Are people continuing to get older and even dying, thus dooming the hobby/industry? :)

@raising4daughters posted:

Curious about your thoughts as a 20-something on the use of smartphone apps as part of model railroading. My thought is that the move from standalone remote control devices to smartphone apps was done, in part, to bring in the younger set. I use a TMCC remote, a DCS remote, and a LC+ remote, but have thought about buying the DCS Wifi controller so my youngest daughter, age 12, could run trains with me using her phone.

I am 19, soon to be 20 but after trying both the Lionel and MTH apps at train shows, I decided to purchase the MTH DCS Remote commander to power one of the two loops of tracks I have on my layout for two reasons. First, I found it was extremely easy to accidentally click something. Second, I am on my devices enough throughout the day, and working on/operating my trains is a way for me to distance myself from my electronic devices. I do not want to be staring at my screen anymore. 

I understand why MTH and Lionel decided to go this route, to get the really young kids you have had an electronic device all their lives to more easily operate trains, and because everyone has a smartphone of some kind. I just hope I can find room in the budget to pick up a full DCS system, with a remote, before they become impossible to find. 

One bright note with respect to growing old - if you run a statistical analysis on the obit pages one thing becomes very obvious - if you make it past 100 the odds are very good that you will go on running trains forever.  The reason this has to be true is because it is very rare to find someone listed in the obit pages with an age at death greater than 100 years.

  Seriously, the Boomers, of which I'm a part, have distorted everything they have touched and hobby participation is no exception.  Model/toy train running/building/collecting existed before we came along and I am sure it will be around and in good health after the last of us has departed the scene. I think the same will be true for all of the other hobbies and hobby interests that existed before the advent of the late 1940's and that have been added since.

I once got a solicitation from a guy selling annuities that said among other things " if you should die prematurely"....   your money won't be lost. I assume "prematurely" meant relative to the terms of the annuity, nevertheless, it was quite a statement.

Lew Schneider

@Ted R posted:

Don't know about others, but I have a plan to live forever... so far it's working! 

That's my plan also.  When it stops working, I won't know it, so it's a can't lose proposition.

Is the hobby shrinking?   Yes 

Are local hobby shops closing down near you?  Yes

Who's gone out of business other than Williams, Kline, Weaver, and now MTH (and a much reduced Atlas)? ?

Does the same % of today's young people have interest in erector sets, Lincoln logs, tinkertoys, slot cars, and toy trains as they did in the 40s 50s & 60s?  No

Hobbies change just like fashion.

I beg to differ...

Lincoln Logs, tinkertoys, etc were all for "kids under 12" basically. Or dads and kids.  There may have been a few older serious Lincoln Log builders, but hardly any.  Legos, which is the replacement toy, are bigger than ever.  And Playdoh is still around.

While there are still model trains being made and sold for the kids market, Id say most of the dollars spent on O gauge trains are for serious modelers or collectors.  Way past the "kids under 10 market.

As for manufactures...Williams did not go out of business.  Jerry Williams retired and sold the business to Bachmann, who still make "Williams Electric trains".  K-line went out of business during the height of the high end of model train sales, due to lawsuits and overextending  purchases from manufacturers that he didnt have the cash to pay for.  It was a mess.

Weaver closed because Joe Hayter retired.   This was another mess, but most of the tooling was sold to Lionel or Atlas, both of whom are selling former weaver products. 

MTH....the last chapter is far from being written, but chances of Mike just closing the doors and walking away, are pretty close to zero, IMHO.

Hobby stores...no different than every other business, where "mom & pop" stores have decreased.  In many cases,  the owners just retired, and couldnt find someone to purchase the business as a whole entity.

 Also, model trains are a very niche product, that will only have sufficient  walk in traffic to sustain a store,  in a large city.   I would highly suspect that most, if not all the model train shops these days have heavy internet sales to help keep the doors open.   The internet is here to stay, with the opportunity to sell to the whole world, not just your neighborhood. 

The hobby has consolidated, from a what I think was  overextension in the late 1990's thru early 2000's, but its far from dead.

IMHO    beth

Beware drawing rapid conclusions from Average Life Expectancy--which, as the name implies, is just an average.  It does not mean that everyone who reaches that age drops dead soon.  As the initial post mentions, one relatively recent development is vaccines to prevent the childhood diseases.  Prior to that development, many children did not survive childhood, which drew the average expectancy down considerably.  a related problem was the dangers of childbirth, now much ameliorated.   For most of the last two thousand years, anyone who lived to 7 had just about as good a chance as we do of hitting 70.

