Remember when Athearn blue box kits were under two dollars and a bottle of Floquil was under a dollar. I tracked my model expenses in Quicken from 2008-2016, including travel expenses to meetings, starting
from scratch on acquiring the tools and supplies, building a medium size layout, building car and motive power fleets, etc., and I quit tracking at around $72,000 since I didn’t want my wife to know how much this hobby costs. The car fleet now is over $16
K and the power fleet is over $12 K. The rest is layout related, wood, track, wire, electronics, lighting, plus books, tools, supplies, and travel. I’m just now building structures and haven’t started scenery. I figure the cost will be over $100K before it
operational in another four years. Over a twenty year span, that’s $5000 per year or $417 per month. Yes, model railroading is expensive, and it’s getting worse.
Nelson Moyer
From: CBQ@groups.io <CBQ@groups.io> On Behalf Of
Jeff Kraus via groups.io
Sent: Tuesday, July 23, 2024 2:41 PM
To: CBQ@groups.io
Subject: Re: [CBQ] C&S Hoppers
Model railroading is becoming a rich man’s hobby.
On Tuesday, July 23, 2024, 1:10 PM, Scott Frietsch <eaglecrestservices@gmail.com> wrote:
After reading all the other emails about the time frame people are modeling I believe quite a few of us model the 60s and early 70s. I believe the main problem is that these cars are $40 AAR 70 ton triple hoppers. This car has been done
pretty well in the past which I suspect many of us have a sizable fleet of. Now these are the nicest version ever done of this model of car but it is going to make the rest of our fleets look bad. If you only had a couple I could see spending that kind of
money but I know I own roughly 60 Accurail or Stewart cars so at $40 each it isn’t worth it when I could pick up another of those at a train show for $10 and renumber or repaint it. I am guessing in my personal opinion this model is going to be a loss for
everyone involved and will always have lack luster sales. My thoughts might be wrong to some but here I am.
Scott Frietsch