This is not attempt to restart the discussion on prices which certainly had run its course. Just an observation.
I needed a new chassis for my Farish GWR rail at and following advice on another topic on this forum I purchased a Tomy chassis direct from Japan using EBay. I only received it today and gave it a test run straight out of the package. I have to say this chassis oozed quality. Wonderfully smooth, quiet, wobble free, fantastic pick up and absolutely excellent slow running. It cost me just over £20 and the selling price in the UK is under £30.
My observation is that the rep of a Farish coach is £30 while the rep for a class 24 is £120. A difference of circa £90. The main difference between a coach and a diesel loco is that the loco has a powered chassis. In the context of the cost of the excellent Tomy chassis this price difference seems somewhat high. Ok there may be volume differences and locos have lights but the price difference seems high. Maybe UK manufacturers should design diesel locos around the already available Tomy chassis.

Its not just the electric locos, the new TGV Duplex by kato (10 cars) is £160 ish on ebay new. Not sure on the rrp but its lower than a dapol 4 car hst bookset. I'd hedge my bets andsay the kato tgv outperforms the dapol hst in everything bar dcc readiness?

Regards
Phil

Quote from: Chris m on May 04, 2016, 07:19:26 PM
Ok there may be volume differences

It is ENTIRELY down to volume... Kato alone sell more units per year in Japanese N gauge than the combined output of Farish & Dapol & Hornby in N + OO + O gauges put together...

If you can guarantee Farish sales of each loco of 50,000 per year every year, the price will come down to something approaching those levels....

Quote from: PLD on May 04, 2016, 07:53:56 PM

Quote from: Chris m on May 04, 2016, 07:19:26 PM
Ok there may be volume differences

It is ENTIRELY down to volume... Kato alone sell more units per year in Japanese N gauge than the combined output of Farish & Dapol & Hornby in N + OO + O gauges put together...

If you can guarantee Farish sales of each loco of 50,000 per year every year, the price will come down to something approaching those levels....

My point was that the price difference between a farish loco and coach is circa £90 - £120 versus £30. Coaches probably have as many components and intricate details as a diesel loco body and are similar in size so the cost of making a coach body will be similar to the cost of making a diesel body. The primary area of difference is that a loco has a motorised chassis and a coach doesn't. Tomy produce excellent chassis for less than £30 - one third the difference between a British loco and coach. I would expect that most of the investment in research, design and tooling is in the body rather than the chassis.

I'm sorry but going along this line of thought isn't even wrong...

It is just not possible to compare the work going into making a coach, or wagon or whatever and the amount of engineering design and production to create a working, movable set of frames for a locomotive - Add on to that the fact it is to scale and does work and its not worth thinking any further.

Quote from: Chris m on May 04, 2016, 09:47:20 PM
My point was that the price difference between a farish loco and coach is circa £90 - £120 versus £30. Coaches probably have as many components and intricate details as a diesel loco body and are similar in size so the cost of making a coach body will be similar to the cost of making a diesel body.

You are probably right that the difference in PRODUCTION cost per unit is much less than £90 but it is the Research and Development costs for the loco that are so much higher, and then those costs are spread across fewer units - most people will buy in the region of 4 - 6 coaches per loco, so say £100k to develop a Loco spread over 2000 units = £50 per unit vs £50k to develop a coach spread over 8000 units = £6.25 per coach...

As an additional factor, bear in mind the Tomytec chassis is a generic unit (or one of a range of generic units) designed to fit the Tomytec range of unpowered "Tetsudo Collection" models with the help of plastic spacers and clip-on parts (bogie frames and under-chassis parts); they do not have DCC sockets or directional lighting.

The Japanese  models and chassis, including the Tomix, Kato and Greenmax are of very good manufacturing standard.  They do have a toy like quality, particularly as the chassis are all plastic self colored (and I don't mean black), and are not super detailed.  They are designed for kids to play on the floor on modular track like Kato Unitrack.  This is why they are so cheap, so many are made for the kids market (think Hot Wheels, Matchbox, Dinky).  There is a quality and detail pecking order among the Japanese manufacturers.