The big game-changer for ALE is gerontology, which has managed to extend active years past 70 by quite a bit.  But don't believe that, 400 years ago, people lived to 40 and died or that, 40 years ago, people lived to 60 and died.  In both cases, those who lived to 40 also lived to 70--and somewhat beyond--about at the same rate as we do today.

Come on people - somebody get the facts. In some of your opinions, people are getting old and the hobby is dying. Has anybody done any research?

How many dollars are spent on model trains? How many dollars USED to be spent on trains? How many numbers of trains are sold? There has to be DATA someplace.

If you really want to know- do the research and find out. Don’t be a bunch of old farts sitting around moping about your Trains losing value. ALL THINGS depreciate! Come on!

As of June 2004, MTH has 57 employees and annual sales of about US$40 million.

As a privately held company, MTH does not officially release sales figures. In its 2007 reorganization plan, Lionel estimated MTH's annual revenue at about $30 ...

Numbers here would just be estimates, and who knows what counts as a "train",  and then u have to adjust for population and age and income of population, and cost  compared to per capita income, blah, bah, blah...if u really wanted to get an apples to apples comparison that had any meaning.   I can give u good anecdotal evidence year to year, but even that is influenced by how much I spend on advertising, etc.   I think the most encouraging  thing is that im getting new customers that are new to the hobby. 

By 1966, Lionel's revenue was $28 million, 40 percent from

So there, 5 minutes of research says TRAIN SALES ASRE INCREASING

Not being a financial expert by any stretch, my guess is MTH is worth, based on sales volume only, $30 to 100 million. Trust me, it won’t just die and go away.

It's only worth what someone will pay for it.  Apparently there were no buyers interested enough to step up and put out the bucks.

According to the TCA website, it had 31,152 members in 2003 and 22,027 in 2018.  That tells you something!!  TTOS, LOTS and LCCA have also had large decreases.  I do not know about the NMRA.

@OGR CEO-PUBLISHER posted:

I am not sure I understand your choice for the title of this post/thread??

that would make at least 2 of us Alan...…..also wondering that it was even asked...…..

wellll.....If someone is willing to pay me 500 $ more for something today than someone else would yesterday, which is the real value?  

  Thats why we use "fair market value"  .  What someone will pay for something is way to volatile to be an indication of value, per se.

@Beth Marshall-The Public Delivery Track posted:

wellll.....If someone is willing to pay me 500 $ more for something today than someone else would yesterday, which is the real value?  

  Thats why we use "fair market value"  .  What someone will pay for something is way to volatile to be an indication of value, per se.

Beth, I suspect the "real value" is what you can get for an asset at the time you want/need to sell it.  If I need to sell something this month, it doesn't matter if it'll be worth twice as much next year, unless there is someone that's willing to pay more and gamble on it increasing in value.

@Beth Marshall-The Public Delivery Track posted:

wellll.....If someone is willing to pay me 500 $ more for something today than someone else would yesterday, which is the real value?  

  Thats why we use "fair market value"  .  What someone will pay for something is way to volatile to be an indication of value, per se.

@gunrunnerjohn posted:

Beth, I suspect the "real value" is what you can get for an asset at the time you want/need to sell it.  If I need to sell something this month, it doesn't matter if it'll be worth twice as much next year, unless there is someone that's willing to pay more and gamble on it increasing in value.

It would seem the nature of the method and time of sale, and happenstance of who happens to be watching the sale, has a lot to do with volatility. Often what someone is willing to pay at a particular time is a poor way to fix value. Ebay sales come to mind. Anyone who has experience selling on the Bay has observed that the same item can sell for $400 on Tuesday, and $275 on Friday, etc. As one old timer told me years ago, it's a crapshoot. So in some cases, it's not the particular sales that are determinative of value, but an average over some period of time. Gets complicated.  

Not that i want to beat this to death, but i think youre talking about what I would call "liquidation value"  If I buy 100K of trains for 25 cents on the dollar,  the liquidation value was 25K.   That doesnt mean the trains are only worth 25K.  Indeed, if I am planning to resell them, I figuring that the wholesale value and retail value are somewhat higher.

