Millenials and Model Trains

I agree on trying to understand this generation since our two daughters and two sons-in-law are millennials.  The four of them average 38 years younger than me, so there could be quite a 'generation gap', the term used when I was their age.  Actually the four of them are all doers and I learn a lot form them.  Now if I could get the young men interested in trains, the daughters have only a passing interest to keep me happy!  

Would suggest Lionel already has a strategy to tap Millennial interest with LionChief and smartphone apps.  Have a ton of free trains Millennial son declined in favor of spending his own money on the latest and greatest offerings.

What, me worry?

That is very interesting and a faint flicker of hope, for the "classic" tactile hobbies. But for model railroading specifically, it is only one piece of a bigger puzzle. Some train buddies and I had a nice conversation about the fate of the hobby this past Sunday morning.

One of the elements that I like to cite is the state of real railroading today, and how times have changed in our lifetimes, and more specifically since 9/11. Most of us around the table had stories about being approached by railroad security.

With all of the other time and money sucking activities of the modern world, it is very hard to plant that seed and have it grow into the "trainsanity" that many of us here experience. Even if things do bounce back a bit going forward, we are still looking at a lost generation, maybe two.

Not trying to be a pessimist here, just a realist.

On a related note, one that has also come up repeatedly here on the forum, there was talk of the owner of the largest hobby shop in the area possibly wanting to retire. Just another sign of the times.

A great deal of bandwidth has been expended to considering the young people in the hobby.

The real question that must be asked (but I doubt can be answered) is this alone:

What’s the percentages of the population that is into trains (both real and model) in any given generation, and has that percentage risen or fallen over time? If you can answer that, then alone will you be able to answer the overall question.

I think it’s silly to think anyone between kid and middle age is going to be into the hobby. How many 20-somethings have a lot of money to spend on hobbies? Not many, most are working their way up through jobs that pay very little at first, and gaining ground with their own economics. A friends of mine who was a real old-school modeler in the 50s told me a long time ago that even then, most people in the hobby were kids or middle-aged or older. Not a lot of young adults even in the ‘golden age’ he told me.

Something worries me about people starting with this group.

It seems the parents of the mills were into having these children being involved in things as sports to the rate of former USSR athletes.  Many were not exposed to hobbies, or worse, they were evil to the false-goal of the parents.

How do we expose hobbies such as ours in such a situation?

p51 posted:

What’s the percentages of the population that is into trains (both real and model) in any given generation, and has that percentage risen or fallen over time? If you can answer that, then alone will you be able to answer the overall question.

I've met plenty of older folks that were never into trains (maybe their parents tried to buy them a set as a kid but they weren't interested).

With the sharp decline in the use of railroads years ago, the exposure of people to trains has done the same. I think the number of people interested in the hobby is directly related to that.

Prices are a concern too, when I was growing up in the 90's you could go to Walmart and buy a $30-$40 HO train set off the shelf from Bachmann or Tyco or whatever. Nowadays I can't find a new starter set for under $300.

I'm a millennial (25 years old) and I absolutely love collecting and operating trains. I have an extensive 3rail O scale collection focused mainly on streamlined passenger trains from the 1930s to the 1950s. I am building my 3rd layout right now which will end up being roughly 40x20 and feature a 4 track mainline representative of the NYC's "Water Level Route". It will include my first attempt at building a helix and have multiple levels of staging tracks as well. Likewise, it will include large Atlas O81 to O108 curves to accommodate my scale passenger cars. 3RS is my favorite of the many types of train/hobby items I own...

I also have a decent postwar Lionel collection, a HUGE Lionel HO collection ('57-'62), a bunch of tyco US1 slot trucks, a marklin digital HO collection, a good amount of postwar AF, some Kato N gauge, and finally a small collection of Lionel OO gauge.

I also enjoy buying and selling at local train shows and visiting hobby shops when I travel. If you are in the St. Louis area, you can find me at the Great Train Expo (or whatever it is called now) the 3 times a year it is in town. 

Don't believe millennials like trains... LOOK AT MY YOUTUBE CHANNEL!!! You old timers aren't the only ones who play with trains

Times have changed folks. It's as simple as that. I suspect the vast majority of us have trains because when we were younger a toy train was one of the best toys you could have.

