Like a lot of ppl, I started out buying and selling on the after market. Not for me, for a lot of reasons.
My $1.99 breakfast at a local hole in the wall, 1988, is now $8.00.
My Railking Big Boy was $699.99 in 2003. In 2018 it was $799.99. 14% increase.
Those who buy/bought trains for a return on investment were probably misguided.
But I look at it this way. That $699.99 gave me years of fun, pride of ownership, looks great in my curio cabinet and I could probably get at least $300 or so on Ebay today if I decided to sell today.
I have a few Metra engines. If you look at sold prices, they are still worth a significant amount of their original paid price because they have had limited runs.
I suspect PS2 and PS3 hold more value than PS1 because they have full functionality with DCS.
That's my story and I'm sticking to it. I use these examples to help keep my wife from freaking out when a train shaped box arrives on our door step. Managing to wait until she's out of the house when I come home from my LHS helps, too.
Don't know if it is dying but radically changing.
I have traveled all over the United States and even bought a few large collections. About 10 years ago I saw a lot of collectors selling or even thinking of selling to clear out the collection so the kids didn't have to deal. When I did met a collector that was buying trains he was usually in his 60s or older. I also met a lot of families selling off their Dad's or dead Husband's trains. I really thought back then that it was the end of model trains at least O Scale and Lionel/MTH model trains. My dad was a HO model railroader his entire life, he passed at 98 about 8 years ago. He had Lionel as a kid.
I used to buy in the early Lionel JLC, MTH protosound 2.0, days..I lot of guys paid a lot of money for their trains (especially in the 80s-90s) and they believed they were sitting on a "gold mine" Now people are much more realistic about the value and I see a ton of post war trains on the market. (great days if you are a post war collector)
But now, things are way different. (Note: I no longer travel the country, but will pick up a collection off craigslist now and again)
Now I see a lot of younger people that are into modern trains that have YouTube channels and are talking about going to York. (20 and 30 year olds) 10 years ago I can remember people talking about how you would see nothing but older people at York. Industry is consolidating that is for sure, but lower cost of electronics and 3d printing is making costs on that side of the manufacturing equation go down. Plus you can't under estimate the impacts of Covid and Social Media. during Covid people looked for "things" or "hobbies" they could do in their homes and model trains was a perfect fit. Social Media has made information more available than ever before and more model railroaders are posing there. In the past the only way you learned about model trains was either from family, friends or the local Hobby Shop. Now you can find a video that can show you how to setup Legacy or even old style block based conventional train running post/pre war layout.
So I am not sure the "hobby" is dying off. I thought it was 10 years ago, but it is still here. people are still buying and selling and manufactures are still producing.
so who knows?!?!?!
.....I am not sure the "hobby" is dying off
Been hearing "the hobby is dying" now for over 30 years. If it is, it's taking the slowest route possible. I conservatively guesstimate that I have 20-30 years of model RR'ing projects on the shelves for my entertainment. I know I could double of triple that with very little effort at all. Maybe people need to apply their hand-wringing and concerns over something that actually matters.
"Are people continuing to get older and even dying...."
Yes. I can unequivocally confirm that people continue to grow older and at some point they die. Guess what - that condition is not new and applies/impacts to everything we do and not just the model RR'ing hobby unilaterally.
It's definitely not dying off. In addition to @unixunix's observations we can thank the pandemic for forcing folks to stay home. Needing something to do in order to keep themselves from going stir crazy they reignited many hobbies, including ours.
One could see it in the demand for the things we normally take for granted. Well before our current inflation fiasco prices during the pandemic were rising on locomotives, rolling stock, accessories, structures and scenery items because demand was suddenly going up.
It was a shot in the arm from old hobbyists returning to the hobby, and bringing it to their children and grandchildren.
It would be easy to predict, now that the pandemic is "over", they'll just as quickly walk away and back to normal life, and they might -- but they've been bitten and will return at the very least, as most of us do, in later life.
The future, which once looked really bad, perhaps isn't looking so bad after all.
We'll have to wait and see ...
Mike
I’ve been in the hobby since 1971. I’ve been hearing it’s dying off since 1971.
All it’s done since 1971 is get bigger and bigger.
