Wall Street Journal, and why would people believe that story??? I see the hobby very strong at this point in time. I feel the people involved in the hobby may have a better insight on things. Do not believe everything you read. I learned a long time ago in life to believe someone who has been there and done that.
Mark Twain, after reading his obituary, said something like, "Rumors of my demise have been greatly exaggerated." As a correlation, and I have posted this before, many of the people paying astronomical prices for vintage automobiles were not yet born when those cars were on the streets. Anybody born the day Henry Ford rolled out the first Model T in 1908 is , unlikely, 108 years old. I think the "old; antique", will always be collectible. Model trains are one way to collect that past, preserve it, and are much cheaper to restore, store, and keep running than that Model T. Young families with kids show up at train shows; I see them riding tourist trains. That must have some influence on parent and child. TWO new shops OPENED in the DC area??? We all should have shown up with champagne!
Landsteiner posted:PJB posted:There is another large faction that has an amazingly selfish attitude and cares only about their own enjoyment with no interest in what the future may hold for the hobby.
So if one has other priorities than the sacred future of model railroading and the toy train hobby one is "amazingly selfish?" I think you are way out of line on this. Those who disagree with your priorities are lacking in your virtues?
Some of us simply don't believe that model railroading and toy trains are sufficiently of importance to the future of the human race to be worthy of much thought or action beyond sharing it with our children, grandchildren, etc. Frankly, if I was going to invest energy and money in a crusade, it wouldn't be for model railroading.
Lol. Yes, you've hit the nail on the head! Must dedicate one's life to toy trains or you are evil! Are you serious?
I meant selfish literally. You know, concerned chiefly with one's own personal profit or pleasure ? In case you've been living on another planet your whole life, this is one basic human component. By the way, who said toy trains were one of my priorities? Big assumption there pal.
What you and others making similar comments back at my post don't appear to understand is: the WSJ article and this ensuing thread are a discussion on the future of the hobby. Some have taken the view that its future is secure. Others question how secure it is when the vast majority of young children no longer prioritize or care about toy trains, so no connection is being made. And still others, somehow thinking its a response to this discussion (future hobby health), point out that they are happy sitting in their basements playing with their toy trains and don't care if the Lionels of the world live or die. Basically, this last type of post is a non-answer to this discussion.
All I did was make an observation on all this. And point out that if people who have spent their lives getting benefits from this hobby care about its future, then they should give some thought on how they can impact that.
Feel free to misinterpret this post too ...
Peter
" And point out that if people who have spent their lives getting benefits from this hobby care about its future, then they should give some thought on how they can impact that. "
No they shouldn't. Not unless it is something they think is worth their time and effort. You seem to assume that you can tell other people what they should and shouldn't do with their time and energy.
I've gotten benefit from lasagna and cannolis all my life. Is it OK if I don't feel a compelling need to making sure that lasagna and cannolis are around for the next generation or twelve? 
Landsteiner posted:I've gotten benefit from lasagna and cannolis all my life. Is it OK if I don't feel a compelling need to making sure that lasagna and cannolis are around for the next generation or twelve?
I think it actually depends whether the lasagna and cannolis are graded C-9 or C-10. 
Tom
All I did was make an observation on all this. And point out that if people who have spent their lives getting benefits from this hobby care about its future, then they should give some thought on how they can impact that.
Peel back the layers, and I think many people who claim to care about the future of the hobby have one or both of the following motives/concerns
1 - having product available to purchase
2 - having a decent market to sell their trains when the time comes.
I've done my share to promote family train stuff, model railroading, and collecting. It's someone else's turn.
The whole mindset of, “You’re in the hobby so therefore you MUST get others into it or promote it” is a little odd to me as I don’t see this nearly so much in the other hobbies I enjoy.
I joined the NMRA last year ironically to go to the national convention in Portland (but when the time came, my employer shot down my request for any time off, so I added that to the ever-increasing list of things I couldn’t get time off from work for), and they really push for people to show up at their many events. While I simply don’t have the time for that (and most of their events are WAY far away from where I live), I think it’s great that I have the options if I could ever get time to take part.
I had such a horrible experience with a HO module group in the 90s (don’t ask for details, as I don’t have the time to explain all the details, nor the drama) that I quit the hobby entirely for the better part of a decade. When I came back (once Bachmann made the prototype I always wanted - a ET&WNC ten-wheeler- in On30), I found that a lot had changed, much if it for the better.
