C W Burfle posted:I think six hundred dollars is still an awful lot of money for one engine and most folks don't have access to free or discount repairs.
Very true. But what age are we exactly talking about? Like 10 or 14? Or maybe a bit older or younger?
Go to Charles Ro any day and the store is full of young people with parents buying trains. I feel more people are in the hobby today than any other time in history. Some areas of the country may be slow but in my part of the country things are busy.
I feel the phone app that is used by MTH and Lionel has played a big part in more kids in the hobby.
LoganUP1982 posted:I’m 15 and I have not met anyone my age who likes trains. Sometimes I look on eBay for trains during free time at school and people think it’s weird to be interested in trains. I’m trying to get my mom to like trains like me but I don’t think I can get my dad into it. I feel like I can’t talk to anyone besides this forum who knows about trains. For example, my dad thinks all trains look the same. My dad likes to hunt so I said he can see the difference between an axis doe and a fallow doe (type of deer) just like I can the see the difference between an es44ac and a sd70ace. This helped him understand trains and I hope to help my friends understand too.
I was in the same situation 45 years ago. Look for railroad clubs, either model clubs or railroad historical groups in your area and join in. That is what I did, as we didn't have the Internet back then...
Tom
Todd Knoll posted:How about cost? Especially in 3 rail 0 scale the current prices scare people away. $1200 for a steam locomotive? For a teenager that money would buy them their first car. With the cost of sports, college funds, etc trains are the last thing on the list.
This is why trains are not a solid investment. The number of people interested in buying your trains is decreasing.
The cost was always there, when I was growing up in the 70's trains were expensive, I had some stuff I inherited from my dad, some stuff I traded HO scale equipment for, but it was expensive to buy trains and such..and it always was. Back then you could get post war trains cheaply, people cleaning out attics and selling a lot of stuff for 50 bucks, but even so, new stuff was expensive. That 1200 buck engine is a brand new, scale engine, that often requires O72 track to run, and that wouldn't be for a kid anyway.
As far as trains being a solid investment, they never were, I keep running into people who are bitter because they thought they would make a ton of money on their trains, and they to be honest were fools to start with. Yes, there was a bubble back in the mid 80's on, when the collector craze (remember beanie babies?) hit trains, and everyone thought these were valuable antiques...and the bubble burst, because it was just that, a bubble, based on people who thought they were going to make a quick killing. Truly rare trains do appreciate, rare items, especially in the pre war world. It is kind of like the car world, people see the prices on 60's muscle cars and the like and say "wow, look how much you could of made on them"....but that leaves out that A) it has taken 50 years and b) those cars likely had almost as much as they sell for put into them in restoring them *shrug*.
BTW I doubt 1200 bucks would buy them their first car, 1200 dollars these days is almost a junker, for any kind of car that is safe to drive....
When Lionel and/or MTH shutter their operations, I'll start worrying about the hobby dying (or being dead). I know we're all enthusiastic about the hobby, some for much longer period of times than others, but there are other valid interests out there other than trains.
Before I was even a parent, I said I wanted three things for my child: 1) to play a sport of their choice - so they get outside, exercise, to understand what it means to win and lose - and do both graciously, and learn to be a part of a team; 2) play a musical instrument of their choice - this is something I never did, and I lament it as I think it helps stimulate the mind as a skill that they can use for their entire life; and 3) learn a foreign language - learning at a young age means it's easier, Spanish, Chinese, Japanese, Korean (which I'm learning), German doesn't matter ... it's a skill that could benefit his career. Makes traveling abroad a bit easier as well if you know a second (or third) language.
So you see, he'll have plenty of things already that will demand his time. Would I like trains to be there? Yes, but there are plenty of other things that will also be useful for him that deserve just as much attention. Doesn't mean the hobby is being ignored, or is doomed ... just means there are priorities in life that need to be considered. YMMV.
Gentlemen,
I agree with MartyE, having attended the World Greatest Hobby in Monroeville it is very evident that we do have lots children still interested in our hobby. However there are lots of different ways to spend money today, and many of the parent I saw could not afford what their children really wanted them to purchase. This however has been the story on our hobby sense it started in the early 1900's. The difference is there are many many more hobby items to spend money on today, and the new technology toys, like the remote control flying aircraft are incredible and in a lot of cases less expensive than our hobby. The biggest hit in that building was the remote control flying air craft and Lionel needs get into the business and combine it with their Legacy HHRC. IMO it would sell big time, and generate more interest in our hobby also.
