New or Old Locomotives and Rolling Stock

Maybe most OO railway enthusiasts are primarily modellers rather than collectors, preferring to concentrate on their layouts rather than amass new items as they are released?  I'm not sure how this impacts the discussion, it's just an observation.

Another thing that comes to mind is that as well as the online market for second-hand model railway goods, there's the actual physical 'fairs' with real traders and heaps of goods to tempt you, for example these. I love going to these. Although I almost never find any BPT stuff, I always come away with a bunch of things for conversion projects, and even for the OO layout that I might build sometime in the dwindling number of years I have left.

That's a valid point about modellers, but at the same time a lot of those modellers wouldn't use ready to run models anyway, they are the type who will either scratch build their loco's and rolling stock or make them from these white metal or brass kits because they have 5 more rivets and therefore are more accurate

I know what you mean about shows and fairs as a few years back I visited a fair at the bluebell railway and I used to be a regular to the Brighton model engineering exhibition which always used to have a healthy number of trade stands as well.  But as I'm sure you're as painfully aware as me those events have just not been on during the pandemic years, although there are signs of some coming back this year - so long as nothing else happens.

The point I was getting at really though was if the manufacturers want to keep shifting stock and making money they really should consider two tier models, the expensive rivet accurate models for the collectors who tend to just put them in a glass cabinet and then less detailed robust models for those who want to use them on a layout, but who are not so precious about the fact the wheels are 1mm too large to be truly to scale etc...

Regardless though, the price increases are one of my major concerns as if I buy a loco I like to have some suitable rolling stock to go with it that would be prototypical.  But it is just becoming unrealistic to do that and increasingly I tend to find myself contenting myself with carriages that just look nice rather than being correct for example.  Also the prices are like petrol prices, every opportunity they go up, but then when costs do eventually drop the prices don't...