I go to op sessions on local layouts ranging from On30 to N and hang with an informal group of local guys who are into model and 1:1 trains. But nothing official.
For a short while I considered joining an On30 module group but eventually I could build my own small layout in my home and run trains when I wanted, not when an event schedule allowed.
Public events are for the most part limited to module groups and there’s simply no way I would ever go that route again.
If I promote the hobby at all, it’s by putting my layout info online.
But there’s simply no requirement for me (or anyone else) to commit time to trying to get others to drink the model train kool-aide.
Frankly, I get a more than a little annoyed when anyone suggests otherwise.
Other than maybe the overwhelming numbers of sports fans, most hobbies are niche interests, and ours is no different. This WSJ article from a obviously non-train-hobby person seems to be the standard "man-bites-dog" news story put out on model railroading.
Most hobbies have their specialty magazines, containing their ads from high-volume suppliers and basement operators alike. No doubt things are evolving, and I'm sure they are evolving from the pre-internet heyday of the superdetailed HO and N layouts still seen in the model train press. That niche seemed to be all that some magazines concentrated on, but who would have predicted the rise of the MTH / Lionel product lines and the things seen in modern 3-rail? Let's not not forget the primitive beginnings (by today's standards) of this hobby during times of less-than-disposable incomes.
We are all wrapped up in our niches-within-niches, and it remains to be seen which niche develops over the others in the future. Dying hobby? Probably not - it's just changing.
Firewood posted:Other than maybe the overwhelming numbers of sports fans, most hobbies are niche interests, and ours is no different. This WSJ article from a obviously non-train-hobby person seems to be the standard "man-bites-dog" news story put out on model railroading.
Most hobbies have their specialty magazines, containing their ads from high-volume suppliers and basement operators alike. No doubt things are evolving, and I'm sure they are evolving from the pre-internet heyday of the superdetailed HO and N layouts still seen in the model train press. That niche seemed to be all that some magazines concentrated on, but who would have predicted the rise of the MTH / Lionel product lines and the things seen in modern 3-rail? Let's not not forget the primitive beginnings (by today's standards) of this hobby during times of less-than-disposable incomes.
We are all wrapped up in our niches-within-niches, and it remains to be seen which niche develops over the others in the future. Dying hobby? Probably not - it's just changing.
I agree- changing hobby not dying. Do folks here remember the 1970's -- 1980's the selection of Model and Toy trains compared to today were "Slim Picking" and the reliability of the model trains were horrible and that's being polite. The last 25 years has seen a huge change - from analog to digital from rough runners to smooth- well in most cases. Quality control and product improvement has given us a plethora of trains and a new Golden Age, Just my opinion.
Actually, if you are in to the pre & post war like Lionel that I am in the hobby(it is a hobby!) most things have stayed pretty much the same. Prices change-they go up and down, dealers and repair people come and go but most things stay at a pretty even keel, The biggest change for us in this hobby is the internet, which has broadened the hobby quite a bit. Much more access to buying items for your collection/hoard and tech information as we see on this website. It is fun-we pay for it-enjoy while you can. I am.
This just occurred to me, after reading and contemplating several of the sentiments shared above.
These forums, the magazines, and the meets and shows are a big social factor in keeping this hobby interesting , vital, satisfying, and alive and well. Enjoying activities with others is a healthy thing. The social factor in our hobby is far better than what used to be the case, with lone hobbyists keeping to themselves in basements or backyard shacks, tinkering with a layout. It is the together-factor, as well as the nostalgia and sentiment, that have sustained this hobby of ours, and it continues to do so. Sharing is good. The hobby is alive and well because we are - all of us, every age range and demographic - alive and well and creative.
Frank the frank.
Y'all think too much. Go play with your trains. Enjoy them.
Pete
Nothing against the older hobbyists (I'm in that category myself) but I wonder if an author should interview younger folks, like Mike Reagan, Scott Mann, Derek of Notch 6, some of our younger forum participants, etc. if they want fully realized insight into and vision of the future of the industry and hobby? Such younger folks may well still be active in the industry/hobby in 20 years, unlike many of us older folks. Interviewing hobbyists in their late 70s and early 80s obviously gives you one, entirely valid, perspective. But not the perspective about what the more distant future holds for those now in middle age (however you define that ) or younger.