So, a thread revival after 2 & 1/2 years. I think a more accurate analysis would be that the hobby is not dying, but is slowly shrinking. 🤔
I agree with what @Mellow Hudson Mike and @mwb said. My opinion is that before the pandemic O scale had been slowly shrinking for years but the pandemic brought it back some. O scale isn't back up to the levels it was in the early '2000s but, again my opinion, it has come back a little. I mean guys like Mr. Muffin, Charles Ro and others continue to sell new trains so someone must be buying them. As for HO and N, they were never shrinking and the hobby as a whole was never even close to dying.
Wow, gloom and doom. Not for me.
In a word, Yep, it is dying. Go to any train show and look at the folks. 5 guys over 60 for every one guy in his 30s or 40s.
(Same thing when you go to a large gunshow and look at the tables with WWII rifles or classic hunting rifles.)
The hobby will survive as a small "nich" hobby, but not as a common one.
There will always be inexpensive, plug and play plastic, train sets for Christmas, but they will be essentially be kid's toys, made to last a couple of years and then to the garbage bin.
Hard to accept, but the U.S. economy sector as to consumer hobbies is now driven by young males from about age 13 to 25, just like the movie industry. And, they don't give a hoot about electric trains.
Meanwhile, the "Call of Duty" line of trademarks, software and products was recently valued at over 1 billion dollars.
Mannyrock
@Mannyrock posted:Go to any train show and look at the folks. 5 guys over 60 for every one guy in his 30s or 40s.
It's always been that way, at least for the last 60 years. And when the 30- and 40-year olds get to be 60, the same thing will be true except that they will now be the 60-year olds.
'O' Gauge is a hobby largely for retirees and children. The number of retirees is going up, not down. The number of children is at least steady year-over-year.
In spite of the attraction of video games this hobby will continue and won't shrink appreciably.
Mike
Maybe the hobby isn't shrinking. But the number of LHS, local train shows, and train show attendees is dramatically shrinking since the late 90s.
Mike has all the data if you're interested.
The shrinking of local train shows and LHS may have more to do with the way people are buying things today. Most local retail is disappearing as more and more people shop online. The main street is now digital.
I think the hobby is like all hobbies, it evolves and changes. First of all, hobbies like model railroading itself always tend to trend older, in large part because when people are younger they are busy with other things, starting working, families, lot of times kids and get back into the hobby when they have the time and money. So having people with graying hair is not really anything new. I will admit it is nice to see younger people at train shows and the like, it is a good sign.
A lot of it too is the changes in the hobby.We talk about the golden age of Lionel in the post war world, when trains were a big deal, but forget the nature of it. Back then trains were a toy more than a hobby that kids played with. Honestly, how many kids had year round layouts? It was like other toys, played with, expanded, but it wasn't what it is today. Sure, there were a lot sold, and yes there were adults into it, and kids 'playing with trains'...but it was still very different.
Lionel trains went into decline when other toys took over, tv, all the other things that the parents of baby boomers and the next kids told them were going to rot their brains, make them homicidal maniacs, etc, etc. For people into trains, running layouts, it was kind of a golden era, because
Lionel with MPC, etc hung on, there were people starting to build layouts, and as they/we got older nostalgia kicked in....and then we had the collector mania of the 80's, where the mass market decided Lionel was hot and ordinary crap was going for a lot of money. The hobby portion wasn't happy because the collect-o mania was making it hard to buy stuff at a decent price. York was thriving because of this, that was the mecca of many a get rich quick scheme from what I was told, tons of people looking for that thing that was gonna make them rich....
My take, fwiw, is that the hobby has radically changed in the last 35 years or so. Dick Kuhn buying Lionel&the things he did, MTH, Atlas, changed the hobby from being a collectors only market or people looking to recreate their old christmas layouts or childhood whatever (obviously, both are still facets). What started as re-issuing postwar stuff became modern trains, scale, and of course command control. Today I would hazard a guess that most people in the hobby have layouts. There are still those operating post war conventional toy train layouts alone, but there are also a lot of hi rail, scale, and my kid of layout, the "WTH" layout, that can mix things. Quite honestly, as a hobby, I think it probably is larger and more vibrant than it was in the past.
Okay, so what about the future. I agree that the size of the hobby will likely shrink, I think there will be less and less nostalgia driven market from people who recreate the toy trains of their childhood. Of course there will always be people into this, people born long after the post war period who love the old trains.
Collecting of course has shrunk, in the sense that common postwar stuff is no longer treated like gold (when a beat up ZW could go for several hundred bucks). New interest in pre war and standard gauge has helped bring new people into collecting that, so it will always be there (and obviously, collecting/operating are not mutually exclusive). I doubt modern stuff will have the same collectability unless there are some rarities like prototypes and whatnot.
