2020 Large Scale offerings...

[tac]

Cosmetic parts such as bells whistles, smoke stacks, and headlamps, domes, cabs, cross head pumps, and handrails would be nice to have readily available, but not as essential as drive train components, structural components, and circuit boards like cylinder assemblies, boiler assemblies, power trucks, motors, gear box assemblies, pilot, and tender trucks. 
I understand the lack of new inventory, but at the very least, we can have replacement parts readily available to keep our older engines in working order as parts and components wear out over time.  And some of those parts that have run out of stock, are not being re-stocked, and the parts department is almost never helpful over the phone, so it's very disappointing that not only the new inventory is lacking, but the lack of availability of replacement parts inventory. 

I have never found ANY pat that I need in stock.

and here in UK, buying another loco to keep one going is just not cost effective.  Would YOU pay $500 for an older Climax, plus maybe another $50 for shipping?

[Chastity]

Again, basically Kader is out of the 1:20.3 scale.  Doubt it is ever coming back.

Improvise, substitute, try to find junkers to strip.

[Greg Elmassian]

With the shrinking population in the hobby, the used market is alive and well....

Greg

[Loco Bill Canelos]

Greg is right about the used market, it is very strong!!   I have noticed that many out of production used G Scale (all sizes) are going up in price.  I am seeing a 7 to 15% increase in prices from over a year ago.  Low production items even more.   I can't believe some of the prices, A UP USAT GP9 with all the parts missing, including the swing hangers, just the loco and trucks and no box just went for $370 used, and a USAT ALCO S4 just went for $530.

Bill

[armorsmith]

A fool and his money are soon parted.  People's desire to own something often over rides their common sense. I recently purchased at an estate sale, a large scale K27 for less than half what I paid Caboose Hobbies for my first one in 2008. I have looked for another for several years, but was not willing, and am still not willing, to pay inflated prices.

I have heard way too many horror stories about eBay sellers to trust eBay listings. I generally don't troll eBay, but trolled the On30 listings last evening. Almost every  listing I looked into said almost nothing in print about the item with the statement "photos are part of the item description". Some were stock photos taken from manufacturer's web sites. How do I know that the photos of the item are photos of the item I am bidding on? Do I trust seller ratings? HELL NO!! The rating system is a sham. I am of the mind set that if I cannot inspect the item before purchase, I don't need it. Years ago eBay was a good place to do business. eBay has become far to commercialized and protects the sellers (who pay the eBay fees) to the extent buyers are left relatively on their own. Yes there is a system, but I don't have weeks or months for my money to be tied up in eBay investigations.

I have always believed that the used market should not draw more than 50% of new STREET price, not MSRP. Pay attention that MSRP is Manufacturer's SUGGESTED Retail Price. That number has all kinds of movement for middle men, wholesalers, and retailers. When the product is new, the price at the retailer is the price that is likely what will make the retailer a reasonable profit margin based on how long he feels he will sit on the item before it sells. In recent years manufacturers have put large minimum orders on retailers making their prices rise to cover the excess inventory they are forced to bear if they wish to market a given product. Manufacturers are moving to these restrictions to assure they recover the manufacturing costs associated with a given product. This has resulted in the blow out sales we see when a retailer has gotten all the profit he believes he is going to make on that product, and now he is selling to recover his actual cost (or very near) and get the inventory out of his possession and off his financial books.

I have no problem with people making a profit on their products. I have a problem with profiteering and gouging, and that is where I see the used market heading.

My opinion for what ever that is worth.

[zubi]

You just have to face the reality folks. The era of Large Scale Boom is over. It is a miracle that there are still some plastic models produced for the European market. Other than that we should pray for Live Steam to survive for a few more years. Better learn some skills, scratchbuilding is fun. Best wishes from Indoors, Zubi

[Fred2179]

Fred, therein lies the rub for many of the senior modelers. I, like many, do not get on Facebook. Aside of the fact that my employer HIGHLY RECOMMENDS us NOT open our security to a medium that has many time displayed it's inability or lack of desire to secure folks PII.
. . . .