C W Burfle posted:All I did was make an observation on all this. And point out that if people who have spent their lives getting benefits from this hobby care about its future, then they should give some thought on how they can impact that.
Peel back the layers, and I think many people who claim to care about the future of the hobby have one or both of the following motives/concerns
1 - having product available to purchase
2 - having a decent market to sell their trains when the time comes.
I've done my share to promote family train stuff, model railroading, and collecting. It's someone else's turn.
I totally agree. And I think a third motivation is - it's brought the particular individual such enjoyment that the individual hopes the hobby is around for others (perhaps future children or grandchildren?) who haven't yet experienced it to also have the opportunity to enjoy it. Let's face it, a hobby is a community of similarly-minded people (in some respects) and meant to be shared.
In terms of other hobbies, I am an advisor to the Overstreet Comic Book Price Guide and a life-long collector, with the bulk of my collection running from 1937 - 1955. The vast majority of the comic book hobby cares about the hobby's future probably for two main reasons: (1) books appreciate so long as demand sustains; and (2) the characters have a continued (and now, thanks to Hollywood, growing) fan base and people want to see more examples of the books they read.
I've been lucky enough to purchase some amazing collections along the way too and you'd be surprised at how many original owner collections come my way rather than to dealers because the sellers don't want to just cash out. They want the books to go to someone who appreciates them and will be the steward of these ephemeral treasures till its time for resale again.
I think there is this stance that folks are taking that you HAVE to want to promote the hobby, or that you HAVE to not care about it. I think that those that do not care about promoting model trains or sharing them with others have every right to follow that plan, and there is nothing wrong with doing your own thing without regard for anyone else. On the other hand, if that is the stance you take, what value it there in joining a discussion on how to fix a supposedly dying hobby? if you do not care if no one new is getting involved, does it matter to you at all if those that do want to see it live on want to discuss ways to get others involved? To my thinking this is the same as being a conventional operator and joining a conversation about differences in DCS and Legacy with the response "just run conventional!" sure, it is a valid opinion, but it adds nothing of use to the conversation.
I think it is perfectly fair for someone to point out the number of people that do not care about bringing new folks in as a reason for a shrinking number of new hobbyists. It is most certainly a contributing factor. This does not mean that those people are doing anything wrong, or that they must be forced to start recruiting people, but it IS a factor to be considered. Is there something about trains that attracts people that are loners? Something that attracts folks that are anti-social? I do not know, but a real news story might have gone into some details on the other demographics involved in model trains before printing that it is a bunch of old guys 'trundling' about.
As a note, my philosophy on life is specifically anti-alturistic. No one should ever be forced to 'help' someone else. You may choose to give charity, or to help others, and these things give you some value on their own, but there is no value in being forced to 'help' others. With trains, I see it as value added to my life to be part of the community here. I gain knowledge from others, and from time to time share knowledge with others. I also see it as valuable to me to bring new people into the hobby. I would like the manufactures to keep making product. Sure there is plenty already made to keep me happy, but I like seeing the new offerings every year. Gives me something to look forward to buying in 10 years on the secondary market.
In the end, for those that DO want to keep things alive, is there any consensus on what actually works? Are any of you 2nd or 3rd generation model railroaders? Any of you have grown children or grand children that have their own layouts? Not just enjoy hanging with 'grandpa'? Are the thousands of kids attending train shows just passing time, the same as going to a circus, or air show? maybe the same hand full of kids growing up to play with trains as grow up to be pilots or animal trainers?
Another question is who is needed to keep production up? In the article it mentioned that 60% of business for Big L was to the 'serious' people... but what does that mean? Is the 60% your folks buying Legacy engines? I don't think so. I think 60% is all O-gauge combined. The other 40% will be the toy-like products like the G-gauge and "little lines" products, video games, and general merchandise like bar stools and clocks. That 60% then is everything from the starter set under the tree to the VL BigBoy. And that is quite a huge spread of consumer between the products. It would be my guess that those starter sets keep the company in business while the high end product work like things like Ford's GT. Fantastic automobile, incredible engineering, and all around a toy for the high end collector that is both out of reach, and impractical for the average joe. What it does do is gain interest for folks that may not other wise have looked at a Ford. You might sell a bunch of Focuses and Mustangs to folks enamored with the GT. All in all, good marketing on a product you can not make a lot of direct return on investment with. Of course this is all just conjecture, and there is no information to support it, just common sense reasoning.
