[Gary]

Browsing through some old magazines I spotted this eye opener in the letters column of Model Railway Constructor December 1969 which might be an entertaining read!

Now which letter am I refering to?

I wonder if any editor of a paper mag today would have the.......

The two follow up letters "In Defence of Tri-ang" are equally interesting (substitute "Hornby" for "Tri-ang or Tri-ang Hornby") and the points made are as relevant today as they were 37 years ago!

For clarification any reference to "Hornby" in the "British" letter relates to Hornby Dublo products.

Happy modelling
Gary

 

[neil_s_wood]

Just shows you that things don't change. That same letter could have been written recently.

Maybe mags today might not print this, most of them tend to be quite sycophantic as they need the advertising revenue of Hornby and Bachmann, but several threads on this forum have been about this very issue. Same problem then as now domination by one company. If you don't have competition you don't get improvement. We do seem to be getting there at long last though.

The follow up letter contains the story peddled by some that the public want cheap models rather than quality. It seems that these arguements have been around for a while and don't go away. I believe that the truth is that there is room in the market for cheap models and better quality models. Variety is a good thing.