Not so for these millenials. A toy/model train only goes in circles. The Internet can take you anywhere.

It's not about a "room full of toys" it's about having all of your toys in the palm of your hand.

I'm not saying I agree with it. It's just the way it is.

As a father of 3 millenials that have been well exposed to model trains as well as real.  All resulted in a "that's neat" and then walking away.

I say, too bad for them. 

Millenials increasing interest in trade type jobs?Don't believe everything you hear.I am out here-NOT HAPPENING.Ricko-you got it.Nick

Hello all,

I hate to call myself a Millennial (I'm 31). I grew up playing with my dad's Post War Lionel. I've always been interested in railroads. Perhaps it helps that I have a personal connection from my late grandfather having been a PRR cop in Philly. Although I never met him since he passed before I was born, my mother still blames him for me becoming a cop. I work in a town where the Lehigh used to come through. Every shift I drive the streets where the station and rails were and am always fascinated with what once was. Reading and Northern lines are nearby. As a matter of fact their police department has backed me up once or twice.

As far as this hobby, I've just recently gotten into it - since the beginning of the year. Right now focusing mostly on PRR and Reading. I'm sure Lehigh Valley will be added into the mix in the future. There's no doubt this is not a cheap past time. I do have the Legacy and MTH systems, but the idea of running these things through WiFi currently does absolutely nothing for me. I don't want a screen to control EVERYTHING I do.

I should post more, but I do a lot of reading. This is an amazing forum. I'm glad it's as alive and well as it is.

-Matt

Millenial here - 32 yrs old..love trains! 

I was just at the largest hobby store in town and the owner Doug six retiring in 3 weeks at which point he sells the business to his Brother Doug who continues to run it. Starting next Monday they go 9 am to 6 pm mon thru Thursday and 9 to 8 on frida I forget sat n sunday

Gentlemen,

    The Times they are a Changen is absolutely correct but the circle seems to come around more than one likes to admit.

PCRR/Dave

To be honest I don't care if millennials are into trains or not. 

People have saying for years if not decades how to get young people involved in our hobby. I have been involved in trains my whole life. Time for somebody else to carry the ball.

Time will tell if our hobby survives, I think it will but nobody knows for sure.

28 yrs old and I love trains. I pretty much only collect Atlas 2 rail rolling stock so I think that some young people don't have the patience to wait months or even years for a pre ordered product to arrive unless it's the latest iphone or xbox. I almost gave up on trains all together after 2-3 years of waiting for all the atlas California Zephyr cars to be released.

It's not just us. A pal of mine was huge into Ham radio and he swears that is almost completely dead. But if you go to a gathering of them, they swear the hobby is as strong as it ever was.

Ask a room full of anyone into something specific, of course they're going to mostly say they know plenty of people into their hobby. Naturally, as people are inclined to be with people into the same stuff they are!

Model train people are the worst judge for if the hobby is staying the same or in decline. You need someone external and objective to really determine that.

But how you'd do that is beyond me. But anecdotal evidence (at best) on a model train forum is an utter waste of bandwidth in regard to actually answering the question!

I'm a millennial (20) that works in the trades who also volunteers at a railroad museum and collects model trains. 

I keep seeing "fate of the hobby" like at some point every kid with an iPhone will pitch grandads old trains in a dumpster and no one will ever buy a Lionel set again. Speaking from my own experiences plenty of people even younger than me have tons of passion for the world of modeling and railroading. It's a matter of channeling that passion into something productive weather it be a layout of their own or researching and learning about model trains. Now I totally understand why some young people don't engage with this hobby. A lot of young people don't have space or the funds for a layout nor do they have access to model railroading clubs either. It's a matter of keeping interest whilst working with what they have. 

I don't mean to be rude but seeing comments above insinuating that younger people are not interested in the trades or hard labor is outright pessimistic and shows either plain ignorance or keeping to a narrow mindset. If you keep to the ideals of "oh man lazy youngsters don't wanna do THAT!" Then that really won't help encourage them to want to do that now will it? Now I'm not trying to say everyone thinks that nor do I feel that every young person is interested in the trades. I just do not like seeing that stereotype repeated time and again. 

