The model train hobby is alive and well for the moment but if it is to grow and get stronger will someone explain to me by whom? Millennials, Gen X, and Gen Z people are just not interested so who is going to fuel the resurgence?
Dennis LaGrua posted:The model train hobby is alive and well for the moment but if it is to grow and get stronger will someone explain to me by whom? Millennials, Gen X, and Gen Z people are just not interested so who is going to fuel the resurgence?
I'm a millennial (born in 1985) and I have an interest in O gauge trains. So here's one millennial.
Dennis LaGrua posted:The model train hobby is alive and well for the moment but if it is to grow and get stronger will someone explain to me by whom? Millennials, Gen X, and Gen Z people are just not interested so who is going to fuel the resurgence?
I'm 33. I know of only one other person my age into trains in my close or extended circle of family and friends. In my experience people my age just aren't into model railroading. The "O" gauge glory years were from the late 1990's up to early the 2010's. Manufacturers developed and produced TONS of new products fueled in large part by money from the wallets of baby boomers and late war babies who had the disposable income to relive their model railroad childhoods. As those people become older and leave the hobby due to illness or death there aren't many younger people to take their place. This hobby will continue to shrink imho until it is much smaller than its current position.
J 611 posted:... As those people become older and leave the hobby due to illness or death there aren't many younger people to take their place. This hobby will continue to shrink imho until it is much smaller than its current position.
This could very well be; however...
If you take the time to look at some of the other online forums, some of the smaller scales (especially N) are thriving and those guys are doing some remarkable work. It would also appear that those scales are supported by a younger demographic than what we see in here in O/O27, so it could be that O gauge/scale might indeed "shrink", but some of these smaller scales may continue along at more or less the same level.
Mark in Oregon
Strummer posted:If you take the time to look at some of the other online forums, some of the smaller scales (especially N) are thriving and those guys are doing some remarkable work. It would also appear that those scales are supported by a younger demographic than what we see in here in O/O27, so it could be that O gauge/scale might indeed "shrink", but some of these smaller scales may continue along at more or less the same level.
Mark in Oregon
I agree. O gauge trains, especially high end equipment, are more expensive and take up more space than HO and N scale. That could adversely impact O gauge/scale relative to HO and N.
MELGAR
We cannot forget the folks that publish Railroading in America. They are the youngest folks I've seen on the forum and definitely fueling the hobby with their informative magazine. I am not sure exactly, but I think no one 20 yet. These young folks are as much into model railroading as the well seasoned veteran. I had the pleasure of talking with Max and Evan a bit last October, and they are very bright and looking to continue to grow their audience and the hobby. Look them up or even ask them to comment here on how they feel the hobby is doing.
MELGAR posted:Strummer posted:If you take the time to look at some of the other online forums, some of the smaller scales (especially N) are thriving and those guys are doing some remarkable work. It would also appear that those scales are supported by a younger demographic than what we see in here in O/O27, so it could be that O gauge/scale might indeed "shrink", but some of these smaller scales may continue along at more or less the same level.
Mark in Oregon
I agree. O gauge trains, especially high end equipment, are more expensive and take up more space than HO and N scale. That could adversely impact O gauge/scale relative to HO and N.
MELGAR
Yeah, that is one of the big factors for most, space. I believe though it is something about O scale that just pushes those other scales to the back burner(at least for me).
Dave NYC Hudson PRR K4 posted:Yeah, that is one of the big factors for most, space. I believe though it is something about O scale that just pushes those other scales to the back burner(at least for me).
True...on both counts! The heft and mass of O scale is a big draw, for sure.
Thanks for focusing on the merits of O, and not demeaning the efforts of those in the smaller scales: you see that a lot these days, I'm afraid...
Mark in Oregon
Having read this entire thread, it is very much like reading the obituaries of your ten best friends. Very depressing and leaving me with an empty feeling.
About the only thing missing is: Our 3-rail trains were fun while they lasted, R.I.P.
Being 61 when I was growing up their was no cell phones internet TV station etc... Honestly no one on my block had a train layout I ever remembered! but their was one guy @3 blocks away and did!
Today no one to blame for progress but look how many choices the younger generation has!
Bur remember all it takes is one kid to see a layout from (their way ie internet phone etc.)and more than likely get the same feeling I did along time ago .Which for me seems like yesterday because of the drive I have for the hobby....Daniel
OUR hobby is not really much different than most. I am into RC sailboat racing- it's the same, the same conversation, the same challenges. People do not want kits as much, technology is expensive, fewer LHS's etc.