The problem is that the British customer base (rivet counters) would turn their nose up at the compromises the models inevitably have if they were British outline.

You will note that Kato have opted for the Dapol Terrier and GWR 14xx and associated coaches as the running stock for their first two Kato British outline railway sets The Hayling Islander Starter Set and the Great Western Rambler Starter Set.

I build a lot of locos, kits, handmade and Shapeways and for these with a bit of work they make great reliable chassis.  The only problem is their fragility and they do not tolerate much modification before loosing their structural integrity.  At least being cheap experimentation is a fifth of the cost of starting with a Farish chassis and if you hand make a body in plasticard you can have a very nice loco for under £25.

As for GWR railcars my entire white metal Langley fleet run like silk on Tomix chassis.

Quote from: Snowwolflair on May 05, 2016, 01:30:37 AM
The Japanese  models and chassis, including the Tomix, Kato and Greenmax are of very good manufacturing standard.  They do have a toy like quality, particularly as the chassis are all plastic self colored (and I don't mean black), and are not super detailed.  They are designed for kids to play on the floor on modular track like Kato Unitrack.  This is why they are so cheap, so many are made for the kids market (think Hot Wheels, Matchbox, Dinky).  There is a quality and detail pecking order among the Japanese manufacturers.

Well, the first sentence in that paragraph is certainly correct. Umm, and here's a Dinky-like toy from Kato clearly aimed at the kids market:

I just need to add the teensy bits from the detailing pack and put it on the floor for my son to play with...

This one:

is admittedly a bit more "toylike", due to it being from the aforementioned Tomytec range, so what you get is the bodyshell on a flimsy chassis with plastic wheels (for well under a tenner I hasten to add), but designed for placing on one of the Tomytec chassis, and various aftermarket parts are available for pimping these up (which can easily put the cost well in excess of an equivalent Japanese RTR model, but often it's the only way to get hold of something obscure, like this one, which comes from a railway I'd never heard of which has been closed for half a century).

Quote from: Snowwolflair on May 05, 2016, 01:30:37 AM
The Japanese  models and chassis, including the Tomix, Kato and Greenmax are of very good manufacturing standard.  They do have a toy like quality, particularly as the chassis are all plastic self colored (and I don't mean black), and are not super detailed.  They are designed for kids to play on the floor on modular track like Kato Unitrack.  This is why they are so cheap, so many are made for the kids market (think Hot Wheels, Matchbox, Dinky).  There is a quality and detail pecking order among the Japanese manufacturers.

The problem is that the British customer base (rivet counters) would turn their nose up at the compromises the models inevitably have if they were British outline.

If you think that Kato Unitrack is aimed at the 'kids' market, then you have completely misunderstood its concept. Space constraints are well known in Japanese dwellings for many people...there just isn't the room for a layout,  or any form of permanent set up. Unitrack caters for this, and is a big market (globally)  for Kato.

The Japanese market is also very particular,  hence the high quality of the models. The Tomytec chassis may be more basic,  but the average J-trains offering beats most UK or even many European models hands down.

There is an element of a pecking order,  but remember models like the Railway Collection from Tomytec cater for a very different market than Kato, Tomix et al. They are aimed at the static collectors market, ad are the Tomytec cars lorries and buses.

Quote from: Snowwolflair on May 05, 2016, 01:30:37 AM

You will note that Kato have opted for the Dapol Terrier and GWR 14xx and associated coaches as the running stock for their first two Kato British outline railway sets The Hayling Islander Starter Set and the Great Western Rambler Starter Set.