I don't know what can be done for trains in the future, but I am willing to bet that the big manufactures are not looking to folks that are 87 years old as the target market for their product in 10-20 years... though they just might be looking at people that will be 87 in 20 years. I'm fairly sure that 33 year olds with no children are not even considered.
JGL
Just look at all the other hobbies people thought would be dead, yet keep going.
A great example is Civil War re-enacting. People expected that once the Centennial of the war was over in 1965, nobody would stay in it. But look how much larger (and more impressive with authenticity) it's gotten in those years.
Model trains will always be around, just not as the older people remember.
On the other hand, if that is the stance you take, what value it there in joining a discussion on how to fix a supposedly dying hobby? if you do not care if no one new is getting involved, does it matter to you at all if those that do want to see it live on want to discuss ways to get others involved?
I missed where people on this thread were discussing how to fix a supposedly dying hobby. To me, this thread seems to be about whether the hobby is dying.
We've had many threads about how to promote the hobby in the past. I just don't think this is one of them.
I don't think the hobby is dying and the "sky is falling" attitude is annoying. I like P51's comparison to re-enacting since I have been in that for 40 years doing 3 or4 wars. It goes in cycles: first it was the Rev War in 1976, then the Civil War and Gettysburg was a REALLY big one. We had 10 thousand men on the field plus 100 cannon at G-burg. Talk about awesome, and I did the 50th D-day anniversary at Ft. Story, Va. which was also stunning. Beats movies because YOU ARE THERE !! Planes, guns, ships, tanks, smoke and firing machine guns. The SEALS were setting off demo charges simulating shell bursts. So Rev War is down, Civil War is down but WW II is more popular again because of the movies. So trains will run in cycles too. If the big boys do their part and are good businessmen it will stay. And I have promoted train collecting and running in my own small way.
At 84 years with a dormant layout, I have no comment
.
jim pastorius posted:I did the 50th D-day anniversary at Ft. Story, Va. which was also stunning. Beats movies because YOU ARE THERE !! Planes, guns, ships, tanks, smoke and firing machine guns. The SEALS were setting off demo charges simulating shell bursts.
Cool beans, Jim. I was there, too! I was with K Company, 1st ID. Our LCM was the one that the .30 caliber team dropped that water cooled MG into the drink and the SEALs had to fish it out afterward. What a great event that was, even though I was horribly sunburned and insanely dehydrated afterward.
Dewey Trogdon posted:At 84 years with a dormant layout, I have no comment
Now, there's something key.
All hobbies are suffering, many blame computers, I think we are on the kids of a generation who's adults did not pursue anything hobby related, too busy making money, then losing it all. The down turn in 2008 saw the only hobby shop here in my town, sell out of just about everything, models that sat on the shelf so long, the boxes were faded were gone. The owner said, everybody was staying home and doing in the house stuff with the kids. He restocked with the largest order he ever made and business was good...for a while. Now the boxes are faded again.
Poignant and a lesson, CALNNC.
BTW, I just Googled "Steam Locomotive Bells and Whistles."
What a treat, to be reminded. Who can resist those sounds!?
One of the things that are hurting new people getting into the hobby is the cost of the new high tech trains.
If you are thinking about going into a new hobby and you pick up a Lionel or a MTH catalog your mouth will drop when you look at the prices!
Should I spend $1200 on one engine then a system to run it then the rolling stock and don't forget the track, wire, switches and on and on. Then you need the room for the layout and the kids, well I'm not sure how long you will keep their interest once they outgrow Thomas the Tank.
Or should I buy a drone with an HD video camera for less then half the price that I can fly all around and then watch all my videos that I took on my HD 4K TV. Oh and my kids would love flying it!
What do you think?
Rich,
It's like I said a page ago in different words - it's the rare 5 and 6 year old that is going to care about a $1,200 scale locomotive with all the latest technology over the conventional non-scale train set. And it's the rare 10-12 year old who is going to prefer the set or the $1,200 scale locomotive with the latest technology over a $650 drone that has a live camera feed to the iPad.