PCRR/Dave
Pine Creek Railroad posted:Gentlemen,
I agree with MartyE, having attended the World Greatest Hobby in Monroeville it is very evident that we do have lots children still interested in our hobby. However there are lots of different ways to spend money today, and many of the parent I saw could not afford what their children really wanted them to purchase. This however has been the story on our hobby sense it started in the early 1900's. The difference is there are many many more hobby items to spend money on today, and the new technology toys, like the remote control flying aircraft are incredible and in a lot of cases less expensive than our hobby. The biggest hit in that building was the remote control flying air craft and Lionel needs get into the business and combine it with their Legacy HHRC. IMO it would sell big time, and generate more interest in our hobby also.
PCRR/Dave
If they could come up with a drone that lifted off of a flatbed, and was able to fly above the train while providing video ... would be totally awesome.
We have this discussion from time to time, it seems to be up there with why train quality is bad, why trains are so expensive, etc. Kids today do face a different world, and yes they face different times then kids in the past. Some of the reasons kids may not be into trains are the same as they once were, back in the 1950's and 1960's you had television, you had slot cars, you had model rockets, you had organized sports for kids (little league), plastic models, a ton of games and toys that didn't exist pre war or even in the 1950's. Because of cars, kids had access (through a parent driving them) to other activities, not just sports...and if you remember, trains were kind of on life support (talking Lionel here), not to mention kids discovered HO and N scale trains, that were cheaper and allowed them to have much more of a layout in the same space......
Kids back then were also in a different world, back then most kids had stay at home parents, usually the mom, today that is true in only 15% of households...and back then, dear old dad likely worked hard, but likely worked locally and worked pretty much 9-5, these days most people who work have to commute significant distances (they don't work locally), and then also are working longer hours then our dad's generation did, by a long shot, people typically are averaging close to 9 hours a day on work (not to mention what they often bring home), at least in white collar jobs.
Kids themselves also face burdens we didn't, they face pressures we didn't, the rest of the world has influenced what goes on in this country, and kids today with school are overbooked because of the obsession with homework especially, and the idea that everything they do as a kid will make or break them as an adult (not even going to mention what I think of the mania with standardized tests, not the forum for it). I have heard people my age talk about how rigorous their school was, how much they had to do, and quite honestly it is selective amnesia, other than maybe some prep schools, we didn't have a 10th the pressure these kids do, you see little kids with huge backpacks, and kids in grade school have several hours of homework, kids in high school are often doing homework until 1am, it is a different world then we had (put it this way, the local high school today offers something like 13 AP classes..when I was in high school in the late 70's, my school offered I believe 4, and they wanted to drop them because they only had 6 kids who wanted to take them..).
Kids haven't fundamentally changed as much as the world changed, they don't have dear old dad the way I did who was home for dinner and after dinner we did things like work on cars, mom is working, and they certainly don't have the free time I did growing up. The image of the slacker kid playing video games, or on facebook, or whatnot, is just that, these kids are doing a lot more than we did. The other thing was that by the time I was growing up trains were not a 'big item", either, and by middle school even if kids had them younger it was pretty much a tiny handful of kids, by high school it was near zero......and all I can say is that when I read the articles about the guys with the layouts in OGRR and CTT, the routine is they dropped trains as a kid, and then discovered them as an adult, and I think that always has been true, this is now an adult hobby, not a kid's toy. The fact that the manufacturers today are a lot more concerned with hi rail/scale is an indication of that, kids to be honest don't care if an engine is scale sized, if the rivets are correct, if the chuff is right for the prototype, they always cared about running the trains for the most part.
I also question the idea that somehow interest in model/toy trains is influenced by exposure to trains, since many of us in the hobby today, people my age (mid 50's) and younger, never experienced the 'golden age of trains'. I never saw a steam engine in service, I never rode a long distance passenger train (I did ride commuter rail, but that is different), and by the time I was born airline travel and the car had already pretty much doomed passenger service...yet here I am, and many others on here. I think the hobby is going to change, as it already has, the day of it being dominated by people running post war in conventional mode is going to change, the future likely will be command control as it evolves, and it will likely be a smaller hobby but it will exist. After all, MTH and Lionel and Atlas and so forth are making money on new products, and the market for them is already a fraction of the total size of the market, given how many of us run only post war or only buy stuff used, and they are staying in business. I think there will always be people running post war for nostalgia sake, but I think what is today the 'new market' is going to be most of the hobby going down the road.
I’m 21. Besides myself and 2 others age 19-20. Were the youth of our club. This is in fact a dieing hobby. A lot of men around my age are members of HO clubs because: 1. HO is more affordable. 2. Many like to run on a realistic train layout. 3. Technology has evolved to the point where everyone has their head shoved into their phone and not paying attention to their surroundings.
Max Harris ( @maxrailroad ) and other 15-25 year olds are the future of the hobby. In order for the hobby to keep going parents need to limit the play of kids ages 5-10 on a phone and not give them a smart phone until down the road towards the middle of High School.
