you do the space calcs I don't think it will be possible to fit even a small show into their buildings.

Ferneham Hall is just "out" on grounds of cost (we would be the first provincial show to charge £10 a ticket and still make a loss).

The proposed new venue for the community centre (over the road in the Methodist Church) is also a complete non-starter for a 2 day weekend show for the obvious reason, plus the fact that there are going to be a number of small halls but no big one (i.e. no space big enough to hold a layout the size of Soberton), and the biggest one is actually going to be part of the "sacred space".

I will set an auto-nag to re-post in a month or so when we may have a few more answers to all the strands.

On the bright side, next year is the 40th anniversary of the club, we'll be in touch as our being here was all your fault in the first place ;-) (for those who don't know, Paul was the one who placed an ad in the modelling press of the day asking if there was any interest in forming a club in Fareham)

Best regards

Elliott

snipped-for-privacy@ntlworld.com

Perhaps it's out of respect for a venerable tradition ;-)

The message from "Elliott Cowton" contains these words:

Why not look a little further afield - such as the Victory Hall in Warsash?

Not being an expert on the different US based models, but there are a number of diesels listed under O Gauge here

John Turner wrote

So in other words, they need to make sales of 190k (at full price) to break even. Priced at a more reasonable =A3150, they would only need to sell 1266 to make the same money, obviously the costs would be higher because of the larger number of units made - but still a 4 fold increase in sales should be easily achieved?

Henry Cort sports hall? (its BIG).

Niel.

They might be listed 'under O scale' but they are not O scale, the only O scale items are the plasticville structure kits and the On30 stock. The listr is just badly organised.

Keith