I think in some ways, though, it will be a lot healthier in the sense that I think the modern trains with command control has drawn younger people in (interestingly, just based on my own limited exposure, more than a few appreciate older post war stuff, if they primarily run modern command control). I think too it is healthy because it isn't based just on nostalgia or remembering a childhood long ago, they like the trains and what they can do and model in it, whether scale, hi rail or more toy like. I think personally one of the mistakes Bachman made with Williams was they didn't read the tea leaves and continued to pretty much reproduce post war stuff that has a limited audience. They could have produced the equivalent of MTH Railking with command control, affordable, semi to mostly scale and done well I think. I have an older williams Brass engine I love, and when the time comes I'll upgrade it to ERR; Williams could have kind of done the same thing with their product line, but didn't.
It likely will be smaller, I think you will see a lot less recreation of post war equipment that used to fill the catalogs, and obviously with BTO becoming the norm for a lot of stuff, you may not have all the options you once did. MTH is still in the game, albeit smaller, and there are questions if a 'next generation' will take over, but it is still here. Atlas is still in the game, despite headwinds it has faced, and that is a good sign and of course 3rd rail is chugging away, too.
I was talking to someone at York about this issue, he had been going for many decades, and he said the smaller size was not necessarily a bad sign, in that tables full of postwar stuff, the same postwar stuff you see meet after meet, isn't a sign of decline but rather a change in the hobby, where the emphasis is just not rooted in the past. His hope was going forward there was more unique stuff there, kind of things like the folks who make custom bridges or scenery kits or the like, and hopefully dealers too.
I mentioned to him that my nearest LHS was at York, but what they had was tables full of basically old junk, things they were trying to clear out (body shells, broken signals, engines that are just a engine mounted on a chasis, rusty accessories) . I realize these are gold to some people, but I said I couldn't figure out why they would go to York, pay for travel, hotels, etc, and just have basically junk like that. He kind of laughed, and said likely it was someone who hasn't been there in years, and thought this was a great place to sell junk off as gold to people who still think Lionel is 'hot' as a collectible. It was good an explanation as I can think of, didn't look like much was selling.
I guess the parallel I would use to this is classical music, which is notorious for its 'gray' audiences (my son is a working professional classical musician). People talk about it dying, the audience isn't growing, yet from what I can tell it seems like people were saying that a hundred years ago, it is kind of the nature of the beast. I think 3 rail is the same way, and one progression is that it is just plain easier to work with them as the vision goes, as fingers get a bit more stiff, working with detail parts the diameter of a cat's whisker just isn't easy any more, so younger people today doing HO and N might just show up when they start feeling time
@Yellowstone Special posted:So, a thread revival after 2 & 1/2 years. I think a more accurate analysis would be that the hobby is not dying, but is slowly shrinking. 🤔
My thoughts, exactly, Vern. How easily a defunct thread is resurrected, and segued into so readily!
I can only recount, that when I was a kid in the 60s, about one out of five houses I visited in the suburbs had a permanent layout, and both the father and kids were happily involved.
Now, how many? Extremely few and far between.
Also, back in the day, families with a permanent layout didn't buy 5 engines and 40 cars a year, Maybe two or three. The market today (except for the cheap Christmas tree market) appears to be heavily supported by older folks who buy tons more stuff than they can run.
And, . . .how many model train manufacturers have filed for bankruptcy since the 1960s? Lots!
Mannyrock
I would never expect any hobby to maintain that 5:1 ratio you cite over many decades. The lone exception over the last 100-150 years might be the broad category called "dolls".
Using your logic, that the Lionel name is still on the market after 122 of them, and still selling, would be impossible.
Then again there are far more people on this planet than there were in the 1960's, so even a lower ratio can mean more hobbyists than you think.
As one is going down the other is going up.
On par our hobby will still be fine.
Mike
Kind of morbid thread
@Mannyrock posted:I can only recount, that when I was a kid in the 60s, about one out of five houses I visited in the suburbs had a permanent layout, and both the father and kids were happily involved.
Now, how many? Extremely few and far between.
Also, back in the day, families with a permanent layout didn't buy 5 engines and 40 cars a year, Maybe two or three. The market today (except for the cheap Christmas tree market) appears to be heavily supported by older folks who buy tons more stuff than they can run.
And, . . .how many model train manufacturers have filed for bankruptcy since the 1960s? Lots!