San Diego has so many other things to do. It’s weird fad out here. Our kids club has one to a couple years of decent membership and dies out when, people move or age out. We got a few parents joining SD3R because their child likes to run trains.
LoganUP1982 posted:I’m 15 and I have not met anyone my age who likes trains. Sometimes I look on eBay for trains during free time at school and people think it’s weird to be interested in trains. I’m trying to get my mom to like trains like me but I don’t think I can get my dad into it. I feel like I can’t talk to anyone besides this forum who knows about trains. For example, my dad thinks all trains look the same. My dad likes to hunt so I said he can see the difference between an axis doe and a fallow doe (type of deer) just like I can the see the difference between an es44ac and a sd70ace. This helped him understand trains and I hope to help my friends understand too.
Hey Logan - you're not alone - I was heavily into the hobby up through age 20 in the mid-2000s (I'm 31 now) and had no friends that shared my interest - many of them just thought it was weird (and to their point and one of the implied points of this thread, it's not common for kids/teenagers/young adults these days). Furthermore, my father had no interest whatsoever and actually made similar comments - "they all look the same," or "why do you want that one when you already have 3 others just like it?" I don't think I can recall a time when my father joined me at a train show (my mother would always take me before I could drive myself). Before it sounds like my father was a deadbeat or something, he was great in other regards, he just did not share the passion or interest.
The good news is at 15 you have or will soon have a lot of options and opportunities to pursue the hobby without depending on others - with a driver's license and parents willing to lend you a vehicle (or if you purchase your own), you'll be able to drive to the local hobby shop, train show, or club meet. At 14 I was fortunate enough to secure a part-time job at a local hobby shop which honestly was one of the best things that happened for me in my life - it kept me engaged in the hobby up through my early 20s, taught me valuable business and interpersonal skills, and was the catalyst for my career in IT (I was the webmaster for the store's website) - not to mention I got an employee discount :-). I'm not sure where you are located, but if there is a local hobby shop in your area, definitely consider applying for a job there if your schedule and academics permit. I know many hobby shops are looking for part-time employees particularly on weekends and if it's someone who's actually passionate about the hobby, you'll stand out from any other potential applicants. I know here in the metro Atlanta area, Legacy Station is looking for part-time assistance.
The last bit of unsolicited advice I'll offer is parroting and paraphrasing what I was advised by another OGR forum member ( @Odd-d 
when I was 15 - definitely enjoy the hobby now and have fun, but don't neglect other parts of your life - school, friendships, relationships, sports, or etc. The trains will always be there for when life/time/housing permit (just remember to remove the batteries out of any MTH PS1 and PS2 5V locomotives :-P )
bigkid posted:Kids themselves also face burdens we didn't, they face pressures we didn't, the rest of the world has influenced what goes on in this country, and kids today with school are overbooked because of the obsession with homework especially, and the idea that everything they do as a kid will make or break them as an adult (not even going to mention what I think of the mania with standardized tests, not the forum for it). I have heard people my age talk about how rigorous their school was, how much they had to do, and quite honestly it is selective amnesia, other than maybe some prep schools, we didn't have a 10th the pressure these kids do, you see little kids with huge backpacks, and kids in grade school have several hours of homework, kids in high school are often doing homework until 1am, it is a different world then we had (put it this way, the local high school today offers something like 13 AP classes..when I was in high school in the late 70's, my school offered I believe 4, and they wanted to drop them because they only had 6 kids who wanted to take them..).
My boys had more homework in a week in grade school than they had/have in an entire year in high school. You, too, are generalizing from limited data sets.
1. I grew up and did my train watching along the SUNSET route. I remember the train being try weakly under the SP. Rode it once when the SP still had it for 100 miles. But I was attracted to SP way before then.
2. Another social pressure: Bullying. When I was in High School, people made snide comments about my riding this new fangled railroad called "Amtrak", and model railroading. One was being pressured to have a fast car and faster female. Back then, it was kinda OK to go a slightly different path. Today, with the total herd mentality, a child is not taught critical thinking, and the proper freedom that brings. I would go farther, but that would bring this post outside Forum guidelines.
SDIV Tim posted:I’m 21. Besides myself and 2 others age 19-20. Were the youth of our club. This is in fact a dieing hobby. A lot of men around my age are members of HO clubs because: 1. HO is more affordable. 2. Many like to run on a realistic train layout. 3. Technology has evolved to the point where everyone has their head shoved into their phone and not paying attention to their surroundings.
Max Harris ( @maxrailroad ) and other 15-25 year olds are the future of the hobby. In order for the hobby to keep going parents need to limit the play of kids ages 5-10 on a phone and not give them a smart phone until down the road towards the middle of High School.
