Graham Farish 2019

[jamespetts]

I'm no great fan of sound fitted locos in N, but I wouldn't want to deny it to those that want it. However (slightly tongue in cheek) I'd ban it at exhibitions. At TINGS this year there was a layout with sound fitted locos next to mine. After a couple of hours it becomes REALLY annoying, especially with locos sat still emitting idling engine sounds. It is a bit like how I might imagine suffering from tinitus to be. For me it comes under the heading of "just because you can doesn't mean you should." However, each to their own - as this is what model railways is all about.

Yes - the worst is the 'Sounds' from the fiddle-yard full of locos "heard but not seen" The fiddle yard represents the rest of the world - those trains should be many miles away out of hearing range and not competing with the on-stage locos - When they go off stage please PLEASE mute them!!!

Someone at the Model Railway Club has written a script in JMRI that does this automatically (and also automatically turns on the sound when the trains enter the scenic area), which makes for much happier ears.

[scottmitchell74]

Those Class 14s are absurdly good looking! 

[TalyllynJon]

Just been doing a bit of online window shopping on the Farish website - whoa - when did their prices suddenly go so mad?!!! Wagons seem to be around the £20 mark (about twice the price of Peco or Dapol), coaches are nudging £40 each and now the jinty is their only steam loco under £100 with a couple of engines well over £200!!! Looks like they're following the Apple business model - when sales start to tail off and profits take a dip, don't bother with developing exciting new products - just put your prices up! Joking aside I wonder if Bachmann have found the British N gauge market less profitable than they hoped and these are the prices we'll have to pay to keep Graham Farish viable as a long-term business? And I wonder if other manufacturers will start putting their prices up too? To me the main advantages of N gauge are that it takes up minimal space and it isn't too harsh on the wallet. The main disadvantage is the limited choice of models (and increasingly the need to find my glasses every time I want to look at my models!). I'm just getting back into model railways after a long gap. Currently I'm collecting suitable stock whilst planning my layout - but if prices are set to double the case the N gauge suddenly becomes a whole lot less compelling!

[longbow]

Welcome back. The cost of N Gauge is certainly a shock if you've been away, but on the plus side the slow pace of new models means that most items are available second hand at prices well below new.

[Paul-H]

Welcome back. The cost of N Gauge is certainly a shock if you've been away, but on the plus side the slow pace of new models means that most items are available second hand at prices well below new.

Or as in the case of the likes of EvilBay well above the prices when new, due to the habit of small production runs not matching demand.

Talking of new costs, have you seen what they will be asking for their new birdcage carriages, a pack of 3 for only £150. £50 each puts them above 00 prices. Can't see N-Gauge lasting as a viable hobby if the other makers follow Bachmanns business model.

Who would have thought only a few years ago, that anyone thinking of getting into model rail would be told get into 00 it's the cheapest gauge

[Buzzard]

Wagons seem to be around the £20 mark

In some cases a 4 wheel wagon now tops £25

if prices are set to double the case the N gauge suddenly becomes a whole lot less compelling!

On the Hattons site if you compare prices for the same wagon in N and OO e.g. the Metalair PCA in Blue Circle livery the OO one is cheaper.

OK so they're both pre-order prices but you get a lot more for your money in OO.

[njee20]

I'm not sure the OO analogy stacks up - the cost isn't raw materials, and the OO gauge market is larger, so it's not hugely surprising that some OO gauge models are cheaper, although it's annoying! The new Accurascale PCA is the same; cheaper in OO. Locos are still consistently more expensive in OO, items being cheaper ('Railroad' type low-detail ranges being the exception) are still the exception rather than the norm.

Equally Revolution models are proving cheaper in N than OO still, albeit swayed slightly by in the case of the IZA by Kernow's margin.

Bachmann have been putting prices up on re-releases of existing models for a good number of years now. Time was their FIA Multifret container pairs were the same price as Dapol's FEAs/Megafrets, now the Dapol ones are £35 (without containers) whilst the Farish ones are over £80 (admittedly with boxes). In some ways it's a shame, it feels like re-releasing a model should curb escalating second hand prices, but it will likely have the opposite effect - it re-baselines the value of an item and drags up the value of the existing ones too.

Locos over £200 is a bit unfair, AFAIK that's only sound fitted models.

Ultimately it's all just economics, the hobby isn't dying, despite what a vocal minority may think, if anything it's the opposite. I CBA to find the post I always put on these threads, but the ongoing cost of modelling is negligible. There is no reason to have to keep buying these, we just want to. Newcomers won't be put off because they don't remember "the halcyon days when a loco was £3", so that argument is moot, and as above, new prices rises will bolster the  healthy second hand market, such that any existing collection is now worth more.

[Newportnobby]

Talking of new costs, have you seen what they will be asking for their new birdcage carriages, a pack of 3 for only £150. £50 each puts them above 00 prices. Can't see N-Gauge lasting as a viable hobby if the other makers follow Bachmanns business model.

