i'm in the fortunate position in that i can afford to buy any brand new models i might want...but simply because i WONT buy them at the prices they are.

Even 2nd ( or tenth) hand stuff is often listed at laughable prices--because these del boy type dealers think they can rip off enough  innocent punters who dont know the real worth of what they are buying.

Like several others have mentioned--i get most pleasure in buying and bashing cheap models into something not available to buy off the shelf.

Some of the prices do seem a little silly when you take in a number of factors. Like how small it is, where it was made and what else could you buy at that price.

I would say model railways are actually a cheap hobby. Yes you need to buy some trains and build a layout as an enter cost. But that's it. The ongoing costs are negligible; maintenance costs are very low, and you don't need to buy more trains. If you decide to sell up then you have very strong residuals.

I used to cycle competitively. A top mountain bike was about £6000 (you can easily spend double that now), you could reckon on spending probably £500–£1000 annually on consumables, just to keep the thing going! Then after a year it was worth £3000.

Quote from: njee20 on Yesterday at 11:58:01 PMI would say model railways are actually a cheap hobby. Yes you need to buy some trains and build a layout as an enter cost. But that's it. The ongoing costs are negligible; maintenance costs are very low, and you don't need to buy more trains. If you decide to sell up then you have very strong residuals.

I used to cycle competitively. A top mountain bike was about £6000 (you can easily spend double that now), you could reckon on spending probably £500–£1000 annually on consumables, just to keep the thing going! Then after a year it was worth £3000.

This is a good point. "Start up" costs can be high(ish) but once you're up and running it does/can level off.