San Diego has so many other things to do. It’s weird fad out here. Our kids club has one to a couple years of decent membership and dies out when, people move or age out. We got a few parents joining SD3R because their child likes to run trains.
I do not believe that model trains are a dying hobby. Its a hobby primarily for older adults and I believe that as the younger generation ages, gets more disposable income and becomes interested in a hobby, it will see a resurgence. Back in the day families that wanted to buy their children "high tech" stuff purchased trains, Erector sets, Radio kits and Chemistry sets . You can say that they were part of the American culture. Today families purchase computers and smart phones. Trains have been pushed aside to the hobby category.
I have kids come and see my layout .. Mostly extended family. They are thrilled with it. And my layout is just track on a table with some buildings. If they aren't exposed to model railroading, they aren't going to pursue it. I do know HO is the in size. We have HO clubs around here. Not a single O club. Ive even contacted a few and they have no intentions of having any O gauge stuff around lol
Jim
RaritanRiverRailroadFan4 posted:Here's a perspective from the other side of the spectrum. I'm what you'd refer to as a "young person" and haven't had any other family members who took an interest in railroading. Family members who used to work for and around railroads yes, but for people who had an interest in modeling and railfanning no.
GVDobler posted:Make a list of activities available to a 8-10 year old in 1955.
1) Actually playing with other kids, indoors or outdoors.
2) Playing in the dirt, with trucks and things (toy soldiers), with other kids.
3) Playing sports: Baseball, Soccer, Football, Basketball, stickball, with other kids.
4) Watching sports LIVE, with other kids, i.e. NOT on TV.
Now make one for 2018.
1) Watching TV.
2) Playing video games.
3) Smart phone texting.
* Note that NONE of the three are with other kids. Go to a local fast food place, and watch the kids all using their smart phones, texting to one another, yet not one of them is actually TALKING to each other!
palallin posted:bigkid posted:Kids themselves also face burdens we didn't, they face pressures we didn't, the rest of the world has influenced what goes on in this country, and kids today with school are overbooked because of the obsession with homework especially, and the idea that everything they do as a kid will make or break them as an adult (not even going to mention what I think of the mania with standardized tests, not the forum for it). I have heard people my age talk about how rigorous their school was, how much they had to do, and quite honestly it is selective amnesia, other than maybe some prep schools, we didn't have a 10th the pressure these kids do, you see little kids with huge backpacks, and kids in grade school have several hours of homework, kids in high school are often doing homework until 1am, it is a different world then we had (put it this way, the local high school today offers something like 13 AP classes..when I was in high school in the late 70's, my school offered I believe 4, and they wanted to drop them because they only had 6 kids who wanted to take them..).
My boys had more homework in a week in grade school than they had/have in an entire year in high school. You, too, are generalizing from limited data sets.
Nope, this is not a limited data set, there have been studies about this and across the board kids are burdened by a lot more homework then they ever were, and in high school the typical number of hours of homework given has soared. Obviously there are variations, it is going to be very different for kids on an academic track to get into college then it would be for kids doing vocational focused high school, but even there there is a lot more homework involved. The fact that the median hours of homework has gone up tells the picture, that shows it is broad based. I am not talking individual experiences, these are studies that have been done nationally. And yes, it will be different where you live, it is going to be different in a rural high school then it would be in a suburban district, the inner city is going to be different than both.
Dominic Mazoch posted:1. I grew up and did my train watching along the SUNSET route. I remember the train being try weakly under the SP. Rode it once when the SP still had it for 100 miles. But I was attracted to SP way before then.
2. Another social pressure: Bullying. When I was in High School, people made snide comments about my riding this new fangled railroad called "Amtrak", and model railroading. One was being pressured to have a fast car and faster female. Back then, it was kinda OK to go a slightly different path. Today, with the total herd mentality, a child is not taught critical thinking, and the proper freedom that brings. I would go farther, but that would bring this post outside Forum guidelines.
Social pressure hasn't changed, when I was growing up conformity was a big issue, believe me, I was the kid (in the early to late 70's) who had long hair, when the big thing were the high end sneakers or the designer jeans and such, wearing cheap sneakers and plain old jeans from Caldor was not easy either...the herd mentality was around back then, too, and I don't think kids were any less cruel, being one of the 'smart' kids wasn't exactly being popular, that much I can tell you.
What'sUpDoc? posted:There is a dramatic drop in all hobbies, not just ours. Reasons are all that you mentioned. Think of how few hobby shops are still around.
As the owner of the ATV and snowmobile store told me. Kids today spend ALL of their money on their phones and can't afford anything else. I think that sums it up.
