Model Railway Forum

I can understand a slight premium perhaps for models that have lots of intricate details and features. I suppose it depends on what you want. Personally, I'm a bit frightened to touch some of the more intricate models, especially locos., as they have a lot of fine detail that is easily damaged. Take a look at Hattons pre-owned stuff to see what I mean. I've seen a lot of pre-owned models that have comments about minor damage, and so forth.

I don't really understand Hornby though. It seems to have a lot of 'tat' in its offerings. Serious modellers won't be interested in some Beatles wagons, or a Coca-Cola train, surely? Then there's their range of lower-priced steam locos. They all seem (to me) to be a bit twee, and lack realism. (That's not quite what I mean, but you get my drift, I hope.) If I want an 0-6-0 loco. without tender it's pretty much a Terrier. Similarly, in the diesel classes where are the classes like 108, 121, 122 etc.? Where are the Pacers? Bachmann seems to have more in its range. By comparison, Hornby does seem to have a very good range of passenger coaches.

I grabbed a Hornby R3772 Northern Rail class 156 from my local model shop -- he had a brand new one in stock from last year -- it's now no longer available, being a 2020 release. At the same time I grabbed the R3773 provincial class 156. The R3772 set isn't my ideal choice for late era modelling, but does have Northern Rail livery. I really wanted the Bachmann class 150 in Northern Rail livery, but I just can't justify the expense. Not now, at least, whilst I'm still building my layout.

Bachmann stuff does seem stupidly expensive to me. The trouble is, we're a captive audience. I think that Dapol products are a reasonable cost verses quality compromise. I'm really happy (overall) with the Dapol class 121 and 122 single car DMUs that I bought recently, but I would certainly love to add a class 108 or 117 in BR Green, but Dapol seems to major in N gauge.

The other thing is supply and demand. Prices will remain high until China PLC sorts itself out, but I can't see prices dropping that much, even when things return to normal, whatever normal now is. I certainly can't see me picking-up a Bachmann class 150 Northern Rail for about £150, which is about the most that I'd want to pay. I suppose that if you have deep pockets, then the higher prices aren't too much of an issue, but for mere mortals like me, they certainly are!

It's not just the cost of Chinese manufacturing that has caused the increases, everyone else in the chain then wants a bigger piece of pie.
A £1 increase in China ends up putting a lot more than £1 on the RRP of the model.

That's true. I hadn't considered that.

There was an article in the Sunday Telegraph today that stated that UK plc is totally dependant on China for a vast number of products that we use, and that costs are rising (I'm paraphrasing here). It's about time that we started on-shoring again, to make sure that we don't have such a dependence. If costs keep rising, it will only be a time before importing becomes more expensive than producing overseas. Perhaps we might eventually see Hornby producing stuff in the UK again if that's the case.

It seems to have been forgotten that Hornby produce ‘toys’ (it’s just that we, the consumers, haven’t necessarily grown up. ) and as such a section of their product will be aimed at the young, first time modeller who wants a ‘train set’ for Christmas.

Almost by definition they will be cheap, possibly gaudy in colour (to attract attention), and lacking in detail to suit small, inexperienced hands. But Hornby know that if they catch them young enough, some will become modellers and collectors and as they grow should have greater disposable income for the more detailed and accurate models and providing the next generation of customers.

As for pricing, any manufacturer, and not just those in model railways, will charge a) enough to cover costs and show a profit on the original investment, and b) what they think the market can stand. They also know exactly how many models they can sell at a particular price point and only produce volumes to suit - no point paying for a large production run if half of it sits in a warehouse.

That’s how companies go bust.

As for production coming back to the UK - highly unlikely in my opinion. Model assembly is labour intensive and UK minimum wage coupled with a shortage of labour still makes overseas production more economic. Maybe not necessarily in China but no doubt other developing nations may step in to fill the gap in years to come.

I agree that Hornby has to appeal to a broad spectrum of consumers, and I also recognise that unlike things such as PPE equipment for healthcare professionals, toys, be they for children or children of a certain age, aren't essentials. I'm just disappointed that when I contrast my early Tri-ang/Tri-ang Hornby train sets with what's on offer now from Hornby, a lot of it seems way too tacky. I certainly don't recall the likes of Beatles wagons or Coca-Cola trains being up for grabs, although the wagon with the giraffe that ducked as it went under a loading beam was perhaps one of those.

