Olle, It would seem that your issues are geographical and demographic rather than whether the sales of German models are failing/rising in your community. Tim

I think the combined efforts of the contributors to this topic are resulting in some revealing and conclusive facts. As Tim repeatedly says, Hornby and Bachmann are leading an exceedingly healthy U.K. market, backed up by the number of British outline model railway magazines. As also pointed out, the British modeller now also has the complete range of buildings and scenery to go with their trains, first from Hornby and now also from Bachmann. And, like here in Australia, model railway exhibitions are excellently attended - not just by dyed in the wool modellers but also many families who could potentially be new devotees. Neil's point with Bachmann Liliput being around the same quality level as their U.K. outline products, but significantly more expensive, co relates exactly with Tim's point about Hattons selling Liliput at 'clear out' prices (as Rails of Sheffield were doing recently). The bottom line must be that either people don't want to buy them or don't want to buy them at regular retail price. To take Neil's point further, here in Australia and, from advertisements, seemingly the case in Britain as well, a Bachmann-Farish 'N' scale loco will cost at least as much (and sometimes more) than Bachmann's own OO non DCC direct equivalent (to create a level playing field as most Farish steam locos are still analogue). Why? I think that because the volume of sales is less in N the profit margin per item has to be higher to meet all the original design and tooling costs and ongoing administrative and production costs. So with Liliput sales obviously lower than Bachmann British outline, this same principle has to apply and that is why Liliput costs so much more per unit. Maybe some Fleischmann devotees opted out of German prototype when Fleischmann stopped producing FMZ system models, as they would have been left with (if they were long term Fleischmann customers), large personal collections of models that could not be added to when Fleischmann changed systems. I know I would have not been keen to subsequently follow Fleischmann loyally if I had been in this position, just as I felt a little ignored by Marklin when they completely scrapped analogue (and created a huge second hand market in analogue amongst older Marklin modellers - something that Marklin didn't make a penny out of). Also I don't know about other members but I am not the Continental Modeller devotee I used to be. I have every issue from one of the first in 1980 until 2000, but since then have bought this magazine less and less to the point of only very sporadically. The reason is that it has gone far away from its original European interest roots, and is likely to feature articles on Pakistan, Mexico, South America or even parts of Europe that would only have a very minor interest to mainstream proprietary modelling, such as Portugal. Interestingly, none of these articles are promoting the railway systems that the advertisers are selling products for. So I don't think the retailers and distributors for Swiss, German, or Austrian products paying for advertising in Continental Modeller are really getting best possible value for their advertising dollars if there are not a substantive proportion of the magazine devoted to attracting potential readers to Swiss, German and Austrian features. There is also an increasing number of U.S. layouts in CM (in one issue I counted four), so as a European modeller I am not being encouraged to buy CM and accordingly I am not looking at its advertisers. I accept that CM's problem might be getting the volume of layouts situated in the U.K. worthy of showing (though I have long thought that it would be easy for a staffer to go to a German exhibition and run a few stories on layouts located in Germany). But in any case - it does seem that there is a definite major lack of coverage of continental layouts in the English speaking model railway press, and this includes an effect of reducing profile not just in the U.K. but also the potentially enormous U.S. market (German prototype was very big on the East Coast in particular), Canada, South Africa, New Zealand, Australia, and South East Asia as well as many English speaking enthusiasts in other countries (as we can see from this membership). About a year ago I wrote to Model Rail congratulating them on the quarterly Model Rail International supplement (which Tim of course will be very familiar having had a layout centrepieced in) and pointed out that I believed there would be a market for an English speaking magazine that at least predominantly focused on European modelling. I received no answer. But I do believe lack of exposure is another part of the problem and more exposure would sell more units which in turn would help unit prices (attacking the issue from the other end). I apologise for taking up so much of the forum's space with this subject and will personally cease to go any further with it here. At the same time I would welcome any ideas that you might have in remedying such a gloomy situation. I think collectively all we want is to be able to actually get the stock we see in catalogues (or in the much heralded Nurnberg releases) at reasonable prices and without having to pay up front then wait several months (or longer) to hopefully receive the item. Thanks for your time and interest, Richard

Lets be honest, for British outline the core market is the UK, for german outline the core market is Germany and for US outline the core market is the USA. Take those three markets out of the picture and there would be a greatly reduce world market for model trains. As non german residents, this forum supports germanic (and turkish!) modelling. I don't expect Brawa, Marklin, Roco etc to advertise in the modelling press here. I know of a lot of german modellers in NZ. There are effectively only two shops in NZ with german outline (and then it is Marklin) in any sort of quantity on the shelf. And they are in Napier and Christchurch, yet the majority of germanic modellers are in Auckland and Wellington. From my perspective as long as the German market remain self sustaining, I will be able to buy my german outline modelling requirements from my "local" dealer based in Karlsruhe, my generic modelling requirements from a die cast car toy shop 20 minutes away, and impulse buy when I am in Christchurch. To have greater expectations than that in todays economic environment is potentially asking to much, unless of course, NZ had 30,000 active modellers rather that the 200-300 it has. Cheers John