Sorry to offend the Facebook foamers, but that is my thoughts. By the way, it would have been nice if you included a means to find this Facebook provider for those who wish to pursue that avenue.

You really were on a roll that day. Completely ignored the other part of my statement:
"There is a gentleman in MA making replacement gears in Delrin for the most popular/problematic gearboxes. His email is [email protected] and he is quite active on Facebook."

[Plow_Bender]

I have heard way too many horror stories about eBay sellers to trust eBay listings. I generally don't troll eBay, but trolled the On30 listings last evening. Almost every  listing I looked into said almost nothing in print about the item with the statement "photos are part of the item description". Some were stock photos taken from manufacturer's web sites. How do I know that the photos of the item are photos of the item I am bidding on? Do I trust seller ratings? HELL NO!! The rating system is a sham. I am of the mind set that if I cannot inspect the item before purchase, I don't need it. Years ago eBay was a good place to do business. eBay has become far to commercialized and protects the sellers (who pay the eBay fees) to the extent buyers are left relatively on their own. Yes there is a system, but I don't have weeks or months for my money to be tied up in eBay investigations.

Personally I don't think I'd go as far to say that eBay protects the sellers, as just from my experience buyers seem to have more leverage.  I've been selling on eBay since 2008 and within the last 6-7 years or so, I've watched selling on the site become more and more of hassle than it's worth.  Like I've told a few people, if eBay wasn't my only source of extra income and method of getting rid of items I have, I honestly wouldn't bother with it.  At the same time though, I'm not going to just donate thousands of dollars worth of models to Goodwill.

There are many cases where I've watched buyers take advantage of the system when it comes to items I have sold.  I had a case last year where an item got delayed at a sort facility, and the buyer opened up a case because they hadn't received it.  Even though I provided tracking information to show the item was arriving late, eBay still went ahead and refunded the buyer and closed the case.  They're reasoning behind it was that I did not provide sufficient tracking.  The item did get delivered and I did manage to get it back, but I had to message the buyer several times stating that I had tracking information that showed the package being delivered right to their doorstep.  This isn't the only time this has happened...

Another issue I had years back was I mixed up shipping labels with 2 orders.  Order A was worth $40 and Order B was worth $175.  Buyer B received Order A, and when I found this out I contacted Buyer A and asked them to just reject the box (which was still in transit) and send it back to me.  Rather than doing what I said, Buyer A opened the box because they stated "I needed to make sure it was the wrong item."  When I received the box back, several items were missing, some were damaged, and more packing material had been added to the box.  I told Buyer A I wasn't going to refund their money because of this, but eBay forcefully refunded them stating that it wasn't their fault the items were missing and that someone in the Postal Service probably opened the box.  In the end I had to refund Buyer B their money as well and I never got the item back from them either.  Regardless, I'm partially to blame for that $200+ loss simply because I was the one who mislabeled the boxes...

Lastly and most recent, just last week I had a buyer leave negative feedback because she bought an item from me and her kid managed to break the thing while making a movie.  I don't see where I'm held responsible for that, but the real issue is the buyers feedback history.  Looking through their profile (Feedback score of 70) on feedback left for others, they have only left 1 feedback ever which was the negative feedback they left for me.  I don't know where eBay stands on buyers who only leave negative feedback, but I've seen several cases out there of buyers who do such things.  Whether this is just to gain something from eBay or just troll sellers, I don't know.  Sellers on the other hand can't leave negative feedback because eBay say's it will cause buyers to lose faith in the site.

Now I'll admit in the past I have been on the buying end where I received a model that was damaged, and rather than the seller just giving me a partial refund to buy replacement parts, eBay stepped in and gave me a full refund and let me keep the item on top of everything.  While some may look at this and say I made out in the deal, I don't enjoy benefitting in the hobby of model railroading at cost of others.  For that reason, I just gave the model to charity rather than having to look at it everyday...