Being blunt, no one in their right mind would pay full RRP. This set at Rails is £127.46. Still an eye watering amount but those carriages and the Class 'C' will make a very lovely train. OK - I have more disposable income than many younger people but, at the end of the day, everyone is free to decide how to spend their dosh

[TalyllynJon]

I wasn't comparing the latest Farish prices with the halcyon days of my youth - just the halcyon days before Christmas!

I totally get that prices need to rise steadily. I also get that price is not directly related to size - design and development costs etc will likely be the same whatever the scale.

What I don't get is the huge difference between the latest Farish prices and their prices just a month ago, or the prices of similar items from their competitors.

E.g. If I were to buy a modest little train with a GWR pannier and a dozen private owner wagons I could get the loco from Dapol for £85 and Peco wagons for about £8.50 each - setting me back £187. The cheapest Farish pannier is £105 and their private owner wagons seem to average around £19.95 - making the Farish train about £344! That's not far off twice as much. Or to put another way - for the price of the Farish goods train I could buy a similar train from Dapol/Peco, plus another pannier and B set - and still have £40 left over!

[njee20]

But surely you can see that's an apples:oranges comparison? You're mixing and matching bits from other brands (offering a wildly inferior product) and comparing them those from a third. Furthermore you're comparing retail prices on Farish with 'mail order' prices for Dapol/Peco.

On Hatton's the Dapol pannier is £72, whilst the Farish one is £89 on pre-order. Farish's forthcoming 5 plank wagons are £15.26 each. So... yes, you can pay £187 for your Dapol pannier and the far cruder Peco wagons, or you can have the better wagons (no idea if the Farish Pannier is better) for £270. That there are two price points should be a good thing, you have the choice.

With the caveat that I'm only interested in stuff from the last 20 years, I'm not aware of any items that Farish had in their current range in December that markedly increased in January. There were certainly some increases of course, but they were all older models. The Voyager has doubled in price on re-release, but the original batch can't have been far off 10 years ago.

So your Pannier/PO wagon analogy doesn't stack up, unless Farish had a current Pannier and set of PO wagons for £187 in December.

Vote with your feet and buy the Dapol/Peco items, the market will quickly dictate if the Farish ones are overpriced.

Edit because I'd managed to delete half of the last sentence

[nookfield]

Talking of new costs, have you seen what they will be asking for their new birdcage carriages, a pack of 3 for only £150. £50 each puts them above 00 prices. Can't see N-Gauge lasting as a viable hobby if the other makers follow Bachmanns business model.

Being blunt, no one in their right mind would pay full RRP.

Unless you want to support your local model shop rather than a box shifter!

[Newportnobby]

Talking of new costs, have you seen what they will be asking for their new birdcage carriages, a pack of 3 for only £150. £50 each puts them above 00 prices. Can't see N-Gauge lasting as a viable hobby if the other makers follow Bachmanns business model.

Being blunt, no one in their right mind would pay full RRP.

Unless you want to support your local model shop rather than a box shifter!

True, but then you couldn't complain about the price. Each to their own

[nookfield]

Or as in the case of the likes of EvilBay well above the prices when new, due to the habit of small production runs not matching demand.

With very few exceptions (Class 40 sound being one) manufactures do meet demand with production runs. Most models are available in shops for a couple of years after release. A lot of models are then reduced in price to clear stocks. They cannot afford to have warehouses full of stock on the off chance that someone may want one in the future. 

To have a new production run of a model the manufacturer needs to be confident that they will sell 1000+ of the model.

Prices on ebay reflect the availability of a model on the second hand market rather than the demand for a rerun of the product. If a model doesn't appear very often on ebay and you have a handful of people wanting to buy it then the price will reflect this. It doesn't mean that the manufacturer would then sell 1000+ of it if they had another production run. 

[Paddy]

Reminds me of something Richard Lines said about the introduction of Tri-Ang TT.  Basically, Richard said that it cost the same to make TT as OO but customers expected to pay less for the "little one".  The volume for TT and the cutting of Tri-Ang's margins made TT not commercially viable.

So for prices of British N Gauge (BNG) to moderate the market would need to expand significantly and I just don't see it.  Even if BNG grew to the same size as the OO market then the prices would not change much - probably GF would make a better margin.

I don't know, but I suspect GF are probably making a lower margin on BNG than OO even at these prices given the smaller volumes.

Paddy

[jamespetts]

I do not understand N gauge's market segment to be at an inherently lower price point than OO gauge. The gauges do not compete on price. Instead, the advantage of N gauge is its scale: a smaller scale allows a modeller to fit more in the same amount of space as larger scales. The downside of this is that the models are smaller and, some may think (although not I; but I may take a different view when I am old and my eyesight is worn out) less satisfying to look at.

If there is a saving in money, it is a saving in space. Increasingly, space is expensive. By allowing a satisfactory layout in a smaller space, N gauge permits the saving of money by not requiring larger premises.

It seems inherently implausible to suggest that there will only be a market demand for N gauge products if the prices are lower than for OO gauge products or that an increase in price signifies a diminishing market. Far from it: in any given market, an increase in the price of goods usually indicates strong demand.