While working at my uncles train store 2 big sellers that seemed to really go nuts were the Harry Potter sets and polar express sets. Kids wanted them after movie and books. But kids nowadays after watching it around circle 10 times are done. If you can't put up a decent layout with operating accessories and remote controls , they loose interest quick. I feel like this hobby needs a new movie based train or something every couple years to boost it.After selling most everything I had from a child to buy a house, get married and have two kids I'm now putting up a 9 x24 ft layout for my son who's 3 . He loves Thomas and polar express. I'm going to put every mth and lionel accessorie on there I can fit lol. 

I'm 30 years old and have been going to my uncles train store since I was 8. My dad fixed the American flyer trains since then and still does even after my uncle retired. I go to York every year both times as we live on Maryland. I've seen sales obviously go up and down. The thing that scares me is when I go to York since I was about 8 I always look at people my age and I usually can count them on both hands. It worries me. I can see younger people really loving the new wi fi but I don't see them interested in postwar. Not saying there isn't any but it's very few. For young people interested in trades? I'm a sprinkler pipe fitter and I'm usually youngest out in field on my jobs. Even in other trades I see helpers start but don't last long. It's definitely a different time /era. Most people my age want a desk job. I really hope this hobby keeps trucking.

Here we go again inflating the anomaly.

I am what  people consider a "millennial" at 30 years old. I don't do a trade job really, I mainly do tech support type stuff. To be honest yes I do have the screens(e.g. smart phones, computers, game consoles). I got bored with them. I would much rather see something built up. Only thing I am not to keen on when it comes to trains is building the bench work, but I don't want a carpet layout that I have to take down when my sister-in-law comes up for the summer for a week. I do have the polar express set that my 5 year old loves to run at full speed all the time or in reverse. I plan on eventually building a layout on the main level of our house that will be a winter themed layout, haven't figured out where yet. As far as the longevity of the hobby, one can never know for sure, things constantly go up and down. The one thing I would like to see more of is 19th century steam engines, that is the only steam engine my wife likes, not to mention I don't see a lot I would like to get in the catalogs.

This gets talked about a lot, but l don't see what we can do about it.  This area is full of abandoned rail lines and the general public rarely see a train...l don't unless l am driving under an interstate viaduct and one is passing over. Only in the most populous urban areas do many actually get to ride a commuter train, that is not a  nostalgic tourist operation. Kids today do not grow up hanging out at the station just as l didn't go through school using a laptop.  I have no answer. 

The Bellcaptain posted:

I'm a millennial (20) that works in the trades who also volunteers at a railroad museum and collects model trains. 

I keep seeing "fate of the hobby" like at some point every kid with an iPhone will pitch grandads old trains in a dumpster and no one will ever buy a Lionel set again. Speaking from my own experiences plenty of people even younger than me have tons of passion for the world of modeling and railroading. It's a matter of channeling that passion into something productive weather it be a layout of their own or researching and learning about model trains. Now I totally understand why some young people don't engage with this hobby. A lot of young people don't have space or the funds for a layout nor do they have access to model railroading clubs either. It's a matter of keeping interest whilst working with what they have. 

I don't mean to be rude but seeing comments above insinuating that younger people are not interested in the trades or hard labor is outright pessimistic and shows either plain ignorance or keeping to a narrow mindset. If you keep to the ideals of "oh man lazy youngsters don't wanna do THAT!" Then that really won't help encourage them to want to do that now will it? Now I'm not trying to say everyone thinks that nor do I feel that every young person is interested in the trades. I just do not like seeing that stereotype repeated time and again. 

Thinking back 40 years to when I was your age, I had an inexpensive Tyco HO train set that I saved for a long time to get.  I then bought a sheet of plywood and over my high school years had built a small town with very limited funds.  In my early years working, I had no room or much money so I built about a dozen inexpensive 1:24 classic cars.  It wasn't until my 30s that I had room to set up a layout again.  I had the train in a box during the layover.  So I think my life in the hobby is a foreshadowing of what many young adults may experience in their lives.