Keeping Up With New Classes

[M. Matthews]

Please hear me out on this one and if I’m wrong, feel free to put me in my place. But…

Why is it that model manufacturers are unable to keep up with the releases of new trains. If a new class of train is released, I feel that it’s such a massive thing in the railway community. Yet a new model being released is a bit “meh” at times. Production of a real train is so much bigger (76 times apparently) than the production of a model. Surely these model manufacturers should be jumping on everything new that happens.

Now I know that there’s hundreds of years of “back catalogue” to cover. But with models being easier to produce than actual trains, catching up shouldn’t be too much of an issue and surely producing a model of a numerous class is easier than producing something that is virtually extinct?

Finally, it’s my night of work (I work on the railway, although not guilty of striking), I’ve had a couple of drinks, so please excuse my over use of the word “surely”

[5Dublo2]

I suspect a lot of the companies wait to see if there is interest in a model before they spend money (and man hours) setting up toolings.

[Fazy]

The model railway community is split into many groups some want new some want old. They then can be split into more groups the big four early British railways late British railways, British rail post nationalisation and the like. Many modellers are into one maybe two if you’re lucky. Not to mention regional areas. Like myself I model LMS (ex LNWR /L&YR)

Now a single model can cost on average £200,000 to bring to the shops, however Bachmann just spent £1,000,000 on the new class 47. (Hence its price tag in the shops) now taking that into account the manufacturer needs to know how much a new model will cost to produce.

If we take a new loco at £200,000 which can be spread across multiple periods and regions it should sell better say a class 37for example.

then a model which is from one period and one region. Say a brand new dmu which runs only on one or two lines down south.

Not to mention a new DMU EMU whatever will be made up of 4,5,,6 coaches and power cars and could all be different meaning it’s not one tooling but 4 possible more. So the average cost isn’t £200,000 it’s now £800,000. For a model that most people don’t want. It also makes a model more expensive to buy. Because you are buying a muiltpy unit a 2 car DMU are in the ballpark of £300-£400. A six car unit will be more.

Keeping in mind many people just cant or are not willing to spend that much, so potential customers are growing smaller all the time.

This doesn’t mean some won’t be done but no manufacturer is going to speed up to £1,000,000 and possibly more. On a model that maybe only a few hundred people, not only want but can actually afford.

[ellocoloco]

@MM, hopefully its your night off work and not night of work....grinning

Hopefully at some point the Eurodual will be offered - Classes 88 and future 93 and 99. All the better if they can be made from one set of tooling, but Fazy hits the nail on the head. Toy trains cost a lot to produce and to make sure of a return on investment, multiple liveries and a wide sphere of operation lessens the risk. Maybe if something like the class 99 sees widespread uptake in the future and you will have a situation where multiple manufacturers vie to offer the best representation. MUs always suffer from cost and are more difficult to display and run due to their size.

Hornby have recently announced the class 755 which only entered service in 2019, so there are some new trains on the way.

[M. Matthews]

@fazy

This is interesting! Where did you get those figures from out of interest? Really surprising to hear that Bachmann dropped a cool million on the production of a model!

@elocoloco

It was kind of my night off. I’ll probably get slated for this but I work on the railway and there’s a fair few strikes going on.

[Fazy]

RMweb, if you look for the new class 47 topic under the Bachmann section it should be there. It was mentioned on an online magazine too. But I forget which now though this might be mentioned in the thread too.