LoganUP1982 posted:I’m 15 and I have not met anyone my age who likes trains. Sometimes I look on eBay for trains during free time at school and people think it’s weird to be interested in trains. I’m trying to get my mom to like trains like me but I don’t think I can get my dad into it. I feel like I can’t talk to anyone besides this forum who knows about trains. For example, my dad thinks all trains look the same. My dad likes to hunt so I said he can see the difference between an axis doe and a fallow doe (type of deer) just like I can the see the difference between an es44ac and a sd70ace. This helped him understand trains and I hope to help my friends understand too.
I hit a doe early one morning in August 1988, outside of Roslyn, Washington while riding my Harley; I believe that's a dead doe.
Bogie
Gentlemen,
Raising a family today is different than in my era. Individual responsibility in my era was of utmost importance. I was raised on individual freedom and responsibility. Was a definite throw back to my Grandfathers era, because I spent massive time with him and my Father both, in the Pa Mountains learning our families way of life, God, Family, Country, Engineering, Fly Fishing and Grouse hunting. Because I was blessed with a partial Photo Memory, I saw the world differently than most children or young men, and in reality peer pressure had zero effect on my life. So I have never been able to understand the group mentality garbage. When other guys wore Black Leather Jackets to school, I wore my Roy Rogers Fringed Buck Skin Jacket, and very few tried to take advantage of me. Those that did payed the price. Always felt sorry for those kids who wanted to be popular, and bent to peer pressure, to my Grandfather and Father it was a big sign of weakness in a young mans personality & individualism. I still believe it is, even today. However I had role models as a young boy and man that were bigger than life itself. What I owe my Grandfather and Father I can never repay, we pass our way of life down thru the family for the younger generations to learn. There is a lot to learn about being a man, I was raised to be one.
The boys today spend way to much time with their mothers, hence they are influenced by peer pressure on a massive basis in public school, the feminization of America is a very dangerous reality. A lady can not teach a boy how to become a man.
PCRR/Dave
I've also witnessed various model train groups at local shows that are hardly welcoming to younger or even older people. An HO scale modular display I saw at a Detroit area show in January is one such example. They had a rope fence set up with about a 6 foot distance between the viewer and the layout. At 23 years old, even I had a hard time seeing the detail of their display, let alone a kid who might want to look. I understand wanting to distance grabbing hands, but that was a little extreme. 2 or 3 feet maybe. I didn't waste any time looking at their display, because it was fairly obvious that's not why they were there and I couldn't see it very well anyway.
A little more doable with O gauge, our group the Glancy Modular Train layout has no barriers. We have various buttons around the perimeter that allow kids to activate accessories that are usually brought out. It's also built at a much more kid friendly height. We've had some accidents, but nothing too major and that's the risk we take. As I said, this wouldn't work with all groups or scales, but the same people saying this hobby is dying are often, not always, but often the same ones in groups such as the one discussed above or the ones that are not welcoming to children.
I've offered up my lion chief locomotive remotes at various shows on occasion to younger kids who instantly put the smart phones away and have a blast running trains. Things like that are what keep this hobby going.
bigkid posted:Nope, this is not a limited data set, there have been studies about this and across the board kids are burdened by a lot more homework then they ever were, and in high school the typical number of hours of homework given has soared. Obviously there are variations, it is going to be very different for kids on an academic track to get into college then it would be for kids doing vocational focused high school, but even there there is a lot more homework involved. The fact that the median hours of homework has gone up tells the picture, that shows it is broad based. I am not talking individual experiences, these are studies that have been done nationally. And yes, it will be different where you live, it is going to be different in a rural high school then it would be in a suburban district, the inner city is going to be different than both.
As a college administrator, academic advisor, and teacher, I will bet heavily that those studies were done to justify somebody's salary and job, not reflect the true level of homework assigned or completed. They aren't worth any more than the standardized tests. I am seeing kids from all over the country and supposedly better-prepared students, too.
I won't go any further with this thread because it's too far off-topic, but too many "studies" of public education serve only to perpetuate the wretched state of the outcome.
RickO posted:As a parent in 2018. I disagree sports is an issue. IMO sports is one of the( if not the only) few good things left for kids that actually gets them off any device for a length of time getting them to use their brain and their body.
Kids need to move, they don't like they used to, because they are glued to their devices.
Not to mention, it teaches other values like cooperation, teamwork, communication skills and probably the only thing they do that remotely prepares them for the workplace.
With the right coaches, even the "everyone gets a trophy" idea goes out the window, and they learn that hard work yields reward.
Sports has always been good for kids, even before trains.
Kids aren't into trains because its 2018, its the elctronic age. No different than the kid who got the first Lionel train 100 years ago probably never played marbles much after that.