Mannyrock
I don't think that was true most places.I am a bit younger than you are (born early 60's), but I can tell you even in the late 60's among kids it was rare. I doubt that 20% of the households had permanent layouts most places, even in the 1950's from everything I have read.
I do agree that people didn't buy as much as we do now, the constant threads about how expensive trains are now usually point out they were expensive back then, too. I doubt most families bought 2 or 3 engines a year, I think they might get an engine one year, some cars another, some track/switches. That 29.99 engine back then sounds cheap, today that would be 300 bucks, still a not trivial outlay for many people.
If 20% of the people had permanent layouts, then the train makers wouldn't have hit the skids like they did in the 60's. The reality was these were toys to be played with, a large percent were Christmas tree setups, or toys played with as toys, and when slot cars and other things came around, train sales declined...and makers went out. The more marginal ones did first. Lionel hung on by a thread because they were sort of the last man standing, and there was enough traditional sales (train sets at Christmas) and yes hobbyists, to let them limp through.
I also will add that makers going out of business was true in HO and N, too, still goes on. BTW in scale model railroading it tends older too, I just went to the open house of a big Model RR club and the typical age was my age or older for the most part (I was encouraged there were younger members and even some interested kids there, that is kind of rare IME). If you looked at that, you would think that hobby is doomd, but it isn't, because as young people get older they get into it/join.
I think the size of the hobby will shrink because of the age related shrinkage of the post war segment that is still pretty large, I think the collector side will shrink further, but I think there is a core that will still be there that stays alive as newer people got in. The York that attracted mobs of people because Lionel was a 'hot collectible' was not sustainable, nor was the nostalgia boom; the nostalgia boom, though, helped trigger the modern trains we see, and that part will likely keep going. The booming Lionel of the 1940's and 50's was a different animal than trains of today, that isn't coming back. But its descendent likely will keep going forward. Trains will never be the 'mega toy' it once was, but it hadn't been for like 60 years or more.
No question that the location of a suburb can have a big effect on the ratio of how many houses had layouts.
I can only tell you about the upper middle-class suburb where I grew up in Fairfax, VA. The owners were largely doctors, lawyers, senior military officers, engineers, accountants, and high-ranking government officials. But then again, although the houses had layouts, the families didn't buy tons on locos and rolling stock. The layouts did, though, have a lot of electric turnouts, railyards and scenery.
Mannyrock
Bigkid: An interesting, although lengthy, market analysis over time. I’ve never seen model train trends compared to classical music. 😉
Now there’s an idea. Listen to classical music while running trains. 👍
Hi Mellow Mike,
"Lionel" is just a trade name for model trains, that has I'm sure been traded, sold, and reorganized several times. The original manufacturing corporation is long since bankrupt or insolvent.
As to layout popularity, even my lower middle-class cousins had a simple start-out layouts, consisting of a cheap Marx set and tubular track. These were generally tacked down on a small piece of plywood laying on the basement floor. Layouts like these were a right of passage for all 10 year old boys. But definitely not anymore. Since the 1970s, the "Marx" name has been sold and resold about 4 times due to its lousy performance and lack of sales.
Point is, it is definitely the case that model trains are not anywhere near as poplar on any basis today as they were back in those days.
I can't tell you how many visitors, guests, tradesmen, relatives and other folks have been in my basement in the last 3 years, and upon seeing my layout exclaimed: "Wow! I've never seen a train layout before!"
And, when their kids see the layout, they have really difficulty with the concept of the turn-knob throttle: . . .Turn right means faster and turn left means slower. I kid you not, they keep looking for buttons to push. They even have trouble understanding the two position metal toggle switches. Up means on, and down means off. :-O
Mannyrock
"
The constant infusion of new technology into model train operation would seem to indicate that it is still a vital industry. The discussions in the forum seem to make this point quite often.
Remember the post war baby boom. Those folks are still around. Lionel was king and they all had trains. When they got older and had jobs (i.e. money) O gauge boomed again starting in the 1980's. The boomers are beginning to dwindle but will be around for many years more. i'm one of them.
In the late 70's and early 80's I would attend the Cal-Stewart convention in Pasadena, CA. Hundreds of people would be in the lobby waiting for the doors to open. The large hall would be full of sellers and buyers with numerous layouts. A sold-out Saturday night banquet would be held with guests and speakers such as Tuohy & McComas and Richard Kughn etc. The last Cal-Stewart was held about 5 years ago and I stopped by. It took place at the LA County fairgrounds in a much small building that was vastly under-utilized. Maybe ten sellers and few attendees. Asking prices for products were a fraction of their original cost. The hobby is in decline and has been for years. Such is life...
