One of our long-established customers came into the shop today and saw the massive delivery we've just had of new Skaledale products, and immediately remarked, well that's me out of that market - I just can't cope with the rate of new releases.
Yes, he was one of those poor souls who in the past had bought every single one of the new Skaledale and much of the Hornby trains range, but in much the same way as the die-cast market before, we have a manufacturer which found themselves a nice golden goose and then got greedy and flooded the market with new releases. Wonder how long before the golden eggs start to dry up?
OK so we're only talking about one person, but this was one who had a budget of two or three hundred pounds a month to spend on trains, and if he's feeling the pinch with all the new product releases from Hornby then others must be too.
OK so we're only talking about one person, but this was one who had a budget of two or three hundred pounds a month to spend on trains,
John.
I wish ! Knock a 0 off the end and your much more correct ! £30-£40 after petrol, lucnh money, magazines, printer ink, broadband oh, and the important one.... Alcohol ! Sometimes not even £30 - hence only buy 2 to 3 locos a year, which then require a DCC decoder.
Here is the nub of the collector / modeller conflict.
Modellers seek a broad range so that they can select the items which are appropriate for their purposes. Collectors want one of everything
- (though Lord knows why; there's so many of them at it that their pristine collections are never going to attract silly money).
If manufacturers are to limit themselves to only providing a range which is within the buying power of people who want one of everything there will never be a representative range for those who model a specific geographical and historical subject.
I wouldn't criticise Hornby for killing the goose that laid the golden egg - I'd compliment them for trying to provide choice for the modeller. I have no sympathy with the 'I gotta have the lot' attitude
- it reminds me of my childhood and witnessing spoilt brats having a tantrum that they couldn't immediately have the latest Hornby Dublo offering.
Oh indeed John, but consider why Hornby refer to their customers as 'collectors' rather than 'modellers' and that may indicate which part of the market they value most and which puts most cash in their coffers.
At a Warley show one year there was a ferrety-looking bloke dashing around the second-hand stands. In his hands he was clutching a sheaf of A4 paper closely hand-written with what looked like lists of every model ever made, with some crossed off. I'm afraid I caught the eye of someone who was also looking on in disbelief, and we had a quiet chuckle about him.
Personally I will be quite happy if the collector market falls away and Hornby have to rely more upon the modeller.
If we got the basic variations on theme finish painted and lined, un- numbered and un-named, the modeller is quite capable of providing the specific loco which he requires.
OK, so models may cost a little more but the manufactirers could move on to new subjects instead of issuing more and more identical models with different markings.
Yes - I know - these livery variants produce more income from the tool investment .... but only because we defer buying until the precise subject we want is released. If it were a case of one or two releases of the physical variants - buy now or hold your peace, this deferred purchasing would come to an end.
To some extent that is what Bachmann do and consequently their products seem to sell out more readily and don't sit on this retailer's shelves collecting dust.
I would have thought that the main reason behind their choice of terminology is a perception that being a "modeller" is somewhat geeky, but being a "collector" is cool. And they're probably also deliberately trying to encourage the collector market by aiming their marketing at them. Modellers will buy the stuff anyway, but collectors won't unless they think there's some value (either financial or aesthetic) in collecting the whole set.
Some are. Good lettering and numbering can require a bit of skill that some of us..ahem...completely lack. OR, at the very least, require decent eye sight, which other of us completely lack.
The problem is that moving on to new subjects means that you assume that the entire market for that particular model has completely dried up. However, I don't think that it is possible to automatically assume that, for example, the entire market for HST models must have been satisfied some 10 years ago, and so new and fresh subjects should be explored. The fact is, the prototype is so common that there will be a market for those models for many years. Changing the numbers on them (and certainly providing the new colors for the new operating companies) helps satisfy the existing modelers market as well as those who are newly taking up the hobby.
I'm not sure I agree with that. I think they generate more income because the modeler is more likely to buy more than a few copies of something if it isn't the smae thing that has always been there.
I can go into a hobby store here in the USA and buy a freight wagon that has a particular number on it. It is the same number as on the same freight wagon produced by the company 25 years ago. When the real railroad company owns a fleet of several thousand of that particular wagon, why on earth keep the number on the model the same for 25 solid years? A new printing of decals can't possibly cost that much.
On the other hand, if I went into the hobby shop and saw that the company had recently (say, in the last 5 years or so) changed the number, I would probably purchase a kit. After all, with several thousand of them kicking around on the real railroad, a different one with a different number on it would always be useful.
Even worse, in the 1980s Athearn produced "Southern Pacific Daylight" coaches. Instead of being numbered, the coaches came with a peal-and-stick number plate that could be put on the car, which simulated the prototype flat number board. In some 8 years of production, the number offered on the little stick on tag in the coach box was always the same (does it cost that much to design and print several peal-and-stick labels with a &^*()#$ number?).
There may be collectors and so on out there that try to get every single one of something ever produced, but railroad models are not sports trading cards. One doesn't put together a train of specific coaches that operated on a particular train on a particular day of the week and suddenly have something extremely valuable, unless it marks some very special event. It isn't as if an exact replica of the 10 o'clock to Liverpool will ever become a complete collection of the 1994 Brazil World Cup team or something like that.