- All hobbies need new people to grow or even maintain.
- Reaching out to new people is the responsibility of those already IN the hobby, not the manufacturers.
- The local people have to reach out to the public, realizing that of those who take an interest in the hobby - even to the point of buying stuff and starting- only about 50% will stay. LEARNING is hard, and many will not expend the effort. That's just the way it is.
- People who first contact and get acquainted with the potential (for them) hobby, judge the hobby and how they might like it, BASED on those they see who are already there. After all that's where they will turn for help- not the manufacturers.
- KISMIF: Keep it simple, make it fun.
- Don't make everybody THINK they have to spend $1500 on an engine, $ 2000 on benchwork, and a thousand more on command control. ENCOURAGE new people to start small- let them GROW into the hobby. Postwar! LC Starter Sets! After all, that's what most of US did, right?? A 9 X 5 piece of plywood painted w/ earth color, covered with sifted dirt or sawdust and having starter-set curves, IS a layout, and one that is 100% better than what most of us started with.
The magazines DO show the finest in modeling- but, those are not the norm. How would a new person understand that- visiting a well-established layout and reading ___________ magazine?? At least OGR features more normal but well done layouts as well!!
BTW I talk a good game BUT - after seeing my first fantastic O Gauge home layout- have said "I will not invite anybody to see MINE!!" a few times!! That is not the right thing to do- I am changing my ways!! Follow me: A proud NEW MEMBER of the Brotherhood of Crappy Basement Layouts"!!
Purely my opinion, I think the market for high end O scale products is going to continue to tighten. Not disappear, but continuing a move to limited run such as BTO and 3rd Rail, etc. The mid range product is going to be readily available on the 2nd hand market. Also, dealers that offer repair, good customer service, and quality shipping have better odds of surviving.
I think we all have an opportunity to try to continue the interest generationally by promoting the hobby. Do you have a grouping of freight cars a locomotive that maybe a loss if sold, some extra track laying around, donate it to a family you know with kids. I have done this many times. Perhaps to an organization that could use it for interactive displays, holiday etc. The CVSR (Cuyahoga Valley Scenic Railroad) puts on a display of model trains during the popular Thomas The Tank weekends. I donated an N&W passenger set to the Mad River & NKP museum for use at their Christmas Santa Clause caboose runs, or wherever they may choose to use it. Hopefully these create some sparks of interest carrying the hobby into the future. There used to be a hobby store in my area that would buy cheap used sets for the purpose to give at huge discounts or free to families in the area who had sticker shock seeing the catalogs of O Scale trains.
I heard this week that the generation following the Millennials is more interested in things like baseball, radio control cars and not purely focused on the phone screen or video game. Perhaps trains can be part of that changing cycle of interests.
I think a lot of people are remembering the past in ways that simply aren't true. For one thing, the model train hobby as a whole, let alone the O gauge 3 rail world, was never a mass hobby or pastime, we might like to believe it was, but it wasn't. In its heyday, the 3 rail world to a large extent was dominated by holiday trains around the tree, permanent layouts from everything I have read weren't all that common (talking the immediate postwar through 1960's period).
Then, too, even moving forward, the HO/N world wasn't mass either really.Sure, people bought kids starter sets, kids had trains, but it often ended there. Growing up when I did (really more the 70's than 60's), there were very few kids even then into trains, a tiny handful out of a much bigger population, of any kind. Sure, a larger number had been exposed to them, got a starter set, played with a while, but for the most part it didn't last, some kids even built a small layout, then lost interest. Some of the posts on here make it seem like train modelling was 'the hobby', but it wasn't (in reality, I don't know too many hobbies that you could say was 'the hobby', some surged at times, but then withered, crazes hit, etc). In many ways HO and N have grown, the number of things offered, the number of people involved, I suspect is higher today than it was back then. O gauge 3 rail is definitely larger, leaving out the collector fueled mania of the 80's and early 90's, I suspect there are more people truly into these trains than there were back in the 70's, and maybe even the 50's and 60's given a lot of the action back then was likely transient.
