The cost of our hobby!!!!

S

Sarah Winfield

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I try to buy as economically as possible, that's not to say I'll not splash out on something I want. Most of my track is ebay purchased and I think at reasonable prices.

I guess as G gauge gains popularity so second hand prices will increase; in fact I've probably added to the rising prices, sorry .

I recently bought the LGB bent rail track buffer. I paid £16.84 post paid and decided once I had seen it to order 2 more.

What amazes me is how variable the prices can be. I found only one shop at a cheaper price but there are prices as high as £20.94 again post paid. The only price less than that I paid hadn't any stock but there would have been P&P on top of that.

I think G gauge is relatively well priced for what you get. I paid upwards of £500.00 for an 0 gauge kit built Jinty or about £650 for a Class 5. I was though quite impressed with the Dapol version of the Jinty at under £200.00.

I also have 4 ACE and one Bassett Lowke locomotives and they average out at about £6-700 each, so £110 for a digital Stainz seems to me reasonable.

Sarah Winfield
 
I started My layout about 18 months ago by buying myself a starter set for my Birthday :) I then had the great idea that I could set a weekly budget of £20 for my hobby, I have just about managed to stick to it excluding the 3D printer I bought :) but this year it is getting harder to try and stick to my £20 it now takes longer to save up and get things unless I find bargains on Fleabay. I have noticed that the prices on Fleabay this year are on the up as well for just about everything and it is possible to pay as much for second hand things on there as they cost new.
 
Depends which end of model railway-ing in larger scales that you are talking about. In Gauge 1, a ten-coach train of LNER teak coaches, hauled by an Aster 'Flying Scotsman' can easily hit £12,000. An Aster 'Mallard' and a set of Golden Age coaches, will bust that figure apart with ease...

Mr Comley, over on the West side of North America, regularly hauls 100-car trains of hoppers [$120 each] behind his Aster Allegheny [$20,000 and rising by the day].

I reckon that we are, for the most part, at the economy end of modelling.

tac
 
You could look at other hobbies?

If I wanted to go and watch football for a couple of hours at Ipswich, it would cost me £40 just for a ticket. And I might leave disappointed.

My colleague pays £850 a year for his golf club membership.

G scale is expensive yes, but I have built up my stock and track over 15 plus years and brought wisely, mostly second hand.

Looking at my other hobbies G seems quite reasonable....
 
I feel that G Gauge modelling is no different from any hobby golf, fishing, motorcycling, or even other types of modelling, most of these have an inexpensive and an expensive way to the hobby, but an awful lot of that comes down to quality and branding, or just buying secondhand. You make your chose, though I would think a lot of people will start cheap and move up if they enjoy their chosen hobby.
 
I think Sarah's point, like Tac's is that we generally operate at the economy end, and it's not as crippling as, say, DCC '0' gauge

I have generally not paid more than £200 -£300 per loco in Fn3 (the exception being my live steam Shay). That covers my track powered locos and my battery powered ones. I have bought three locos second hand, one of which has been heavily modified, and have scratch built / bashed one, and apart from the live steamer, that was the most expensive :eek::eek::eek:

Oh, and I successfully, if rather regrettably, defied temptation to buy Mike's Accucraft K27 for £1,450 - actually a very fair and reasonable price for that rather lovely loco :inlove:

One of the areas that has changed pretty dramatically since I ventured into the garden is the cost of track. Again, I was fortunate with being able to purchase a large quantity of flexi-track when I was looking to lay the much extended railway here at the WWNR.
 
Likj all things, it is relative.... you can blow the thick end of fifty grand on a flash car and in a couple of years it will have lost two-thirds of the value - for the same amount you could have a more modest car AND a huge LGB collection, and the train part of that will still be worth a pretty good percentage of what you paid for it.....

Jon.
 
Shopping around / patience is the answer, if you are prepared to wait normally something pops up at the right price.

Take for example lgb 23196 C&S Mogul one sold (to me) on Ebay for £250 inc p+p (brand new in box) end of last month, another one currently listed At £450 again ebay & PandS have one for £620 all will sell in the end but it’s just about waiting and finding one at a price that’s acceptable to you. As you have found prices seem to very vastly between suppliers for no apparent reason.
 
As others have pointed out, the cost of our hobby is all relative. I have been in the large scale part of model railroading since 1991. Before that I was into "O" gauge Lionel.

The cost of each of these scales is about the same, relatively speaking. I have spent as much as $375.00 for a single locomotive in "G" scale. Yes, there are locos that cost much more, but I don't go there.

