They taught me Economics at School. Several times, in fact, once they'd confiscated my Locoshed book and put a couple of the burlier beaks on the main gate. They taught me some more when I went on to higher education (I was on the third floor, if memory serves) and I think that's just about enough for one lifetime. Obviously this gives me a far deeper understanding of the subject than the next man and the inalienable right to trot out pearls of wisdom as the fancy takes me, such as "manufacturers are running a business to make a profit, you know!" to a massed chorus of "F*ck me! Why didn't we think of that?" from the great unwashed. I'm truly grateful for wot they learned me.
The trouble is, it's often difficult to apply the sweeping generalisations of student economics to the real world in general and model railways in particular. Competition is a good thing, they tell us, as it drives quality up and prices down. As fine a truism as they come, I'm sure, but where is the overwhelming evidence of this in the comparatively small marketplace that is UK model railways? Some may cite Heljan knocking out TubbyDuffs at a reduced rate in the face of the imminent Bachmann release as an example, but such instances are few and far between. I certainly agree with the widely-held belief that the very presence of any decent modern products at all amongst Hornby's largely obsolete catalogue is purely down to the fairly healhy kick administered to the market by Bachmann, but what about individual products?
Take the Hornby Class 08, for example. Whilst the Hornby 'competition' will presumably have taken a slice of Bachmann's sales, I'm struggling to see any signs of Economic Forces producing a better or cheaper product. Seen by many consumers as more of a sidegrade than an upgrade, the Hornby Gronk has some better and some poorer features when compared to it's older rival. Certainly the two main areas of progress I'd hoped to see (working lights and a better representation of the springing) were conspicuous by their absence. True, the more recent Hornby product has a higher level of detail, but you get those twiddly bits as standard on models from that particular far eastern factory - in much the same way that, no matter what you order in a restaurant, you always get bl**dy salad.
No, as I see it, Hornby's Class 08 is entirely consistent with the rest of it's post-pancake D&E range. The loco is exactly what I'd expect Hornby to have produced, even if (and this is the important bit) the Bachmann 08 had never existed. Score one for the real world over schoolboy economics. On the other side of this particular coin, some might say the competition caused Bachmann to fit a DCC socket, whilst others would counter with the observation that Bachmann has been steadily upgrading anyway, driven by the impact of DCC rather than competition specifically.
A similar situation exists across the ranges generally, with almost no shred of evidence that competition has influenced quality or price so far. Older models are still churned out as before (barring changes inherent in legislation or manufacturing techniques) despite 'competition' from newer and better replacements. In fact, it's not unknown for the old clunkers to be more expensive than the newer products. Even when manufacturers have gone head-to-head in the past (Class 92s spring to mind) there's no sign of any effort to give a product the edge. Both Class 92s were, again, exactly what I'd expect from the respective companies.
I'm prattling on about this because, as you've probably guessed, I share the concerns of many folk about the remarkable similarity (if not exact duplication) of the forthcoming LMS 4-6-0 locos. Whilst I keenly look forward to the day when we're regularly faced with choices between the products of manufacturers who strive to out-do the competition, we're a long way off that now. After decades in the doldrums, the UK market has a lot of catching up to do and we're only just starting to scratch the surface. No doubt there are perfectly valid arguments about 'who thought of it first' and the ever-present risk of unintentional duplication. I'm not trying to have a go at Bachmann or Hornby here, merely to challenge the oft-expressed belief that such duplication is automatically the fabled competition that magically brings better products for less money. This isn't the motor industry, where we daily get more features as standard, this is the much smaller world of the train set. I'll give good odds that we're about to see some fine products, but not ones that significantly differ from what we'd have seen if the competition had been doing something else entirely. I'll wager that more consumers see this sort of duplication as a missed opportunity than not.
From where I'm sitting, the sum total of three or four decades worth of theoretically healthy competition currently amounts, in practical terms, to the opening doors on the Bachmann Class 37. Gosh.
Currently On My Stereo: Magnum - Princess Alice and the Broken Arrow