bigkid posted:BRIAN WHITE posted:palallin posted:I don't buy the argument that production costs here would be 2 or 3 or 4 times the costs in China: when the production moved FROM here TO China, prices rose; they didn't fall.
I don't know. I remember getting our dealer catalog and price sheets in the mid to late 90's and gasping at locomotives based on the post war 736 in the $800 range. It may have had Railsounds but no TMCC. F3 sets in the same ballpark or more. Trainmasters and GG-1's in the $600 range. There have been sets with these engines, often with brand new tooling offered with cars for hundreds less than those prices since. What has happened is Lionel has started tooling up tons of new and detailed product and those cos what they cost.
Agreed, the only valid comparison might be comparing a comparable product going overseas, for example, a conventional engine, or something like a traditional boxcar or the same. You can't compare a conventional engine from 1999 with a legacy engine of today, two different beasts, and or compare a semi scale engine against a scale one. It would be interesting to look at that transition period, what a conventional engine made in the US just before it went to China cost, against what it cost after the move (would be willing to bet same cost, but of course the profit/unit for lionel went up). I think a lot of the 'price bloat' after going to China reflects the evolution of the market, in the late 1990's TMCC was state of the art, after moving to China more and more engines were command control, detailed units, and then with Legacy went even more upscale, so it is really hard to compare.
Given where China is these days with manufacturing, with tight labor and the way costs rose there, I wonder if the factory that shut down did so because it was no longer profitable to make the units, and how much the cost is going to rise on the stuff when it moves to a new factory. With Atlas, we can have a direct comparison, we know what the engines and rolling stock cost right now, be interesting to see after Atlas moves its tooling how much more it costs, wouldn't be surprised if it costs them a lot more and we see it downstream, it may be likely the contract factor got squeezed by having a contract price that became less and less profitable.
So found something comparable. Last years in Michigan vs China. Basic starter set with 4-4-2 with smoke, headlight, whistle, few cars, 0-27 track and the worst 40 watt transformer ever sold were $199.99. 2004 a similar set that now had FasTrack and a CW-80 had a retail of $189.99.