High-tech is high-tech. Putting some new technology into a toy train doesn't make it high-tech or change the fact that the item itself is basically a simple toy. You watch it go round and round, puff smoke and blow a whistle. The fact is, it's the institutional knowledge in people that makes a toy train that has synchronized chuff/puff, Doppler, crew chat, iPhone command, etc. seem like high-tech, given they are comparing it to what they grew up with - the old-fashioned "whoo whoo" non-scale conventional operation version.
Peter
Peter,
I agree with you, kids today have so many ways to entertain themselves that our hobby is not on the top of their list.
I'm 72,and my last son was born in 1989, he was a Thomas the Tank nut! I thought thank goodness for Thomas but as he got older no more Thomas and our layout became my layout. He loss interest when he started playing video games.
When his friends would come over I would say to them come on down and run the trains. Well they did, but it only lasted a few minuets and then they all left to go play more video games. My son is now 26 and he could care less about the trains or the layout.
How many kids today in the USA ride on trains or even see a passenger trains shoot by at a crossing gate? When I was growing up it was a common thing to see and some times we would even wait for the trains to run by.
I think that the "O" gauge hobby is in trouble as far as how long it will keep afloat. The cost keeps going up and like you said how many times can you watch a train go round and round?
Peter,
I echo your comments as I can't even get my wife to go to a train show much less come to one of the clubs I am a member. My nieces and nephews had an interest - but that faded long ago - what is happening now, is I take their kids to shows - granted they are 2 and up but when they make it they stay all day. My son and daughter, 28 and 24, are no different that my nephews. So for the hobby to live long and prosper it will be up to us to offer alternatives to Video Games which are high sensory - highly engaging and interactive. Hell, I use the Play Station 3/4 for movies and games - Love NASCAR -
Lead by example - they will follow - the younger folks will come along for the ride.
Here is the complete article...
Industry struggles to find new platforms for once popular pastime
Howard Zane has been working on the railroad for thirty years--building a massive model train set complete with 150 locomotives, thousands of feet of track and more than 6,000 figures. He's expanded his basement twice to accommodate the train set's ever-growing spread. Photo: Madeline Marshall/The Wall Street Journal
By
James R. Hagerty
The Wall Street Journal
Updated Feb. 10, 2016 10:28 p.m. ET
https://www.wsj.com/articles/e...rundle-on-1455157546
For Christmas in 1960, Ron Mei got a Lionel train set. More than 55 years later, he still hasn’t found a better toy.
By creating model railroads, “you learn carpentry,” said Mr. Mei, 62 years old, who runs a motorcycle-parts business in Phoenix and spends 20 to 25 hours a week with his trains. “You learn electric. You learn painting. Kids today, they have skill in one thing—that’s a videogame or a smartphone.”
Model train drawing
Once thought of as every boy’s dream toy, model trains have become a domain mainly for old men. At clubs devoted to the hobby, members below 60 years old are the young bucks. Some retirement homes provide model-railroading rooms for their residents.
“I’m a dinosaur,” said Howard Zane, 77, of Columbia, Md., a retired industrial designer who has expanded his basement twice to accommodate an ever-growing model railroad, now including more than 1,000 railcars. “My wife says I’m collectible.”
Mr. Zane, Mr. Mei and other enthusiasts yearn to pass their pastime on to future generations. They fear it will be shunted onto a sidetrack of toy history.
Toddlers still adore Thomas the Tank Engine, of course. Nostalgic parents still buy train sets to trundle around the Christmas tree. Yet today’s younger set generally isn’t taking up model railroading as a lifelong mission.
“If it’s not a hand-held device or something free on the Internet, it’s of very little value to them,” said Charlie Getz, 67, president of the National Model Railroad Association, which calculates that the average age of its nearly 19,000 members is 64, up from 39 in the mid-1970s.
Mr. Mei’s 26-year-old son, Tony, said he is impressed by the fine detail that goes into his father’s layout, re-creating train scenes of the mid-1950s, right down to the pigeons at the train stations and the rust streaks on box cars.
Is the younger Mr. Mei tempted to take up the hobby? “To be honest,” he said, “not really.”