I used to work for a merchant bank in its IT department, and I lost count of the number of times that the bank moved its offshore call and support centres due to rising costs. China, for all its manufacturing grunt, can certainly price itself out of the global market. As for Hornby, yes, perhaps the company making stuff here in the UK is a bit pie in the sky, but it wouldn't surprise me to find Hornby products made in the likes of Vietnam, or some other Far East country at some point.

In the post-Covid arena, I'm pretty sure that we will see a resurgence of on-shore manufacturing. The pandemic has highlighted just how dependant we as a nation have become on China (which is true of course for many countries around the world) and it sits uncomfortably with lots of people now. The farce that was getting proper PPE for our healthcare professionals when the pandemic broke will not be readily forgotten.

Moving production to another country will only continue with the current prices and there will not be a price reduction just because they have found alternative source for manufacturing, for example the prices for raw materials such as plastic and timber have risen sharply over the last few months and any product markets will not see any reductions from manufacturers.

Bachmann and Hornby being the 2 major model railway manufacturers will keep the RRP high and let the retailer swallow the loss when the items sat gathering dust on the shelf's need to be moved, hence the West Country at £127 and the Patriot at £115 mentioned in my previous post. Just goes to show what mark up there is in the hobby.

I wholeheartedly agree. The fact that I paid half the list price for a couple of passenger coaches is probably evidence of that, although it might be down to the fact that either the coaches didn’t sell well or are being discontinued. Retailers will only swallow costs a certain number of times before they call time though.

It must be tough being a manufacturer like Hornby or Bachmann though. Having to gear-up production with all the costs involved based on guestimates of what models will appeal to punters and setting that in motion is not something that I could do. That all said, I don’t think business can be that bad if the owners of Hornby can cough up £1.7M to buy Oxford Diecast in these troubled times! From what I can make out, Oxford will still run its own business as such, but will share technology (and presumably manufacturing facilities) with Hornby.

Everything not just model railways is available at a discount if you care to spend time looking around and everything has a high original price. For example a few years ago I purchased an item from a large Plumbing retailer that cost £95. As I was about to pay I mentioned to the guy serving me that my son (a plumber) used this branch. When I said his name they let me have the item for £35. Just proves what the mark up was.

When you purchase something you are not just paying for the item, you are paying for the rent and wages of the company as well.

I have never paid full price for any of my model railway stuff.

20 or more years ago, I was an avid collector of Scalextric cars. I remember that prices had been nudging upwards for some time, and had hit around £40 per car. All the production was based in Margate and sales were falling. Hornby moved production overseas and almost overnight the cars dropped to £19.99 each.

They have since increased beyond previous price levels as material, labour and transport costs have gone up.
I have no idea what the corresponding prices were for locos as I wasn’t in the hobby at that time, but I suspect a similar situation occurred. Either that, or price levels were maintained to allow for the cost of the extra detail being demanded by the customer.

Now, imagine what would happen to prices if production returned to the UK.

Pricing strategy, unit price and RRP is a whole new debate!

I don’t have a problem paying a reasonable price for X, whatever X might be. I appreciate that be it web-based, or bricks and mortar, companies have to make a profit to cover their overheads, pay staff, and so on. I’d much rather go to a shop and purchase X, especially if I can do it locally, because I firmly believe in ‘localism’. Sadly, in this day and age it’s not possible.

There are certainly huge mark-ups on a lot of stuff, as noted in this thread, but I think that a lot of people are wise to that, witness the sales where prices get slashed and lots of money is spent. I don’t mind paying a reasonable price for X, and I can think of quite a few cases where I buy locally and know that I could get X cheaper on line, but I prefer dealing with local businesses and people. In my experience, you can often count on support if you’re a regular customer and need some help.

To get back to model railways, it’s clear to me that this is an expensive hobby, driven as much by desire as supply. In the few months that I’ve been getting back into the hobby, I’ve been able to spot the eddies in supply, presumably as stuff arrives from China or elsewhere, and I have noticed a rise in prices of about 10% on a lot of items on the Hornby website, and that is starting to filter through to the retailers.

As much as I’m enjoying model railways, my pocket is only so deep. If stuff that I want isn’t available at my price point I’ll have to go without. Manufacturers and retailers need to be aware of that fact, because most people will be in the same boat with a limit on how much disposable income that they have. Hornby returned to profit this year for the first time in the last ten, thanks to the pandemic. It shouldn’t count on the same again.