Irish wagons V English wagons price wise.

[Northman]

Just wondering why the Accurascale wagons are cheaper than the IRM wagons?

[Irishrailwayman]

10 minutes ago, Northman said:

Just wondering why the Accurascale wagons are cheaper than the IRM wagons?

Shear volume of production? (the UK-outline market is several times greater than that for Irish-outline I would imagine) 

[Broithe]

Size of the markets and the numbers against which the fixed costs can be recovered from, I suspect.

[iarnrod]

I think IRM do 250 packs of each set for the Irish market (but I'm sure one of the IRM crew will confirm). For the UK market they probably do twice, three times or maybe more of that amount of each set due to there being a much bigger market. It's like anything really; the more you buy or get made, the cheaper it is.

Edited May 5, 2018 by iarnrod

[Warbonnet]

19 minutes ago, Irishrailwayman said:

Shear volume of production? (the UK-outline market is several times greater than that for Irish-outline I would imagine) 

Exactly correct! We are making three times the amount of Accurascale wagons as IRM wagons and we can spread the tooling cost across their price compared to IRM. Simple as. It’s the same reason MM locos cost more than Bachmann etc.

[GNRi1959]

40 minutes ago, Northman said:

Just wondering why the Accurascale wagons are cheaper than the IRM wagons?

I asked this same question a couple of months ago.

Why don't you make three times as many IRM wagons and keep the cost down?

[Warbonnet]

8 minutes ago, GNRi1959 said:

I asked this same question a couple of months ago.

Why don't you make three times as many IRM wagons and keep the cost down?

Hi Tony,

simply becuase the market is much smaller and we wouldn’t sell them. It’s a catch 22 I’m afraid. How many cement bubbles do people need for instance?

thanks,

Fran

[Northman]

Thanks Fran,question answered. 

[GNRi1959]

Fran, I do understand where you're coming from.

I've little or no interest in hoppers or bubbles but I bought a pack of three hoppers to 'support the fantastic work that IRM do'. I'll gladly run them on my small shunting layout alongside Leslies GNRi wagons and my scratch built stock. 

Would it not make sense then to produce some GNRi wagons under the 'accurascale' banner - after all the English market is full of Irish modellers too!

[Warbonnet]

41 minutes ago, GNRi1959 said:

Fran, I do understand where you're coming from.

I've little or no interest in hoppers or bubbles but I bought a pack of three hoppers to 'support the fantastic work that IRM do'. I'll gladly run them on my small shunting layout alongside Leslies GNRi wagons and my scratch built stock. 

Would it not make sense then to produce some GNRi wagons under the 'accurascale' banner - after all the English market is full of Irish modellers too!

Thanks for the support Tony, we appreciate it as every sale helps us.

re doing GNRI wagons. Do you think we’d sell 12,000-15,000 units of say, a GNRI open wagon in the UK? I thought it was a pretty niche part of a niche market tbh, but I could be wrong.

[Noel]

As others have confirmed the UK railway modelling market is vast compared to Ireland. I've heard it estimated that the entire Irish model rail market is only between 1% and 0.5% of the size of the total UK market at present. Due to aging demographics I've heard a few pessimists refer to the hobby market as a sunset industry. I'm impressed with IRMs pricing for bogie wagons such as the Tara's compared to the Ballast/Cement pricing. It actually reflects a significant price reduction for what you receive. 

Edited May 5, 2018 by Noel
Typo

[iarnrod]

If you were to buy an Irish wagon kit, by the time you add in glue/solder, necessary tools to make it and paint, not to mention time, the IRM wagons are very competively priced, in my opinion, for such a niche market. Also, the quality of the IRM offerings, so far, is on a par, if not better, than some of the bigger UK model manufacturers.

I never thought I would see RTR Irish wagons to be honest, so to now be able to buy such high quality ones in RTR, is amazing in itself, and personally I have no issues with the pricing structure to date. The IRM lads are putting a lot of effort into their offerings, so it's only fair they should get some return on their time and investment, plus they put smiles on a lot of modellers faces too. 

[NIRCLASS80]

I think the reasons for the pricing are pretty obvious.  I for one always steered clear of Irish modelling due to the lack of freight wagons and had modelled Canadian scene for over twenty years. Having been used with really good quality ready to run wagons (freight cars) it made kit building less attractive. 

Now with the exchange rate 3 high quality freight cars from North America cost more than IRM products. 

So thanks to IRM and a Canadian clear out I have purchased a collection of Irish Locos and Coaches from Murphy and lovely ballast and bubbles from IRM and a very enjoyable layouts. Thanks lads and keep those products coming.

[JasonB]

It's very easy to say why not produce 3 times the product to reduce the price, but this is no good to anybody if the product is sitting on a shelf with no one to buy it. IRM is a business at the end of the day and for a business to survive it needs to know it's market which the lads clearly do. I for one think the pricing is very reasonable for the top quality RTR models now available to us, considering it's such a small market to operate in.

[David Holman]

Can only agree with the explanations above, while the kit making side of the hobby has the same problems too, of course. For example, an etched brass kit is likely to cost around £800 - £1000 to get into production. The actual etches may come in at around £100 or more each, so selling them at between £50-£100 profit, you need to shift at least 10-20 to break even and goodness knows how many to make a living - which is why most kit producers do not do it as their main job.

 There is an interesting article in the latest Gauge 0 Gazette about 3D printing, which shows that a decent machine can be had from £300 upwards [£600 seems to be a more realistic figure], but to take advantage of one of these, you need to become an expert at a CAD program. Not a 5 minute learning process.

 Overall, it remains the case that you pays your money and/or makes your choice. Having seen the IRM wagons, can certainly vouch for their quality and value. For me, one thing that seems to be changing across the hobby is that the standard [and cost] of rolling stock has grown rapidly in the last few years. Coaches and wagons are no longer cheap compared to locomotives. In my preferred scale of 7mm, you can now get a Dapol Jinty for under £200 and Hattons are bringing out LNER A4 and A3 pacifics for £750, which is pretty remarkable. However, to stick a reasonable train behind one of the latter will cost considerably more - around £200 per coach or more, so even a six coach train will cost twice as much as the engine. Likewise, a 20 wagon freight train [rtr] could come to not much less.

 Anyone wanting a quick fix model railway these days is going to need deep pockets, so it is a good for the rest of us, that our hobby is very much a long term theme, where it is as much about the journey as the destination. It also shows that, where you can, building your own models, from scratch, or using kits, can help justify a few more expensive purchases to cover those items you really can't see getting any other way. IRM have been clever in choosing their first two wagons that way, methinks, as both represent considerable challenges in doing it yourself.