The Cool but unknown Hobby

Very interesting.  Nice story.

I agree that it is very rare to "run across' a person with a o-gauge layout in their house.  If you know someone else who has one, you probably seeked them out through a train club or something.  The only people here in Texas I know that have a layout, it is because I saw it during open-house layout tours.

BTW, nobody in southern california has a basement.  My above comments will probably be less true if you lived in Pennsylvania or one of the adjacent states.

We do have garages though and most of the newer homes have either 2 1/2 or 3 car garages so we do have room.  There are many people who don't even bother to park their car in their garages. The average garage here will only hold a 6' X 12' layout if you still want to park a car in the garage.  I have a 2 1/2 garage and I can still park two cars in my garage. I really do think the hobby out here needs a lot more promotion.

RRADDICT2,

   I do not find this surprising in Cal, here in Pa this would be a different story because of our tradition of Christmas Train layouts, and many of our families being employed by some part of RR industries.

PCRR/Dave

When growing up here I had a lot of friends that had trains but as I got older they seemed to disappear from toy store shelves and most hobby stores closed down as I remember prices were really high far above normal toys. You can buy a nice R-T-R set for less than that tablet people are giving their kids for Christmas, man times have changed.

My O Gauge layout is in my 3 car garage and takes 2 of the car spaces, wife's car still fits.  The lawn guy has cut my grass for 10 + years, his college educated son saw my layout and spent about 20 minutes making a video.

Few weeks ago my neighbor was having a kids birthday party and brought 3-4 families (12-15 folks) over to see the "Trains" run.

A lot of fun is had in the Reece garage when neighbors and other folks walking down the alley stop to see the trains.

Brent

Rockwall TX

It doesnt surprise me that many people have no knowledge of toy trains or o gauge trains.  I think it is more of a culture difference.  I have always thought that the popularity of lionel/flyer trains was directly proportional to the amount of cold weather, popularity of basements and the density of real railroad operations/trackage in different areas of the country.  In the cold weather climates, the investment in a Lionel train set made more sense.  Kids were indoors for longer periods of the winter and possibly there was an under utilized basement to put a layout into.  Also the population identified with the local trains that were much more visible back east than in the South, Midwest and West.  In looking at a map of the trackage in the USA it made more sense to me.  

To me the knowledge of surfing and surf boards is probably much higher in the West coast than the new England and mid Atlantic States.  Other than seeing surfing in many movies there is probably much less exposure to surfing than in California.

One of the problems is that people are often afraid to talk about their layouts, or show them off (often a lot easier if in a garage, of course, either feeling like people will think it is weird, or in more than a few cases (and perhaps not unjustified), as being a kind of attractive nuisance that might cause someone to break in and steal stuff, not knowing that stolen trains are not likely to be very popular with a fence. 

It is why open houses and club events and so forth are important, and finding other places to promote the hobby, I don't buy the fact that there won't be people, especially younger people, who may not end up interested in it, the difference between back in the day and now is trains (talking model/toy trains) were a lot more visible. 

I live in the Northern Ca Foothills and I have seven substantial layouts within 30 minutes of my layout,most of us have separate buildings for our trains,6 of 7.

Mikey

Great stories guys!!! 

I hope your trains are still all there when you come home.

Dennis

My son and just 2 other friends are the only ones familiar with electric trains out of a class with 50+ kids. Most parents are not even interested in having even a basic train set around the Christmas tree anymore 

BUT

We do invite kids over and they will end up spending hours running the trains and want to be invited over again

Great stories guys - We really need to keep thinking and acting upon ideas to keep trains visible to the general public.