Atlas October Announcement: 53' Evans Boxcars

[ai5629]

I wanted to post this on the A-board, but I thought I would be banned.  I was looking at the October announcements, in particular the 53' Evans boxcars.  I think this is a great boxcar, and I have a lot of them in my fleet.  However, I noticed that the price for these cars in this release is $17.95.  That seems really expensive to me.  The 50' ACF PD cars with their separate end hand rails and 3D underframes sell for about that much.  The only extra detail on these cars is the brakewheel, which is not that great of a part.  I usually replace mine with a MT miner brake wheel.  Ten years ago, these cars listed for under $10.00.  I think the last release was between 12 and 14 bucks.  The price of oil and the Chinese work force is really starting to affect the price of model trains.  These are scary times we live in.

[Denver Road Doug]

Yes, and the MSRP of the GP15-1 jumped up $10, too.  The first run isn't even out yet.

This is why I don't get their "Train-Bach-Mann" line.  I probably don't mind paying a little more given the current economic factors as long as I'm getting top of the line stuff.  But they're jacking prices on their low/mid level stuff into no-man's land IMHO....older tooling that doesn't excite enough to attract the smaller amount of discretionary spending.

I'm an Atlas fan, and I realize they probably don't have a choice, but still...

[asarge]

And you guys thought reality struck a few month's ago. What you're seeing is pricing based on costs as they were 3 months ago. I wish i could say things would cool off now that oil is down a bit. But other pressures will affect costs also. Atlas is gonna have to get used to smaller runs or lots of overstock. Not good for anybody.

[SirTainly]

Some good schemes there, I'll plump for several of them.

[Chulvis]

Ten years ago, these cars listed for under $10.00. 

Actually it was a recent as 2002. $9.95

I think the last release was between 12 and 14 bucks.

Last release was in late 2007. MSRP was $13.95 making this run at $17.95 25% higher. That is scary.

Oil plays a big part in it, but cost for many things the consumer may not see have gone up quite a bit this year. Atlas is a small business, they simply cannot absorb all of these these cost. This sucks for everybody, but I think this is just going to be the way of it. 

[Sokramiketes]

China's upped their prices about 20% across the board...

[3rdrail]

China's upped their prices about 20% across the board...

At Louisville, I asked Paul Graf about running the Middlesex Mfg. kit in N scale. He said that the manufacturer had increased prices by about one third when Atlas inquired about a second run in HO, so he was looking for another manufacturer.

The dollar has increased in value against the pound and the euro, but I have not seen European structure kits going down in price.

[daniel_leavitt2000]

It looks like it was a good time to put my train purchases on hiatus. With costs spiking, I wonder how long it will take to see some manufactuers return production to the US.

[asarge]

Possible, but until about 10 days ago, I would've thought extremely unlikely. Now, just very unlikely, I know of one manufacurer who has been looking at it. the manufacurer's have taken alot of time and effort to build up an infrastructure in Asia, and have gotten a pretty acceptable level of quality control that several have said may not be possible elsewhere. But finacial events have occured that might just changed the equation.....again.

[daniel_leavitt2000]

I guess the other question is when will we see trains made from China or Pakistan?

[tom mann]

You can follow the price increase history here:

http://nscalesupply.com/ATL/ATL-Rolling53-EvansDoublePlugDoorBoxCar.html

About $8.00 in 2002, $8.76 in 2005, $10.36 in 2006, $11.16 in 2007, $14.36 in 2009 (latest release).  This is an 80% increase.

I remember buying entry level Atlas cars for $5.00 back in 1987.

As we all know, this isn't Atlas' fault...the price of food over the last 6 months is probably just as dramatic.