@Bob Paris posted:In the late 70's and early 80's I would attend the Cal-Stewart convention in Pasadena, CA. Hundreds of people would be in the lobby waiting for the doors to open. The large hall would be full of sellers and buyers with numerous layouts. A sold-out Saturday night banquet would be held with guests and speakers such as Tuohy & McComas and Richard Kughn etc. The last Cal-Stewart was held about 5 years ago and I stopped by. It took place at the LA County fairgrounds in a much small building that was vastly under-utilized. Maybe ten sellers and few attendees. Asking prices for products were a fraction of their original cost. The hobby is in decline and has been for years. Such is life...
You may be comparing apples and oranges. The time period you are talking about Lionel Post War was in its feeding frenzy as being a collector's items and I suspect that was most of that. Collecting is a very different aspect of the hobby, and that part definitely has become a lot smaller, post war or even pre war is not a 'hot commodity" the way it was. I can tell you, growing up from late 60's on, people having lionel layouts was non existent where I grew up (affluent suburb of NYC in NJ). Even by the 1960's Lionel trains (I used Lionel because at the time, the other makers were tiny, I mean 3 rail in general). Read the history of Lionel and their train sales were declining rapidly and they were trying everything in other fields to make money. As a toy item, it simply fell behind all the new things out there.
The toy train aspect does exist, the train sets Lionel makes is there for that reason, and yes Lionel makes money on it, but it is nowhere where it was back in the day (I have heard it is better thanks to Lionchief command control, that set sales have actually increased a bit, cant confirm that).
And yes it is a lot smaller now, there is no doubt. The oldest of the baby boomers are now in their late 70's, and though it was a big group (I am the tail end of it), it definitely is declining, and the nostalgia market reflects that. Then again we are a big group, so it will take time for that to go away.
But again the core of the industry has changed. With modern equipment, collecting IMO is a very tiny part of it, people buy the equipment to run it, not in anticipation it will increase in value. That core is basically model railroading using 3 rail trains, whether the person is scale only, hi rail, mixed and that is what will drive the hobby forward along with the starter sets I think. And yes, train shows will get smaller because a large element of the shows, people buying post war out of nostalgia or collecting it, will diminish. I suspect it will become more like N and HO, where people go to buy things for their layouts.
And the thing is, the nostalgia market isn't how the industry makes it money (I am leaving out train shows, talking makers). The market going forward is mostly going to be operating equipment for layouts, like HO and N.
The hobby will be smaller and that will affect train shows that are still so dominated by post war and nostalgia, but doom and disaster/ Different, yes, and maybe regrettable to some, but honestly, expecting younger people to be nostalgic about running trains on tinplate track using a transformer handle is kind of odd to me. Growing up, if I had command control, I would have loved it as would most kids. We grew up with the basic tech because that is all we had, there is nothing magic about it.
I will only share my very anecdotal experience, FWIW.
My LHS located in an affluent suburb of Westchester County, NY (also affluent) had banner years during COVID, according to the LHS owner. This LHS is an authorized Lionel dealer, has a very nice operating layout, and is well stocked with brand new Lionel (but no or little VisionLine), scenery materials, accessories and supplies, and Postwar priced to sell. It primarily sells O Gauge.
I believe that the big dealers like Charles Ro, TrainWorld. TRAINZ, and the like, have also done very well in recent years.
On the other hand, I believe in upstate NY, quite a few LHSs have gone out of business in recent years.
Arnold
Was this thread in with someone’s old Christmas decorations? Jeez 2 years old and it’s resurrected. Wrong holiday. Lol.
There are a bunch of young guys on this forum making YouTube videos that consistently get thousands of views. I say the hobby is doing just fine.
Are people continuing to getting older and even dying? Yes - I verify that with certainty!
Dooming the Hobby? That's a tougher question, let me get back to you in 20 years (if I haven't died by then). LOL
Since joining this forum I have seen quite a few post like this. I am not sure what the "obsession" with this topic is. Yes, I may not be able to go to a local hobby shop like when I was a kid and drool on the counter looking at the latest train. Gotta do it on-line now. Times are changing, just gotta roll with it.