@Beth Marshall-The Public Delivery Track posted:

Not that i want to beat this to death, but i think youre talking about what I would call "liquidation value"  If I buy 100K of trains for 25 cents on the dollar,  the liquidation value was 25K.   That doesnt mean the trains are only worth 25K.  Indeed, if I am planning to resell them, I figuring that the wholesale value and retail value are somewhat higher.

I wasn't speaking of that, particularly, but that's another example of variations which exist that take exception to the "it's worth what someone will pay you for it" definition of value.

"For most of the last two thousand years, anyone who lived to 7 had just about as good a chance as we do of hitting 70."

True, but not as good a chance of hitting 80 or 90,  which were quite uncommon until the last few decades. As I mentioned from personal experience at the beginning.  We have dozens of people in the hospital at any given time in their 90s.  Unheard of in the 1970s and 1980s.  One major difference is that in the past 70 often meant someone who had been breathing air contaminated by wood or coal smoke, the major method of heating for most of history, they might have smoked cigarettes in the 20th century (a major cause of premature death) and folks' bodies were often worn out from infectious diseases and brutal physical labor under difficult conditions for much of history.

Check the newspaper for the obituaries.  Often a majority of the people who have passed on are in their 80s or even 90s.  Those people were rare up until the last few decades,  and now are the majority or close to that rather than the exception.  The insurance and social security tables one reads are based upon data from decades ago.  The data 20 or 30 years from now will be quite different barring catastrophes even worse than coronavirus.

Bottom line,  the good news is that lots of folks are still enjoying their toy trains into their 70s and 80s, which wasn't the case in the 1950s. 

The hobby likely will be fine for at least a few more decades as most baby boomers are in their 50s, 60s and early 70s.  We don't pine for Ataris but for Lionels, on average .

I hope the hobby isn't on the decline, model railroading has been such a stress reducer for me and its just so nice to get away from everything going on in the world right now.  I'm in my mid 30's and my Dad and I used to run a 8 x 8 layout when I was a kid.  When I hit my teenage years I sadly lost interest as one can imagine.  For my 27th birthday and being a homeowner for the first time, my Dad surprised me with a Lionel Strasburg Set.  Needless to say I jumped on youtube to see what these trains could do and I was blown away.  The bug had bit me again and now I'm on my 3rd layout in my new house and I have a layout that is an L Shape that is 20 x 8 one length and 24 by 8 the other.  I hope there are many people like me to keep this hobby afloat because I really do think that having a hobby like this can really make such a positive difference in your life!  

One thing we all might agree upon is that Model Railroading is a hobby for older people. As the demographic of those that buy the trains shifts and perhaps contracts a bit we will reach a stabilizing point.  The 40-70 age group will always be with us. It wont be the same 40-70 train people that we have today but nonetheless this age group will still be here. Could it be that our sons, daughters and grandchildren, not now, but as they enter this older age group will take an interest in model trains and take our place?  Ask yourself; what will my children do when they reach our age?  That is who I believe will be the next generation of model railroaders will be.

@Dick S posted:

According to the TCA website, it had 31,152 members in 2003 and 22,027 in 2018.  That tells you something!!  TTOS, LOTS and LCCA have also had large decreases.  I do not know about the NMRA.

I wouldn't use these numbers as some sort of proof of the health of the hobby. I am 49 and have had trains of some sort since I was six years old. I currently have trains in O, HO, and N. I have never belonged to, nor have I been compelled to join any of these organizations. I just don't see that they have anything to offer me. Perhaps there are others that feel the same way and that is why these numbers are declining.

@Dick S posted:

According to the TCA website, it had 31,152 members in 2003 and 22,027 in 2018.  That tells you something!!  TTOS, LOTS and LCCA have also had large decreases.  I do not know about the NMRA.

I wouldn’t use these numbers as proof of a decline. I’m in my mid-thirties and have been an avid collector of O gauge trains for years. I thought about joining these clubs, but in all honesty, I didn’t like that I had to apply for membership or be reviewed by a panel (TCCA, I believe). If I want to be a part of a group, I just want to pay the dues and join. Also, they didn’t seem offer many benefits to younger adult members.

I also don’t participate in model RR clubs because my experience has been club members talking about the “good ole days” and how us young folks don’t do things the right way. I’d love to be in a club, but it feels like I don’t fit in. 

And to the OP, there are plenty of us younger folks enjoying the hobby; we just enjoy it differently. As an example, I’m currently building a layout that uses a raspberry pi to trigger accessories, sounds, Videos, and lighting.