Lets be honest, for British outline the core market is the UK, for german outline the core market is Germany and for US outline the core market is the USA. UK now supports five monthly model railway magazines and five non-modelling railway magazines In Australian Model Railway Magazine several years ago, when discussing similar topics, an article suggested that the percentage of model railroaders was similar in most countries, and that (they felt with the possible exception of Australia at that time) the vast majority of modellers followed their home prototype. The "pool" of modellers to support magazines should therefore reflect the populations (sources Wikipedia): USA (2008) ~305 million Germany (2007) ~ 82.2 million Great Britain (2006) ~ 58 million Australia (2008) ~ 21.3 million Sweden (2008) ~9.2million New Zealand (2007) ~ 4.3 million It is interesting to see the number of RoG forum members from different countries - if the percentage of non German-resident modellers is similar around the world one would expect that there should be about 33 US members for each New Zealand member, which isn't the case. I have been surprised at the numbers of Australian members of this forum (more than are members of my model club), so I wonder if another issue is that model shops (and exhibitions) have an incorrect perecption regarding the popularity of German railways. For example, a few years ago Roger Marsh applied to exhibit the German branchline layout he was building at the Brisbane AMRA exhibition and didn't even get the courtesy of a reply. Given the standard of some of the Brisbane AMRA layouts in recent years, I think Roger's layout would have given many a shock - a prototypical German layout which doesn't have steam hauled trains racing around at speeds which in the prototype would have Bryan Benn in raptures and (if in the prototype) prove that German steam had set the world speed record :wink:. Roger did try and get an antipodean German based club off the ground through WRF (see http://www.worldrailfans.info/forum/viewtopic.php?f=2&t=4709), but wasn't inundated with replies..... Greg

Just bought the September Conti Modeller, the ads pages are packed with German models from dealers, new and old, moreover there is another continental exhibition in September. :D Therefore, from the evidence contained in this publication it would seem that German model railways have a future in the UK. :D Very refreshing to be so positive. Tim

Yes very encouraging... except that one of the cornerstones of the UK retail trade in European models for many years appeas to be far from healthy at the moment....

except that one of the cornerstones of the UK retail trade in European models for many years appea(r)s to be far from healthy at the moment Retailers come and go, the liquidity of an individual trader may be a reflection of the market or it could be an issue which is pertinent only to that trader.

For me its always been where you live, as noted by our swedish friend. I was introduced to German stuff by my local Beaties in Newcastle, but when they dropped the non UK stuff became a mail order fan with a shop in poole called ECOS. When they closed I used model masters in WSM, but did most purchases when I went over to Germany. The reason, there were no shops where I lived. I now live down in Brighton and now live quite close to Morris Models and Gaugemasters. Both very good shops and in the last few years I've spent quite a lot of money with both, tho still order some items from the Net in Germany and the UK, and still visit shops in Germany and beyond when I'm passing. German stuff was always more expensive, I've come to live with that, with prices being 60-70% more, but it all worked and was very good. Even Limas Euro stuff was miles better than anything they produced for the UK market. But I have noticed from viewings that UK stuff is now much better in quality and prices. And as a DCC modeler have not been very happy with the lack of DCC ready F/mann locos. They still seem to want you to pay £60+ more for their own DCC locos, £60 for a loco with a chip I dont know. Sorry folks, give me a £25 zimo chip anyday. I've also been quite happy with a recent PIKO hobby loco I bought. £60, DCC ready and a good runner. The only changes I need to do are the pantographs and Sommerfelt do a pack to fit. Recent buys have been from: Morris Models Shop Gaugemasters: Shop and Net Model Masters: Net (a lux track cleaner which has been nothing but a pain) Hattons: Net (buying up cheap F/mann and mehano) Bromsgrove models: Net DCC chips DCC Supplies: Net, DCC chips Lokshop: Net Discontinued faller stuff So where was I, oh yes. Sales. Gaugemasters do a large selection of stuff and I do like to visit their shop. (last buy Brawa KLV and PIKO 189). They are very well stocked on F/mann and Trix etc, but lacking on Roco. (some stuff has been on order for 3 months now). So living where I am, I am spoilt, esp compared with where I used to live. But I guess in the end even gaugemasters is nothing compared to this: http://www.modelleisenbahn.com/info/ets-waiblingen.php?PHPSESSID=1fcc47bb47a002389241814f7fb8bc51 SJ I guess I can still spend as I'm a single person, no children, house paid for, making not bad money, dont drink. So its railways, DVD's and CD's. SJ

Just returned from Oberfranken. Not the most pleasant experience to find that only one retailer of model railways still traded in a city of 70K which once boasted five retailers. Even the city centre trader had ceased to sell a full range of model railways products and appeared to be only selling remnants of stock and second-hand items. Worse was to come, the next town once boasted a superb model railway retailer, this has also closed and I was informed that the only quality retailer for the Oberfranken region was in Coburg. A very depressing trip.

Hi Tim, A sign of things in East Germany or Germany as a whole. Would be interesting to find out how much the big internet dealers are selling outside their local within germany. Cheers John

A sign of things in East Germany or Germany as a whole. I do not know about the retailer situation in East Germany as I was visiting Oberfranken. Tim

Duhhhh, for some strange reason, I though Coburg was in the old east germany! So did you find somewhere to model your next Germanic layout on? John

Hi John, I was taking a long weekend to celebrate Sankerwa in Bamberg with lots of fun of the liquid kind. Railways were a minor diversion with a trip on the DFS but I did take my camera and will update the Youtube homepage. There were too many shop closures and I cannot understand Phil Barker’s comments about 120Eu locos, all that I could find (when I found them) was 190Eu for simple goods locos and 45Eu for a coach! On the railways, most services seem to be in the hands of LINT 2-car units and we saw the ICE alongside the A3 otherwise we saw only one freight (oil) train near Wurzburg but the roads were clogged with trucks. :cry: Finally, So did you find somewhere to model your next Germanic layout on? Sorry but, there is no intention to build another layout based on Germany