Kids today don't play with tonka trucks the way I did in the 70's either, it is what it is.
Just because you put a toy train in front of a kid doesn't mean they'll take to it. Just because you sit at a crossing and watch a train go by doesn't mean they will even care.
The internet can take them anywhere, a toy train only goes in circles.
Times change, people change, toys change too.
One must also agree that sports is far more effective when it comes to helping the childhood obesity problem( which didn't exist years ago) just look at the vast majority of adult modellers at the next train show.
Instead of blaming this or that, how about just the realization that kids don't like certain things?.....because they don't. They can't be programmed to think the way a child did in 1950.
Finally, a response from someone who is actually a parent of school age kids at present. I cannot add much to the sensible post above. Sports are very important. The issue with sports isn't sports, it's the idiotic parents who put too much pressure on the kids to be a star.
My kids like O gauge trains but I don't force them down their throats. They have sports and lots of other toys as well. And, despite the groans you hear in this place, they love the phone apps to run the trains. It makes them more relevant than would a ZW transformer that dates from 1949.
Final thought is that everyone here treats the 10 years after WWII as the benchmark of the appropriate or "right" level of interest in toy trains. Does it occur to folks that after the debacle of WWII, where families were split apart for months if not years, and many spouses and sons were killed, that a toy marketed as a way to bring families together during the holiday season would appeal to the parents as much as the kids? Hollander talks about this a bit in his book, but more about the father-son aspect. But then, pretty quickly in fact, by 1955 Lionel sales were on the way down and the company started to get into trouble. Since then people have treated that 5-10 year period after WWII as the norm for interest in toy trains when in reality it appears to be the exception.
Hot Water posted:GVDobler posted:Make a list of activities available to a 8-10 year old in 1955.
1) Actually playing with other kids, indoors or outdoors.
2) Playing in the dirt, with trucks and things (toy soldiers), with other kids.
3) Playing sports: Baseball, Soccer, Football, Basketball, stickball, with other kids.
4) Watching sports LIVE, with other kids, i.e. NOT on TV.
Now make one for 2018.
1) Watching TV.
2) Playing video games.
3) Smart phone texting.
* Note that NONE of the three are with other kids. Go to a local fast food place, and watch the kids all using their smart phones, texting to one another, yet not one of them is actually TALKING to each other!
To Jack's last point that kids aren't actually talking to each other; I had to laugh. When my three boys were younger and I'd take them and some of their friends to a Braves game; it used to seem comical to me that I'd have these kids in the back of the van or sitting next me at the game and for the most part, none of them was talking to each other. They were all on their phones either texting to people who were elsewhere or, I guess, keeping their conversation typed so I couldn't hear what was going on.
Anyhow; I think its on the parents. My one niece up in PA has two small boys, ages 5 and 4 and both are absolutely nuts about trains. In addition to more Brio and other types of toy trains than even my boys had; my niece and her husband take the boys to the train station to watch trains once or twice a week. And neither my niece nor her husband are train people. She is into music and he is into hunting and sports (he is a varsity high school soccer coach). The difference here is that both parents recognize where their kids interests lie at this point in time and accommodate those interests.
Our O gauge club had our kid's layout (kids run the trains) at the Southern Museum in Kennesaw two Saturday's ago for the museum's annual Trains, Trains, Trains event. I worked the layout on Saturday and we were slammed with kids running the trains from opening at 9:30AM till I left between 2 and 3PM. And when we set up at train shows in the Atlanta area; we are normally busy throughout the day with kids clustering around the layout to run the trains.
In short; I don't believe its a lack of interest in the trains. It is whether the parents facilitate the child's interest.
Curt
"Today, with the total herd mentality, a child is not taught critical thinking, and the proper freedom that brings. I would go farther, but that would bring this post outside Forum guidelines."
From my point of view, this is utterly inaccurate. I spend a large amount of time each week with young professionals in training, mostly in their 20s. They are terrific, confident, and curious critical thinkers. Not afraid to ask tough questions. Much more nuanced and less obedient/in lock step than similar young adults in the 1970s (amazingly since the 1970s followed the 1960s when all **** broke loose 
). I guess the 1970s was the counter-reformation after the reformation of the 1960s, speaking historically.
Each generation, as we all know, thinks the next generation is going to **** in a hand basket because the next generation, surprise, is different. It's astonishing viewed from 50 years later that adults in the 1960s found the Beatles threatening if not obscene, which shows you how much critical thinking, nuance, insight and tolerance was going on then. Not much.