Now I am no way trying to call anyone out on their opinions of eBay, I'm just stating my thoughts based on what I've seen through my own experience with the site.  At the end of the day, it all comes down to the fact that there are a lot of people out there who want something for nothing and are willing to go out of their way to screw over anyone they can.  I feel the big issue with eBay is you don't know who your buying from or selling to.  When you do business with someone face-to-face, you can see just what kind of person they are and overall it makes for a better buying experience.

-Rusty

[Chastity]

Certainly ebay is not end all, but there are just very few rr swap meets anywhere.

Considering at least two LS makers just gave up. This is where things are at.

[Loco Bill Canelos]

Hi Chastity,

Which are the two companies who just gave up???  I must have missed the announcements since I have not seen any recently.

Thanks,

Bill

[armorsmith]

Bill, I believe she is referring to Hartland Locomotive Works and MTH.

Hartland has a notice on their web site that due to conditions they are suspending production indefinitely. Suspending does not indicate to me they have tossed in the towel. Hartland is a sub business of a large injection molding company as I understand it, and I believe that they are realigning efforts to maintain the bigger business so that in the future when conditions improve they can bring back the H-L-W line.

MTH is another story. The owner is retiring. I have no doubt that market conditions have had a strong bearing on that decision, but again this is not just quitting. MTH will be taking and filling orders through sometime in 2021. Plenty of advance notice, and I understand that there is some negotiation for the continuation of some of the product line already.

I do wish that if folks are going to make announcements, they would make a complete announcement. You can read the Hartland announcement on their web site, and I understand there is a nice write up on the MTH Facebook page (I don't have access to Facebook).

[Loco Bill Canelos]

Hey thanks for the news,  I must be out of it, as I missed both announcements.   Then again I am not on facebook either.  Still in all it is not overall good news, and not a good sign for O scalers and our scale.  Seems like everything is now focused on HO and N scale.   Ebay prices for many G scale items are surging, I am out of the buying mode, and just cannot afford what is on offer, worse shipping cost have gone out of sight as well.  Like you  maybe they will come back in some form. 

Thanks again for the detailed post!

All the best,

Bill

[Chastity]

I just did not want to mention names on the Bachmann site.

Technically Bachmann is not out of 1:20.3 but I think we pretty much know it is likely not coming back.

Yes HLW is suspended but pretty much that do not look for new production anytime soon.

MTH has a chance of reorganizing but I would suspect the LS offerings will not be there.  Tinplate repros gone as well and they will concentrate most likely on O scale.

Let us face it, there are not as many people doing model trains.  That combined now with economy people start looking elsewhere to spend if theybhave it.

From what I see being offered, and some of the most activity in LS seems to now be live steam.

That being said as older Bachmann 1:20.3 disappears what does show up is commanding some good prices.
Virtually the last four K-27s all used have gone for around a thousand US dollars.

Collectors, parts engines or something else?

[Chris9017]

The newer generation Moguls, Climaxes, C-19s, and new Big Hauler 4-6-0s coming out soon, are the models we'll want to invest in, because they're built with good quality construction for a reason.  They were built to last, and if properly maintained, can probably last for decades.  Yes the paint will wear off, but we can always find someone whose skillful enough to touch up the paint with the right colors, or weather them as far as cosmetics go, but mechanically, they should last us a long time without needing parts replaced as long as their maintained right.
Phoenix Sound and Tsunami I believe will also be around for a while because they'll always be demand for sound units, but if you're looking for newer model trains from Bachmann to get, best it be the newer generation Climaxes, C-19s, 2-6-0s, and 4-6-0s since they're probably are gonna be the ones that last a long time as parts become more scarce.

[R. J. Raleigh]

Oddly enough, the German Elephant sells large overpriced locos as fast as they can produce them.
Perhaps The Bach-Man should produce European models as well.

Wait, I've made this suggestion before.

Models of European/English/Australian/South African/Indian locos seem to sell well even at ridiculous prices.