Another thing I recall is that the hobby always had a progression and always had the element of being something for older folks, rather than younger. Reading Model Railroader since the late 70's, it seemed to me the people in there were older, and my exposure to clubs and hobbyists, it was people from the mid 30's on up with the median age likely in the mid 40's or so. We like to think we were different (us older folks), but we weren't, when I was in my 20s, 30s I didn't have the time or space to have a layout and was too busy with school, careers, relationships/establishing a family, and so forth to have the time or inclination to work on trains. When I read the articles in the various train magazines, the routine refrain is "Joe started with trains when his mom got him a train set, then cars/girls/school/career came along, until he was in his X years, saw a train show, and the fire was lit". Sorry, but if you looked at people of my generation (now middle 50's), back when we were late teens/20's/30's, you could say "almost no one cares, the hobby is gonna die"..yet it didn't. We all had things we would 'rather do back then', things like cable tv and the vcr (renting movies), took away more leisure time, the first video games came out, other things came along, the current generation with video games and social media and streaming are doing the same thing we did in many ways, which would suggest a similar progression later on. With 3 rail O gauge, a common refrain I hear a lot is that people 'progress' from HO and N because 3 rail is easier to work with once the eye sight starts going, hands become less dextrous, etc, so there is reason to believe that people currently modelling N or HO might end up with O for the same reason.
My take? That the hobby goes through ebb and flows, kind of a dynamic equilibrium, and while the equilibrium point might shift up or down a bit, that the hobby will be around in some ways or another, I don't think it will ever go 'viral' to borrow from the You Tube world, but I don't think it will go extinct either, might be more like steady state-ish.
At the last big train show here, people were selling box-fulls of cars at $5 each .... entire MTH full-length Santa Fe passenger consists for $150 .... has it bottomed out? Or has the bottom fallen out ... only one of our grandkids is interested at all and likes to head down to the layout when he walks in the door for the occasional visit.
I don't know how typical I am but I always liked N gauge since my youth and left it behind in my young adult years. A few years ago I started "recollecting" c&o and chessie n scale for display and after getting most of what is on the market I started noticing Lionels "scale" models and have started "collecting" some of them. I have to ask myself why am I doing this? I need to start a layout...on looking at my house I have one empty bedroom (not very big) and realize that compared to what I see on here its going to be a large layout in N or a small (tiny) layout in O. I wonder how many others are restrained in size for layouts (no basement) and is that a factor in N and Z growing when O is not?
It's more about evolving our hobby. I'm in my mid 40's so I'm probably in the smaller demographic. I think pushing the social media outlet direction is a very positive step here. Subscribe to the YouTube model railroading channels, and share their videos, join a facebook O Gauge club, Kids these days love watching people play with toys and hobbies on video. My 9 year old daughter watches adults play with figures, open blind bags, you name it. Lionel and MTH need to get in on this and promote through these channels. I enjoy this hobby immensely, and would love to see it flourish.
With the size of the catalogs still being put out I would think the Ogauge portion of the hobby is still going strong. If you’re looking to make money on the after market, forget it. So much stuff out there one is lucky to get 25 cents on the dollar. My problem now is what the heck do I do with all this stuff I have.
I am going to add in here I lean toward the younger end of the spectrum. I would technically be considered a millennial as well. I also consider myself lucky enough to be able to purchase my own house in my twenties that has a good size basement. Though lately I haven't been doing a whole lot with it, partly because I decided to go back to school to pursue my bachelors degree. Partly because my basement gets cold in the winter months.
Also, I have other hobbies I do, some of it involves building things, and other parts is tinkering with things like the Arduino or Raspberry Pi. Which I am trying to figure out ways I can use those on my train layout. A couple of years ago I purchased a few of the "premiere" trains available from both MTH and Lionel, I keep looking at the locomotives and cars 3rd rail offers, and will at some point purchase at least one of them probably. Though that isn't a high priority for me. Also, my wife likes to go on vacations and sometimes the vacations cost as much as a Train.
WHICH hobby is that?
Is the hobby buying new toys every year? As others have noted, that hobby has some problems, the cost and the quality of the new toys among them. But simply buying toys just because some importer puts them in their catalog just doesn't seem to be much of a hobby with a future under any circumstance. Novelitis is ultimately unfulfilling.
Is the hobby buying USED toys? This hobby is growing and has been for some time. As the guys who bought the toys the first time around need to sell--or their survivors need to sell--more and more of them become available for less and less.