For me there is plenty of stuff out there new and used to take care of my "habit". If you are buying your trains so the people in your will can get rich, just maybe there are better investment options. If you are planning on going into the toy train business, then this forum may not be the place to get the answers you need. It probably is somewhat "biased".
I have just finished reading a book called "All Aboard!" by Ron Hollander. It is the story of Joshua Lionel Cowen & His Company. Was written in 1981 (41 years ago). Highly recommend it.
Case in point: I’ve bought 3x more train stuff over the past 3 years than I did in my first 52 years.
Mannyrock, Shorling and Arnold make excellent observations. I am an early-mid baby boomer (1950) and remember that most of my friends also had a train layout; Christmas and trains around the tree were synonymous. Model trains are not the big deal they used to be in the 50's and early 60's.
Arnold made an important point that the financial demographics of an area also are a significant factor. His LHS comments are spot-on. My childhood memories were in an mid-upper middle class environment. Department stores and other seasonal train purveyors were also part of Christmas. The exposure to electric trains today is minimal compared to what it was I "played" trains.
As long as there are purchasers for high ticket items, they will be produced; but high ticket item are not the life-blood of our hobby. Simply put, I believe that current demographics do not bode well for our hobby. I have always "loved" my trains and also Ham Radio [K0ZP], my kids were exposed to each and could care less about either... their noses were stuck in computer games of one sort or another. I believe my experiences are somewhat typical.
Hopefully I will be around for another decade or more, but when I'm gone the future of a whole bunch of model trains, with a wide range of origins and price ranges, is very uncertain. An unpleasant thought...
While I am not a prophet of gloom and doom, I believe the future of our hobby is very uncertain. But who knows what the future may bring.
For a little comic relief, I tell my good Forum friend, Bryce Manz (OScaleLover), who is 21 years old and a very skillful, knowledgable and enthusiastic hobbyist, that he will end up with all of my trains and those of the 15 other members of the Railboys (our local train club) down the road. LOL, Arnold
@MartyE posted:Was this thread in with someone’s old Christmas decorations? Jeez 2 years old and it’s resurrected. Wrong holiday. Lol.
There are a bunch of young guys on this forum making YouTube videos that consistently get thousands of views. I say the hobby is doing just fine.
I agree completely! This hobby is so fun and has so much to offer that it is timeless. I have a lot of friends that don't have a hobby and am more than happy to tell them about toy trains. So many people lack basic skills on how to do simple home repairs, (replace light fixtures or faucets), but with the difficulty in finding good help or reasonably priced help, the YouTube videos are a quick way to learn how to make repairs. I think this is also true with our hobby, and how it will sustain itself going forward. The OGR Forum is also a source of knowledge and inspiration. So, I fully agree with MartyE that the "hobby is doing just fine".
Isn’t it true that attendance numbers for the Amherst Big E show and Trainfest have increased over recent years? (With the exception of the pandemic)
@MainLine Steam posted:I have just finished reading a book called "All Aboard!" by Ron Hollander. It is the story of Joshua Lionel Cowen & His Company. Was written in 1981 (41 years ago). Highly recommend it.
IMO, it's a great book and the authoritative treatise on the history of Lionel. I recently read it cover to cover for the 2nd time. Arnold
Everyone on OGR starts out very, very old... and magically, we become much, much younger!
@john in western pa posted:While I am not a prophet of gloom and doom, I believe the future of our hobby is very uncertain. But who knows what the future may bring.
But you are.
This hobby is over 125 years old. It's passed down generationally. Your kids may not have accepted that pass from you but many others have. We see them here on the forum, at open houses, and at shows.
The Polar Express, Harry Potter, Frozen, UP 4014, the CP Holiday Trains, and museums and excursions all help keep it in the hearts and minds of the little ones. When they get to be of retirement age, like most of us here, they'll be just as deeply committed as we are.
If our hobby was going to die it would have done so a long, long time ago.
The world's population is increasing. Even if the percentage of folks who love this hobby goes down the actual number of people who do will still go up.
Everything's just fine. To borrow a phrase from a famous movie, Do you believe?
Mike
@Mellow Hudson Mike posted:Everything's just fine. To borrow a phrase from a famous movie, Do you believe?
Mike
Tug McGraw, lefty screwball pitcher for the NY Mets: his rallying cry was: Ya Gotta Believe!
It turned the team around in 1973. Arnold
Per the title of this thread, I AM getting older (very old already) and I WILL BE dying at some point (hopefully not too soon), but the hobby will long outlive me even if I live to be 100 or more.