Interesting comments, opinions and data here.  On another post someone mentioned that young people (under 35?) have never been the layout builders.  Why?  Because O gauge layouts require money and space.  Most people settle in as they get older and get that money and space needed.   I started my 1st layout in my early 30's and am building my 3rd one in my 50's.  Perhaps 35 through 80 is the age demographic that never changes.

When I tell my wife about the speculation of whether or not this hobby is growing or dying, she says, "Isn't there data to show that?"  There must be.  Private companies hide a lot of that.  I find the data mentioned here helpful even though it may be dated and perhaps speculative.  The O gauge clubs, as the gentleman said earlier, may not be a real judge of numbers of people in the hobby because I agree that they do not offer a lot of value to me, personally.  Perhaps the clubs were a better value when there was no internet (or O Gauge RR forum!) and hobbyist needed a place to go to get help.  I joined L.O.T.S. because they have a convention every year (only been to one a long time ago) and they have cool club cars and a nice, short magazine.  

@Dennis LaGrua posted:

One thing we all might agree upon is that Model Railroading is a hobby for older people. As the demographic of those that buy the trains shifts and perhaps contracts a bit we will reach a stabilizing point.  The 40-70 age group will always be with us. It wont be the same 40-70 train people that we have today but nonetheless this age group will still be here. Could it be that our sons, daughters and grandchildren, not now, but as they enter this older age group will take an interest in model trains and take our place?  Ask yourself; what will my children do when they reach our age?  That is who I believe will be the next generation of model railroaders will be.

I don't agree with that.  At the North Shore Model Railroad Club, about 60 total members, at leat 12 are under 30 and many recently joined.  The youngsters are to much into electronics and erroneous sounds to suit me (I remember sounds of 60 years ago), but at least they are young.  I believe that the median age of our members could be less than it was 10 years ago.

@Dick S posted:

According to the TCA website, it had 31,152 members in 2003 and 22,027 in 2018.  That tells you something!!  TTOS, LOTS and LCCA have also had large decreases.  I do not know about the NMRA.

TCA membership is not about model railroading.  I joined TCA in 2014 as my interst shifeted from HO model railroading to old Lionel and other toy trains.

https://ogrforum.com/...6#146423788465637206

I am happy to hear young people are joining clubs like the North Shore Model Railroad Club.  They may not yet have the money or space to build their own layout.  A club like that is an excellent way for young people to engage in the hobby.  I joined the Milwaukee Lionel Club years ago and it was great to see their layout being built.  Had I not been building my own then, I probably would have stuck with them for awhile.  Young (and old) people can learn from great master builders at clubs like that and share the hobby.  But those young members may not represent to core buyers/collectors until they get older.

You can put lipstick on this subject all you want. 

When I joined in 1988 I was one of the youngest in my division.  32 yrs later I can only think of 4 people who are involved/active and are younger than me (way past retirement age).

Walk around York or any train show and assess the avg age of those who are active in the hobby.  Lots of families are there for something to do on the weekend and to see the layouts, but that's it.

Look at the attendance numbers and frequency of the shows and the number of vendors.

The space and money required for the layout is way above the average younger household.  We spend $1,000 for an engine, younger people spent it on cell phones, games or whatever.

The boomers were the last generation of collectors be it dishes, spoons, beanie babies, fishing lures, stamps, quilts, antiques, art, coins, model planes, and trains.

It's not pessimistic its just the facts ma'am.

The quality and quantity of stuff that comes up for sale weekly on auction houses or daily on the internet used to be really rare occurrences in the 80s and 90s. 

Now days the auction catalogs look like 1950s Lionel warehouses. 

Last time I checked, the death rate was holding steady at 100%.  So let's enjoy the ride.

Chris S.

What was the point of this pointless thread?. . .oh yeah are we dying faster than we can be replaced as consumers of toys?

ANSWER IS . . . who knows!

Everything comes and goes... Even this world one day.  Move on have fun.  Let someone else worry about that.

@aussteve posted:

Walk around York or any train show and assess the avg age of those who are active in the hobby.  Lots of families are there for something to do on the weekend and to see the layouts, but that's it.

The boomers were the last generation of collectors be it dishes, spoons, beanie babies, fishing lures, stamps, quilts, antiques, art, coins, model planes, and trains.