Toy trains are not an important part of society. Isn't that obvious, no matter how important they are to some of us? Sports, education and social media are very important. Learn to live with it or you will just be miserable that time has changed all things except human nature. Accept that almost everything changes over the decades. Horses don't matter anymore for most people, nor does doing agricultural chores before school. Just the way it is.
Personally, my sons, now in their 30s, learned many lessons in character, teamwork and dealing with failure and success by playing organized sports at a high level in the 1990s. So did I in the 1960s. They failed, they won championships, they played with people they liked and people they couldn't stand. These lessons growing up were vastly more important, in our family, in my opinion, than anything they could have learned as railfans or model railroaders. To argue the opposite seems to be a striking lack of insight into what is important and useful in growing up. It's not the toy trains, per se, it's the relationships with mentors/parents/friends that are important. You can learn values in all hobbies or activities. It all depends on the mentors/parents/friends as to what those values are. There is nothing intrinsically good or bad about toy trains or sports, it's all about the mentors/coaches/teammates/parents/family, etc.
I wonder also... with the digital age and modeling... How many kids enjoy building and running virtual railroads on PC games and such, such as the Train simulator...
I agree with everyone... hopefully, things change, as technology becomes more common and cheaper... that "Normal" things, like trains, can be enjoyed once again.. *Fingers Crossed*
JMHO
I just raised three sons .... in their twenties now. Life was hectic.
The days were full of ...... different organized sports (which can run all year) .... frozen fun of snow play, sledding, boarding, pond hockey ...... summer swimming in the lake and local pool ..... building stuff in the backyard, screwing around in the woods and fields ..... fishing, clay sports, family rimfire fun ..... paintball battles .... dirt bikes starting with a little Yamaha 50cc when the boys were tiny ..... etc etc etc
After homework is done, and hopefully the family eating dinner together .... there was very little time left in the day. Model trains? Or, a little bit of video games ...... something that ALL of their friends are doing to some extent?
I truly believe that model railroading is a genetic thing within us ..... we either have it, or we don't. If it is in our kids, it will manifest itself at some point. No one introduced me to trains ..... it came to me as an adult.
I think that some older gentlemen that spend their time complaining about "the kids these days," and other things in general ..... should maybe try their hand at video games. They can be quite engaging. I'm getting close to 60 years old .... last night before bed, I opened a bottle of Bud and played a little Grand Theft Auto. I killed everybody in sight, and led the police on a chase through the streets of San Bernardino on a riding mower.
Happy railroading.
I am going on 16, and I have been into model trains since I was 6 when I received a Lionel set for christmas. My father was the one who fueled the passion, buying me o scale models for christmas almost every year since ( I feel spoiled writing this). He wanted to make sure I had the childhood he didn't have. Slowly, my toy trains have turned into model trains. Now that I have an income, I am able to expand my collection and my soon to be layout. I am also homeschooled now and I have a lot of extra time to spent working on my layout. I think that there is a very simple answer that is getting uncovered here. Most of my friends from school are focused on two things, school and gadgets. I have friends heavily focusing dollars into Xbox's and speakers and smartphones and computers, and the list goes on. I think that this generation is losing hobbies and passions. Electronic devices are replacing hobbies that were passed down previously. I have literally been teased for years about loving model railroading, being told I am a nerd, a loser, just because I don't own an Xbox, or a laptop, and because I am not following the mainstream. I am going to take a stand here and say that electronics are taking over the playful side of our minds. We are no longer obsessed with big machines that make loud noises, but rather virtually killing each other and leaving a virtual path of destruction that can be erased by the touch of a button. I am speaking from the face of this generation, not just making a rude assumption. Computers are actually taking over our free time, and whether we embrace it or resist it is only relevant on a personal level.
Man that got personal. Anyways, that is my two cents. I think it is really a shame what is happening to this and other hobbies that have been slowly deteriorating over the last decades.
Like too many things in this prevailing generation, model railroading may be a lost art. Not with me though!
My youth was consumed by sports and my young adult years trying to change the world while raising a family, but here am I on a web forum where mostly middle-aged and senior men come to discuss trains and fret about the future of a niche hobby. Give 'em time.
LoganUP1982 posted:I’m 15 and I have not met anyone my age who likes trains. Sometimes I look on eBay for trains during free time at school and people think it’s weird to be interested in trains. I’m trying to get my mom to like trains like me but I don’t think I can get my dad into it. I feel like I can’t talk to anyone besides this forum who knows about trains. For example, my dad thinks all trains look the same. My dad likes to hunt so I said he can see the difference between an axis doe and a fallow doe (type of deer) just like I can the see the difference between an es44ac and a sd70ace. This helped him understand trains and I hope to help my friends understand too.
Right on, man!