Is the hobby building a model railroad (of whatever persuasion: tin toy, plastic toy, die-cast toy, toy-rail, hi-rail, 2-rail, P48, HO, OO, N, Z, S, G, H, F, Standard/Wide Gauge, oval point-to-point, bare board, fully sceniced, etc.)? Doing so requires room and time, some things too few people seem to have in abundance. But that's hardly new: how many stories do we read in the hobby press about guys who wait till after the kids are gone and the scramble to make a living has ended in retirement in order to enjoy ANY hobby?
Is the hobby building railroad models? This one seems to be losing ground for similar reasons but also to a shift away from manual skills (except thumb dexterity) to technoskills. Witness the proliferation of threads waiting in breathless anticipation of the next building Menards is marketing--with accompanying angst that said building is NOT the brewery they all want--and the dearth of threads devoted to building a brewery.
Is the hobby to occupy an armchair, reading all the mags and websites and FB pages and Twits and instagram posts you can find about trains--real, model, or fantasy? Lots of growth there! It takes a great deal of time to stay current--not to mention chime in on all the interesting and motivating discussions.
Is the hobby to chase or--better--ride behind a particular steam engine or even a brand-new diseasal? Amtrak policy has sure put one damper on that one! But there is the first Big Boy to steam in decades in just a couple weeks, and Casey Jones knows that there are certainly overloaded mainlines to watch and a plethora of engines to photograph (and get run over by if you happen to be terminally stupid--which last aspect of the hobby seems to be mysteriously attractive).
There are other facets to the hobby, of course, but point is this: enjoy the hobby your way, and ignore whether it is growing more or less popular. Only the first facet really depends on someone else (one reason for its unfulfilling nature). It doesn't matter if anyone else is enjoying it: the point is whether or not YOU are enjoying it. Short of the folks in California deciding that trains cause cancer (What? You mean, they don't??), all the trains that have been made over the years will still be around long after everyone here is gone. If you end being the only person left on earth who likes trains, you get to have ALL of them! "'Tis a consummation devoutly to be wished!"
BNSF-Matt posted:It's more about evolving our hobby. I'm in my mid 40's so I'm probably in the smaller demographic. I think pushing the social media outlet direction is a very positive step here. Subscribe to the YouTube model railroading channels, and share their videos, join a facebook O Gauge club, Kids these days love watching people play with toys and hobbies on video. My 9 year old daughter watches adults play with figures, open blind bags, you name it. Lionel and MTH need to get in on this and promote through these channels. I enjoy this hobby immensely, and would love to see it flourish.
As soon as I started looking at O gauge, my first move was to check out YouTube for reviews. Other than Eric Siegel, pickings were (and are) slim. IMO, it shows a high level of incompetence that the importers don't produce more videos of their products.
BNSF-Matt posted:It's more about evolving our hobby. I'm in my mid 40's so I'm probably in the smaller demographic. I think pushing the social media outlet direction is a very positive step here. Subscribe to the YouTube model railroading channels, and share their videos, join a facebook O Gauge club, Kids these days love watching people play with toys and hobbies on video. My 9 year old daughter watches adults play with figures, open blind bags, you name it. Lionel and MTH need to get in on this and promote through these channels. I enjoy this hobby immensely, and would love to see it flourish.
What does “open blind bags” mean? I’ve not heard this phrase before.
Steve
palallin posted:WHICH hobby is that?...........
Finally, someone hit the proverbial nail on the head. Many of us posting here on the forum are not really in the same hobby!!!
Various aspects of the "train hobby" might be in decline while others are flourishing.
Maybe some of those so concerned about "the hobby" being in decline (and in such desperate need of promotion) should be more specific about what hobby they want promoted! 
Jim
RideTheRails posted:BNSF-Matt posted:It's more about evolving our hobby. I'm in my mid 40's so I'm probably in the smaller demographic. I think pushing the social media outlet direction is a very positive step here. Subscribe to the YouTube model railroading channels, and share their videos, join a facebook O Gauge club, Kids these days love watching people play with toys and hobbies on video. My 9 year old daughter watches adults play with figures, open blind bags, you name it. Lionel and MTH need to get in on this and promote through these channels. I enjoy this hobby immensely, and would love to see it flourish.
What does “open blind bags” mean? I’ve not heard this phrase before.
Steve
Blind bags refer to toys that come sealed so you don’t know what your getting and usually come in a series. It’s not too far off from opening a pack of baseball cards.