Lionel LLC, a 116-year-old company now based in Concord, N.C., isn’t giving up. Instead, it is concocting trains that old-timers wouldn’t recognize. Along with its traditional train sets, mostly made in China, Lionel offers videogames, including Battle Train and City Builder 3D.
Carl Izzo, 83, has been building his current train layout since 1992. Photo: James R. Hagerty/The Wall Street Journal
At the New York Toy Fair, opening Feb. 13, Lionel plans to introduce a train product called Mega Tracks, aimed at children eight years old and up. The tracks will be more like those of a roller-coaster, and the trains will be remote-controlled.
“It really won’t resemble a train,” said Howard Hitchcock, chief executive of Lionel. “They’re almost more like spacecraft, to be quite honest with you.” Plain old trains wouldn’t do: “We have to come up with things that jazz up the kids of today,” Mr. Hitchcock said.
Lionel still makes authentic trains and associated gear for serious hobbyists, who account for about 60% of sales. Owned by the private-equity firm Guggenheim Partners, Lionel doesn’t disclose financial results.
The Western Pennsylvania Model Railroad Museum, near Pittsburgh, promotes the hobby by offering a 20-hour Model Railroading 101 course each winter for $60.
Last year, no one signed up. This year, 11 people attended the opening session. Six were over 60 years old. The youngest was 15-year-old Alex Edder, who recently earned a Boy Scout merit badge in model railroading and wanted to learn more.
Bill Humphrey, 70, a volunteer who led the class, warned newbies that brass tracks tend to oxidize and don’t conduct electricity “worth a ****.” He also stressed that the hobby isn’t just chugging along with antiquated technology: Computerized controls are common, and “you can download all these diesel sounds.”
Perhaps the most ambitious advocate for the hobby is Verryl Fosnight, 73, a real-estate investor in Sedona, Ariz. In a steel building he erected for the purpose, Mr. Fosnight is replicating a stretch of the Union Pacific railroad as it was in 1957 in Wyoming and Utah. It covers nearly 4,000 square feet.
Mr. Fosnight has a full-time employee, Allen Montgomery, to help him create his diorama. “I am the luckiest guy in Arizona,” said Mr. Montgomery, who describes himself as a “model railroad super geek.” At 41, Mr. Montgomery is younger than most such geeks but, he said, “I never felt part of my generation.” He spent days researching the freight depot at the Cheyenne train station as it looked in 1957 so he could build a replica, including “the scratches and the dings and the gouges” on the loading dock.
Once a month, Mr. Fosnight holds an open house for people who want to operate his trains. Most participants are adults, but some teenagers and children show up.
They include Steven Hill, age 11. He described Mr. Fosnight’s layout as “a little more realistic than a videogame.” Few of Steven’s friends share his enthusiasm, however. “They don’t even know how fun it is,” he said. “I try to bring it up in conversation, but they start talking about football.”
In Murrysville, Pa., Carl Izzo has been working since 1992 on a train layout that fills an 825-square-foot room in his basement. An 83-year-old retired chemist, Mr. Izzo long ago stopped trying to convert his 10 grandchildren to the cause. He knows of no children in his neighborhood who might take an interest. Nonetheless, construction proceeds.
Guiding a recent visitor through his basement, Mr. Izzo said: “What you’re looking at is the makings of a limestone pit.” He pointed to a pinewood train table, stacked with supplies and surrounded by coiling train tracks. The limestone pit would go with the coking-coal plant he already has built for his loosely historical steel town. It also includes Louie’s bar, in memory of a tavern run by one of his uncles in Dunbar, Pa.
“Right here,” he said, gesturing toward another miniature construction site, “is going to be a short stretch of water—barges—and this is the gantry crane that is going to pick up the iron ore from the barges.”
Mr. Izzo isn’t sure when he will finish but promises it will happen by 2032, when he will be 100. “At the rate I’m going,” he said, “it’s going to take that long.”
Write to James R. Hagerty at bob.hagerty@wsj.com
Appeared in the February 11, 2016, print edition as 'As Model Trains Near Line’s End,Aging Hobbyists Trundle On.'
Questor posted:“If it’s not a hand-held device or something free on the Internet, it’s of very little value to them,” said Charlie Getz, 67, president of the National Model Railroad Association, which calculates that the average age of its nearly 19,000 members is 64, up from 39 in the mid-1970s.
