@SIRT posted:Unfortunately, I have the feeling that MTH is now passing the price point considering the state of the hobby. The latest 500-dollar engine price point plus shipping forces many out of the marketplace.
I.M.O. the latest asking prices are not justifiable for a toy train diesel. I believe it might be the end of the road for the scale side of the hobby. I would bet dealers are not getting overwhelmed with pre-orders either. Another concern is receiving all the latest over committed products in a timely manner today. That has yet to be seen.
Until then, the item would have to be a new design or special road/model going forward. Instead of buying five items at a time, some might just buy one?
Or some of us might move to HO Scale. In the last three weeks, I've seen nothing but price slaughter for O items, esp. used MTH items. I've seen people buy up reasonable price items and then offer them at over 100% mark-up of what they paid for them. I've seen Atlas switches that look like they were run over by a car with new price tags. I'm not happy about this. I don't see manufacturers producing new designs or models. Just the same old runs from the same old tooling over and over again. But at the same time, I see manufacturers NOT rereleasing models that were popular (Atlas Gunderson Maxi-IV in point). I'm not happy about this either.
Then you need this over priced controller or this over priced connector to run your layout. And then you purchase new items and you get them and they're damaged from the manufacturer. (MTH being THE biggest offender.) What am I supposed to do then? Well, you guys keep talking about having the dealer fix it under the new warranty structure. Most of these dealers can't fix these things. So the other option not mentioned is, I fix it myself. Not happy about this either.
I find it a very frustrating time to be in the O hobby. I've invested heavily in the O end of things at this point and I'm having some regret esp. when I see so many readily available models at cheaper prices for other scales.
Anthony
