I have been watching this whole thing develop for 25 years when suddenly model trains went HIGH TECH. It seemed small and insignificant but was the final nail for the hobby. Its because anything that is technical IS EXPENSIVE and the cost of model railroading went through the roof in about 10 years and especially in this global economy WHO CAN AFFORD IT?
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Now we have basically ONE SINGLE BRAND NAME (Walthers) that has MONOPOLIZED THE ENTIRE MARKET and the prices are all FANTASY LAND...
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Quite a rant, but I have to disagree with about 100% with what you said. Going Hi-Tech has had almost nothing to do with higher prices. The prices of oil has been a major cause of it, as has the demand for more accurately detail locomotives and cars. It has also been shown that the longer Hi-TECH items are on the market, the cheaper, and more advanced they become. I can remember when a Digitrax decoder was around $50 for a 2 function decoder. Now that 2 function decoder is $15-17, depending on the source. Also you'd be surprised at how cheap the basic wiring for DCC is. To wire my layout for DC and 5 operators, would have cost me about $5000.00. So far, for 10 operators, the wiring has cost me under $3000.00. That is a significant savings
Walthers doesn't monopolize the market, not even close. Like HH, Walthers is a manufacturer, and a distributor. There are several other distributors along with these two, they all get their stuff from the same manufacturers. For every item manufactured by Walthers, there are at least two other manufacturers making a similar item.
Costs are relative, whether you're buying trains in 1960, or 2013. As Bruette said, "you have to live in your within your means". While I have sometimes been accused of "champagne tastes on a beer budget", I generally do live within my means. The last loco that I paid a comparable cost to a modern high end loco, was in 1989. I got the Oriental Limited "Powerhouse" 2-8-8-2. I got it for $300.00 While I've picked up about 15 more locos since then, I haven't paid more than $150 for one, and the majority of these were brass engines. I don't go much for sound, so the 1 loco I own that has it will probably remain solo. Since I am running steam and some first generation diesels, I only need that 2 function decoder. No ditchlights to wire, no class lights, as the number boards are white and numbers are black. On the steamers, I use MV lenses, and all locomotive lights were off in the daylight hours in the era I'm modeling, so I really don't need those 2 function decoders. Still total decoders have cost me $555.00.
Some things that I see that has driven costs up, is RTR and the demand for more detail. Someone has to be paid for the work on assembling the parts into a car or locomotive. One way to save money here is to assemble them yourself. KD even makes kits of a couple of box cars. These have the same detail as the RTR. Only real difference is the paint job. There are still thousands of older BB kits, MDC, Bowser, Accurail etc out there to build a set of baseline cars that could be used, and the cast on detail couldn't be seen anyway as a train passed. If you want to go old school, the older wood craftsman kits are out there as well, and these cost about $10-20. Intermountain offers for $37.00 here, a rebuilt USRA 55ton hopper. It looked familiar, so I got it. Sure enough, it was a Tichy model assembled overseas. I had recently just finished 5 of the kits for this car, that I got at a train show for $7.00 each.
Bowser, MDC and others made very nice locomotive kits that assembled into very fine machines. There were some really superb models that came from the Blue Box kits from Athearn. Detail wise you could detail them into just about any RR's loco. These locos would cost between $15-$30. Add the detail cost, paint jobs, and decals, these locos would eventually cost $50-$100.
Don't overlook train shows, swap meets, E-bay and conventions as a source for models. The prices of cars at these are generally dirt cheap, but you do have to search. Don't be leary of E-bay. I've been buying trains off of there for over 15 years, and have never had a bad experience. You just have to be careful, and know your limits, price wise, and desire wise.
Another area to save costs in is track. Learn how to handlay your track. Learn to do it without a jig. Jigs, while they do make the job go faster, cost almost $200.00 apiece. You would have to build 20 turnouts, of the same size, before you get the costs below $10.00 a turnout. Also you could go as far as to learn how to cut your own ties. A 3' section of track has cost me on my layout under $3.00. A turnout can be as cheap, no matter what the size. I have a double crossover that cost me $12 in material. I bought an 8' piece of 1x4 knotless white pine, and I know that I've cut 15-18 thousand ties from it, and I've used a little over half over the past 5 years. I've cut switch ties, and regular ties out of this on a 10" table saw, ($99 at HoDo), and another 4" table saw that I got from HF for $35.
The point that I'm trying to get across is that if you want a cheaper hobby, aim for the areas that has you put in some to a lot of sweat equity. The more work that you do yourself, the more money you will save, and then, on occasion you'll be able to acquire that superdetailed loco or several copies of the special car you can't do without.