Seems pretty clear to me that they're discussing the same members, just in different years.
Just about all hobbies are in decline, most reasons given are the obsession with computers and games. There are postings here about the lack of rolling stock model kits, at the same time folks like to buy highly detailed ready to run. There is still building involved when you want a layout, that is a plus, but the 'building' part of every thing else seems to have lost interest. The only hobby shop left in my town, had models on the shelves in the front window that had been there so long, the colors on the boxes had faded. When the downturn started in 2008, people stayed home more, and apparently took up model building. I went in the shop one day and the shelves were almost empty. The owner said for the first time in almost 20 years, they had made a large purchase from their vendor to restock the store. Sad to say, the store is again full of faded box models. In Amateur Radio, the technology is such now that building for the majority is not pursued like it was when things could be built from discarded TV sets, or every town had a parts house. Now it seems, hams are perfectly happy to spend $2k to $18K for a radio, another $3K to $5K for an amplifier, buy their antenna cable with the connectors already installed, hook it to a multiband antenna that works marginally at the best, and think they are happy because they can work everything they can hear. Tell them they aren't hearing much, and they get mad. All hobbies used to have entry level stuff, you could get started with a small outlay, and the quality was good enough to not be discouraging, not so much today, unless entry level starts at 500.
CALNNC posted:Just about all hobbies are in decline, most reasons given are the obsession with computers and games. There are postings here about the lack of rolling stock model kits, at the same time folks like to buy highly detailed ready to run. There is still building involved when you want a layout, that is a plus, but the 'building' part of every thing else seems to have lost interest. The only hobby shop left in my town, had models on the shelves in the front window that had been there so long, the colors on the boxes had faded. When the downturn started in 2008, people stayed home more, and apparently took up model building. I went in the shop one day and the shelves were almost empty. The owner said for the first time in almost 20 years, they had made a large purchase from their vendor to restock the store. Sad to say, the store is again full of faded box models. In Amateur Radio, the technology is such now that building for the majority is not pursued like it was when things could be built from discarded TV sets, or every town had a parts house. Now it seems, hams are perfectly happy to spend $2k to $18K for a radio, another $3K to $5K for an amplifier, buy their antenna cable with the connectors already installed, hook it to a multiband antenna that works marginally at the best, and think they are happy because they can work everything they can hear. Tell them they aren't hearing much, and they get mad. All hobbies used to have entry level stuff, you could get started with a small outlay, and the quality was good enough to not be discouraging, not so much today, unless entry level starts at 500.
Times and things change, in model railroading once upon a time, you had to make a lot of the things you used because there just wasn't a lot of commercial offerings (talking more scale here, leaving out toy trains because they were the opposite of scale, it was almost entirely RTR stuff). These days, it is very different, almost everything is RTR in the scale world, engine and car kits are pretty much a thing of the past, and even with structures there is a lot of ready built stuff out there..and to be honest, the RTR stuff today is better quality than most of the kit stuff out there.
Ham radio was never that cheap a thing, the transmitters and amplifiers and other gear was expensive when I looked into it (true, this was the 1970's, not earlier, but still) and most people in the hobby at the time from what I could tell, were not scrounging equipment, they were buying it (and things like Heathkit ham gear was not cheap). Yeah, you could homebrew a 2 meter rig from parts scrounged from here or there, back in the days of tubes you could scrounge stuff from old tv sets, or even in the solid state era you could scrounge discrete components, but that era ended a long time ago, and I suspect if you adjust prices for inflation, that what ham gear goes for these days is likely in real dollars what I recall from the 1970's.
With doom and gloom forecasts you always have to be careful, because a lot of them are based in ideas that don't really hold water. When Lionel trains were a big commercial product (post war "golden age"), for example, they were pretty much what they claimed to be, a mass market toy of the age, that for a variety of reasons as tastes changed fell by the wayside, as would other things (slot cars were huge for a while, they went their way, other things have been fads and disappeared, or became another part of the toy market that sought its own level). The modern incarnation of toy trains is very different, much of the market is either based on nostalgia for the post war era (the collectors/those who run post war stuff, either original or newer versions of it), or it is based on something that didn't really exist in the golden age, 3 rail scale focused modelling with a lot of sophisticated features that rival or beat what scale has, and it is different that it isn't aimed at kids primarily, it really is an adult hobby mostly. As far as getting older, can't argue that one, but to be honest that is true of a lot of hobbies, from the train clubs I have been to with scale 2 rail, from seeing pictures of the people doing the layouts in Model Railroader, they tend to be older, too, and it isn't surprising, that is true of a lot of leisure time activities. People in their 20's and 30's are busy with careers and establishing families (or having a good time), and people with young families don't have the time or monetary resources for that much hobby activity.....time and money tend to concentrate as we get older, so it isn't a big surprise it slews older.