It seems to me that the work done by model makers to produce old models with new numbers should be a welcome change from the stagnation that dominated the industry - worldwide - during the 1980s.
In message , " snipped-for-privacy@yahoo.com" writes
Hi, Glenn
I assume, then, that you are acquiring a Walthers' Great Northern Empire Builder. The cars come unnumbered and unnamed, and there is a sheet of decals for the owner to apply. So straight away you can have several copies of the same car in the train, all differently numbered and named.
Remember - my point was the difference between the modelling market and the collector market.
It is my contention that anyone who makes claim to being a railway modeller should be capable of applying transfers to an un-numbered model so that it is not necessary for the manufacturers to produce endless releases of the same physically identical model differing only in the number applied.
Rarely do I use a model exactly as supplied; in fact, I usually have the new transfers and etched plates to hand before the actual model is delivered.
... and before anyone says "I haven't got the skill"; neither did I when I first started modelling. It took years of practice and quite a bit of disappointment. Trouble is - nowadays people "want it now" in all walks of life; no-one is prepared to follow the learning curve.
If your eyesight isn't up to it there are plenty of sight enhancers available specifically designed for modellers.
As a last resort, there's plenty of companies offering a renumbering service - but that again is hardly railway modelling.
I strongly believe that someone who simply wants to buy everything off the shelf and run it is not a railway modeller. They're perfectly entitled to do so of course but it does bug me when, as soon as a new model is announced, there is a chorus of complaint that a particular individual loco is not being offered. (Have you noticed that all of the complainers want a different subject)?
My retort? If you're not prepared to put in a bit of work you may be disappointed. Why should the rest of us wait whilst every possible permutation and combination has been exhausted before we get another new subject?
I have to reiterate my original statement; I (and I suspect many other modellers) would be prepared to pay a little more for models if it meant that manufacturers could move on to new subject relatively quickly.
After all, the tools will remain available and could be re-used after a decent interval to produce the variants desired by non-modellers - they'd just have to wait a little longer and might then have some incentive to do some proper modelling.
I remember talking a couple of years ago to the owner of a well-known model shop in Lancashire and he suggested that new (rather than re-issued or re-liveried) models have an active shelf-life of no more than two to three months. After that sales dry up to the point where you cannot hope to sell more than two or three a year.
Perhaps you should be clear about your affiliation at this point.
Rubbish! They're modelling a railway. Maybe their forte is scenery or track building. Just changing the running number to model a particular loco is rarely going to be sufficient given the changes that many, many locos went through during their lives.
After all, the tools will remain available and could be re-used after a decent interval to produce the variants desired by non-modellers - they'd just have to wait a little longer and might then have some incentive to do some proper modelling.
Regards, John Isherwood.
John, Isn't this what Hornby are doing anyway ? and what do we do each and every new year ? We all sit here and BITCH about how long it has been in said catalouge. We ain't ever going to suit everyone, so while the main men keep the models rolling and others, like yourself in the cottage industries keep playing your part to change the identities of what is on the shelf, I and I guess many others will be very happy !
Quick lets form a quango to advise on a governing body (OFMOD) to set some rules as to who may call themselves modellers. Perhaps we need a licence - hooray a modellers licence ?
Manufactures produce things to sell, people buy whats available. Dont thimk the rights and wrongs of modellers definition has anything to do with it.
Not sure what tablets you are on, but the level in your system wasnt quite right when you sent that one.
Agree there. What such a customer may wish to consider is the apparently difficult idea of self restraint. Previously hornby restrained him by introducing a lower lever of variety, now he can do that himself by choosing one or more particular aspects and collecting on those lines only.
It was difficult but I managed to do this ! At first was purchasing Locos from LMS through to and including early BR liveries. But then realised was too much as more and more super locos came from Hornby. So now its LMS only.
Try explaining that concep[t to him and you are wellcome to tell any customer of my own experience that really happened and that i am still v happy.
Make no mistake, I would love to model the Empire Builder going through the Columbia River gorge. However, it fits my available space better to model some of the interesting branch lines and short lines scattered throughout the Pacific Northwest. The Columbia River gorge had very few of those because of the 2,000 foot tall cliffs that run along the railroad line.
Those 2,000 foot tall cliffs just don't look the same when compressed to fit in a house either.
So, no Empire Builder for me. Instead, I've put down some British pounds with a certain OO9 manufacturer to get some narrow gauge equipment that can be easily converted to look like certain USA narrow gauge equipment. It'll get here when the US Customs Office is done inspecting the package, and no sooner.
However, this option of having different numbers available out of the box is, to me anyway, a welcome change from the stagnation that seemed the rule in the industry years ago.
I have to say I thought you were overstating this somewhat, but the proprietor of Trains & Diecast in Horwich has just said the same to me. Sales on Skaledale have taken a turn for the worse and he believes it's because they are releasing too much, too quickly. Meanwhile, older releases are now unavailable and selling for double their original price on good ol' Ebay.
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