I am not sure if 'opted' is quite the right word here. As I understand it, these sets are the marriage between Dapol (who do not make N gauge track) and Kato (who do not make UK stock - nor as far as I know have any desire to enter what to them is a small market), arranged by Gaugemaster (the UK importers of Unitrack). I do not believe these sets are available in Japan ('squid can put me right here), but if they are Dapol's QC will need to improve markedly.

Quote from: Snowwolflair on May 05, 2016, 01:30:37 AM
The problem is that the British customer base (rivet counters) would turn their nose up at the compromises the models inevitably have if they were British outline.

Fantastic joke?
We used to buy (some still do) Graham Farish (Poole era) and we still buy "N gauge" not "N scale"!
Brit N was the laughing stock for decades for high cost, compromises and poor running.

I am not sure, in your post, to what type of models you are referring from Kato et al but their mainstream models are excellent and have been for the last 35+ years.

CFJ

I don't disagree some of their stuff is fantastic, but it is massed produced and it in many cases compromises fineness of detail for robustness and ease of automatic manufacturing.

Just look closely at the grey bogie of the electric loco photo posted above.  The detail is thick, and its thick to tolerate wear and tear (of children) and mass production.  Yes it is better than old and some new Farish and actually the moldings are reminiscent of the Peco wagon chassis which are now +25 years old molding technology.

As for targeted at children, I even have some Tomitec HM-01 models where they are designed for children to draw the windows and livery on them with felt pens.

Understand I am very appreciative of the Japanese models, and some of their steam locomotives (apart from oversize valve gear) are fantastic, but getting back to the topic of the thread, their prices are based on large mass production techniques with no hand finishing, virtually everything we buy of British outline is hand finished, and that hikes the cost.

Quote from: Snowwolflair on May 05, 2016, 10:48:50 AM
I don't disagree some of their stuff is fantastic, but it is massed produced and it in many cases compromises fineness of detail for robustness and ease of automatic manufacturing.

Just look closely at the grey bogie of the electric loco photo posted above.  The detail is thick, and its thick to tolerate wear and tear (of children) and mass production.  Yes it is better than old and some new Farish and actually the moldings are reminiscent of the Peco wagon chassis which are now +25 years old molding technology.

You really think these are aimed at children?  BTW the loco pictured is about 10 years old, so not even the latest standards.

Quote from: Snowwolflair on May 05, 2016, 10:48:50 AM
As for targeted at children, I even have some Tomitec HM-01 models where they are designed for children to draw the windows and livery on them with felt pens.

Yes, that range is specifically targeted at children and not representative of the market as a whole.

Quote from: Snowwolflair on May 05, 2016, 10:48:50 AM
Understand I am very appreciative of the Japanese models, and some of their steam locomotives (apart from oversize valve gear) are fantastic, but getting back to the topic of the thread, their prices are based on large mass production techniques with no hand finishing, virtually everything we buy of British outline is hand finished, and that hikes the cost.

As has been pointed out, the difference in price comes mainly through economies of scale. I'm no expert, but the production methods for the mainstream RTR stuff (not the cheap Tomytec stuff or high-grade locomotives from the likes of Tenshodo) are probably not much different to those used for Farish and Dapol.

Quote from: Claude Dreyfus on May 05, 2016, 08:44:59 AM

Quote from: Snowwolflair on May 05, 2016, 01:30:37 AM

You will note that Kato have opted for the Dapol Terrier and GWR 14xx and associated coaches as the running stock for their first two Kato British outline railway sets The Hayling Islander Starter Set and the Great Western Rambler Starter Set.

I am not sure if 'opted' is quite the right word here. As I understand it, these sets are the marriage between Dapol (who do not make N gauge track) and Kato (who do not make UK stock - nor as far as I know have any desire to enter what to them is a small market), arranged by Gaugemaster (the UK importers of Unitrack). I do not believe these sets are available in Japan ('squid can put me right here), but if they are Dapol's QC will need to improve markedly.

Definitely not available in Japan, and I've never seen any sign Kato is directly interested in the UK market, though they do certainly produce for some mainland European ones.