Classical music is much the same way, the death of it has been proclaimed pretty much even in its supposed golden age, yet it keeps on going along, despite facing challenges all along the way, and I have read things from the 19th century that talk about the challenges of 'grey haired audiences'. Like hobbies, classical music is something that tends to be 'discovered' later, and it has never been a mass produced thing per se, it has always been a niche, heifetz back in the day would sell 50,000 albums and that was considered "wow", popular artists like Benny Goodman would sell in the millions, same later on with rock music...yet somehow classical music survives pretty much the same way it always has.
Like classical music, which has seen shrinkage, the 3 rail market is going to experience shrinking. It is likely that the large segment devoted to the post war nostalgia will further decline, and the ongoing segment is going to be the more scale aspects of the hobby, if it is going to exist when the baby boom, including myself, pass out of the picture,this will be the reason...but it will exist I am sure. From experience, the only reason post war still has some legs to it is besides the baby boom nostalgia types (myself included), is because there are still people dreaming of gold in them that hills, that it is going to become another hot 'collectible' again (which I doubt, but they seem to believe it).
The one thing that is certain, for almost anything, there are always going to be articles about 'how it is going to die'. In the 1970's and early 80's, there were articles about the 'graying of suburbia, how young people weren't going to live there,they were dying...and then after that suddenly the 'unfashionable' burbs became popular again and there have been cycles of building booms *shrug*. Among other things, such pieces sell, same with other kinds of doom and gloom, saying "everything is fine" doesn't sell well.
A lot of truth in that article. I think the key point is that the average toy train hobbyist's age used to be late 30s but is now at least 30 years older as fewer young people enter the hobby.
In terms of the comments someone posted that every hobby is suffering due to video games, that's a broad brush statement and far from accurate in my humble opinion. I'm an advisor to the Overstreet Comic Book Price Guide and I can tell you the comic book hobby continues to explode. Also, my twin sons are on the school's robotics team and that too is a growing hobby - and it involves a lot of tedious building and planning work.
So what makes toy trains different? I for one think a lot of it has to do with holding a person's intellectual interest. I love my locomotives and all the details of my passenger cars. I love to plan a layout and some of the building aspects too. But once it's built and up and running, it's now static and offers nothing new at all - without further tweaking. For anyone over 8 years old, after watching the train traverse the layout a few times, there's little intellectual satisfaction in watching a train go round and round and round day after day after year on the exact same route. Like Groundhog Day. I mean how many days in a row can I watch the same exact episode of a TV show?
PJB posted:
...So what makes toy trains different? I for one think a lot of it has to do with holding a person's intellectual interest. I love my locomotives and all the details of my passenger cars. I love to planning a layout and some of the building aspects too. But once it's built and up and running, it's now static and offers nothing new at all - without further tweaking. For anyone over 8 years old, after watching the train traverse the layout a few times, there's little intellectual satisfaction in watching a train go round and round and round day after day after year on the exact same route. Like Groundhog Day. I mean how many days in a row can I watch the same exact episode of a TV show?
Well said. I agree with everything you said, but the last sentence. For myself (and maybe only myself), if you have a stressful job, sometimes just that repetitive motion of watching the train go round and round or running the same point to point operation can be good therapy. Also, certain classic TV shows (the early MASH shows for one), I can watch over and over. 
Tom
Hopefully introducing a young child into a hobby at a early stage and having them involved will plant a seed. This seed may not sprout right away but may start to grow when that person is in the late 20"s early 30's and is looking for a hobby of sorts. I m also int scale RC boats and if you think trains are nor as p[popular RC scale boats takes the prize. We do get younger people involved and since our club is 30 years old we do see some starting this hobby.
Lets hope that Lionel/MTH produce products that we all like.
bigo426 posted:