Dominic Mazoch posted:Maybe this is another reason for fewer young people in the hobby. How many children from a young age are in sports for hours at a time? Some of these places sound and run like the Eastern Block facilities before the Berlin Wall fell down. Families in this trap have no time or money for trains.
The grandsons are constantly booked up with school sports, band practice, and texting girl friends, so no interest in, nor time for, "toy trains" ...
hobby-go-lucky posted:My youth was consumed by sports and my young adult years trying to change the world while raising a family, but here am I on a web forum where mostly middle-aged and senior men come to discuss trains and fret about the future of a niche hobby. Give 'em time.
This is very funny
Jack Swan5010 posted:LoganUP1982 posted:I’m 15 and I have not met anyone my age who likes trains. Sometimes I look on eBay for trains during free time at school and people think it’s weird to be interested in trains. I’m trying to get my mom to like trains like me but I don’t think I can get my dad into it. I feel like I can’t talk to anyone besides this forum who knows about trains. For example, my dad thinks all trains look the same. My dad likes to hunt so I said he can see the difference between an axis doe and a fallow doe (type of deer) just like I can the see the difference between an es44ac and a sd70ace. This helped him understand trains and I hope to help my friends understand too.
Right on, man!
You sound like Ralphie from a Christmas story. Don't give up kid. When the world doesn't turn out the the way you thought, that is when you build your own and populate it with trains. BigRail
I am not so sure people in 'our' generations were taught critical thinking, our generations were those who were the ones who bought into the keeping up with Joneses, mass consumerism driven by advertising and the like, and all I have to say is based on the things they say and their actions, a lot of older people seem to lack critical reasoning skills, I just saw a you tube video about the things relatively large number of people believe to be true, and it doesn't exactly gybe with generations being taught 'critical thinking", that is for sure....
And yep, this is just another variation on the old "my generation was great, yours is gonna lead to ruin" that has been common since I suspect man came out of the trees. The older generation called what we know as the WWII generation "lazy, indolent, don't want to work, are disrespectful, don't care about others", we call them "the greatest generation"; the 50 were the decades of the beats and "the wildest one", they kind of went on to do a few things, the 60's were the end of the world, until those kids grew up and had kids, the 70's were the 'me decade' , etc etc.
"The children of today are the deathknell of our society, they don't respect their elders, they don't believe like we do, they don't want to be responsible for themselves, don't want to learn, and are thoroughly unlike ourselves".....paraphrase of a statement written on a stone tablet, babylon, about 3000 + years ago.
I have been teaching high school now for 18 years. I teach World History, all honors classes. For the past a few years, when I cover the great industrial inventions like the steam engine, diesel engine, air brake, etc., I will bring in some of my locomotives. Last year I brought in my MTH UP 844, and a Lionel UP DD40 and an SD70. I didn't operate any of them, I just had them on display in front of the class and explained what they were and how they were used. All of my students were very interested and amazed by the detailed models. None of them had trains of their own. They thought it was funny that a 55 year old man still played with trains! Lol, I told them, yep, I play with trains... I also ride a big old Harley Davidson, shoot hand guns, and collect hand made fighting knives.
Kids just have more expected of them now. More homework in grade school, pressures put on them at early ages that prior generations never had (nobody was pushing for what college that kids would go to when I was a kid until they hit high school). Parents have kids scheduled for structured things way more than previous generations, as well. Teams and classes every single day; I didn't know anyone who was that busy when I was a kid in the 70s.
I do lectures on military history and the space program to high school students once a year and I talk with them and their teachers between classes. It amazes me what is expected of them, orders of magnitude beyond anything expected of me or my peers when I was that age (I graduated from high school in 1987)...
Well, a good way to look at it is that people are outgrowing the hobby when there young. Yes, many kids do watch Thomas the Tank Engine and certanlycget interested in trains , but by the time they get older it just kinda fades away and they get attacked to something more interesting to them. (Or, they are still hooked On the show and use Trainz12 to make videos about it) and speaking of Trainz12, to own a computer program for a model Railroad is a lot easier and economical for people.
For example, you could buy a O scale GP7 with all addons for a couple hundreds of dollars, OR buy a GP7 on Train Simualtor, Transport Fever, Trainz12, Trainz a new era, etc and get it for a mere few bucks, sometimes 10 at the most, or sometimes go onto the forums for those games and get the train for FREE! And along with you not only using the computer for the game but for other things such as work and editing, the model Railroad of real life just isn't economic for most people, which is why newer and smaller guages are being made, and why companies are trying to lower and make new prices that seem utterly rediculas.
So in conclusion, the real life model Railroad truley isn't as affordable as the model Railroad of your hard drive.
The most damaging reason for young people not entering the hobby occurs when they get their first train set, and it does not run. And they of course, "Forget about it."
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