 

Certainly true for "regular" train shows...a day out with the family hoping to see some modular layouts and maybe buy a Thomas toy for the kids. When I attended shows with my modular group I did a LOT of people watching. York attendance requires some commitment.

Yes, it has been written by 78 year old collectibles print, radio, and TV "expert" Harry Winkler, that  people do not "collect" ANYTHING anymore, except maybe a few pristine examples of what they love.

This post is relevant for the simple fact that o gauge is an expensive hobby.  If you are going to spend money today on it, it's fair to ask the question, "Is it going to be around for awhile?"  I believe it will, but who knows?

The MTH statement of retirement and closing has shook a lot of people that have spent a lot on money on their stuff, myself included.

As someone who is 28, I thought I would chime in here. Personally, as many have stated, I think the biggest factor in getting the younger generation interested in the hobby is having them introduced to trains at a young age (nostalgia goes a long way), even if it's as simple as a loop around the Christmas Tree.

I was first exposed to trains through my dad (attic floor layout) as well as my aunt/uncle (Department 56 Christmas layout). Over the years, that attic layout transitioned into a permanent layout, as well as a separate Christmas layout. 

As I got older (14/15 years old) I really did not spend that much time working on the layout (ran out the space), outside of running the trains when people would come over. As a high-schooler, there is just too much going on between school, sports and social life. With that said, I always did my best to stay informed about new changes/developments whenever I could.

Fast-forward to post-college life (full-time working), while time is certainly still an issue, cost and space become huge barriers. I live in a NYC apartment (no space for a layout), and my disposable income goes towards sporting events, travel and going out (bars, concerts, ect...). For me, and I think many of my peers, we would rather spend $400 - $1,200 on a plane ticket to another country, as opposed to buying an engine. Not to mention, I think there a lot of people in their 20s / 30s who are apartment renters, not home owners, which makes it difficult to start a layout. 

With all that said, that nostalgia factor still keeps me coming back to trains. Every year, I still look forward to setting up the Christmas layout, and I still enjoy keeping up with the hobby (mainly through this forum). If there's any silver-lining to Covid, for me, it's been that I have been able to spend an extended amount of time back at my parent's house in CT. Having WFH since March (and for the foreseeable future), I have done a scenery overhaul on the layout, cleaned up some engines, and just (yesterday) purchased a new MTH engine and set of passengers cars (I'm not going to Yankees games or traveling abroad anytime soon). 

When I do purchase my first home, and begin having a family, trains will certainly be a tradition I will continue to pass down. 

Mike 

@breezinup posted:

It would seem the nature of the method and time of sale, and happenstance of who happens to be watching the sale, has a lot to do with volatility. Often what someone is willing to pay at a particular time is a poor way to fix value. Ebay sales come to mind. Anyone who has experience selling on the Bay has observed that the same item can sell for $400 on Tuesday, and $275 on Friday, etc. As one old timer told me years ago, it's a crapshoot. So in some cases, it's not the particular sales that are determinative of value, but an average over some period of time. Gets complicated.  

I'm a frequent eBay seller, and I've found that a lot of that price behavior can be explained.  It's not just volatility, and it's not a crapshoot.  Before I list anything, I study prices of recent sales.  I'll look at a wider range than Breezes used, say $175 on May 4th, $425 on May 11th, $375 on May 22nd and $400 on May 25th..  All four from photos and descriptions I see as having the same value +/- $50.

Why ?  Here's a typical scenario.  The $175 sale was a listing that started at $10 and the fellow who was willing to pay $300 or more didn't happen to be shopping during that 7 or 10 day window (I always use 10).  The 425 was a buy-it-now posted by a patient seller (like me) who may have had it up for few months.  Eventually the one who is willing to pay that amount sees it.  The $375 was a buy-it-now at a higher price with a lower offer accepted.  The $400 was an auction seller who had the good luck that a few buyers were competing and one was willing to bid high - pure luck or a sensible start price - we can't tell which.

The message here is that you can make good money on eBay if you think about the prices in the market and have patience.  I've waited as long as three or four months.  The only time I do auction rather than buy-it-now is on items for which I know the minimum I'm willing to take but the market is so inactive that I have no idea of the upside.  I had an old AF crossing signal that I knew was worth at least $100 but it got bid up to $405.  With this strategy, I'm able to get well above the average price for equivalent items.

Why am I sharing this at such great length ?  Doing so helps me in self-evaluation of my own strategy.