The same applies to "O" scale. Lionel and MTH both have locos that cost well over one thousand dollars. I don't go there either. Instead, since I have resurrected my "O" gauge hobby, I buy mostly post-war Lionel trains, those manufactured up to 1969. With particular interest in the early post-war period, up to the mid fifties.

When I was into "O" gauge the first time, 1977-1991, post-war trains were selling at higher prices than they are now, relatively speaking.

The same goes for used "G" scale trains. I have found that prices have leveled off on Ebay for instance. One indicator is that most Ebay listings are 'Buy it now or best offer". Sellers, including myself, know that buyers have become savvy and most will not want to start a bidding war, knowing they would only drive prices higher.

One more thought about the cost of our hobby, if you're still reading. People outside of the wonderful hobby of model railroading often question our willingness to spend hundreds or thousands of dollars and pounds on toy trains. I cringe when hearing it said by probably well meaning people. Yet these same folks think nothing of the money they might spend on golf, boating, hunting, coins, etc., etc., etc.
 
wandgrudd said:
Shopping around / patience is the answer, if you are prepared to wait normally something pops up at the right price.

Take for example lgb 23196 C&S Mogul one sold (to me) on Ebay for £250 inc p+p (brand new in box) end of last month, another one currently listed At £450 again ebay & PandS have one for £620 all will sell in the end but it’s just about waiting and finding one at a price that’s acceptable to you. As you have found prices seem to very vastly between suppliers for no apparent reason.
Click to expand...
Yes, the golden rule when selling on ebay is to make sure that your items end after chablis-o-clock - the prices increase quite favourably >:)>:)>:)>:)>:)
 
Hobby costs a lot?

Talk to an acquaintance of mine who collects Class 3 machine guns and artillery. A weekend at Knob Creek with a few of his rapid-firing devices can easily blow $15K into the hillside. His WW2 PaK40 costs $300 per shot...

tac
 
I find ' G guage' items tend to go for lower prices on evilBay..
But there is a lot less to choose from! ;):giggle:
 
You could pay a little bit less for a OO or N scale coach as a G scale one, but which one can you actually see? As for the new T scale......
 
LGB-Sid said:
...I have noticed that the prices on Fleabay this year are on the up as well for just about everything and it is possible to pay as much for second hand things on there as they cost new.
Click to expand...
But this means your second hand purchases will retain their value. There's always a silver lining! :-)
 
it can be an expensive hobby,,, when you start getting into some of the top end LGB or some of the wonderful german gauge one equipment it can get very very expensive
and some of the really rare american gauge one locos go for 15k,,,,,
could i spend 100k in a week for every thing i would like,,,,,, probably yes,,,,,
will i,,,,,

not unless the big finger points at me and says its you,,,,,

many of us just buy something here and there,,, do that over 10 years and you can soon run out of space,,,
and money,,,,,

but you can have as much fun scratch building with big hauler and other cheep stock,,,,
 
Ah, Fine Art Models in the USA. Triple R are currently converting one of their $25,000 Big Boys to live steam.... We really miss out on some of the higher-end German stuff here in UK, where there is no dealership. Mind you, at eu21500 for one of the beautiful Br01s - electric, mind, not steam - the market must be pretty small.

tac
 
All hobboes can be expensive, just take fishing you can catch fish with a Bent Pin and a piece of cotton for bait. I have done just this in the past or you can pay hundreds for a Carbon Fibre Rod or get a lerfectly adequate old Cane Rod in a Charity Shop for a few quid. All methods will catch fish if you know how to do it.


Now to Trains, if you buy a good priced LGB Starter Set you have made the begining of a lifetime hobby of Trains in the Garden. That set will work just fine in the Garden, in the patio or even in the kitchen. But in time you will want more rails, stock and perhaps different Control Systems. But you do not have to buy it all in one pop just over time as you can afford it. In a while you will have lots of stuff, particularly if you are cunning with the purchases and look for bargains at Shows. Just today a friend of mine was bemoning that he had bought some Accucraft Isle of Man Coaches for £80 quid a pop at a local shop. Last week he saw slightly damaged ones at the Peterborough Show for nearly half the price. Moral of this you do not need to have everything at once, buying over a period of time gives much more satisfaction and you can still end up with that nice big Garden Railway in time that will be quite valuable but has probably cost less than the cost of a Pint (or glass of wine for the ladies) a day over a year or five.
 
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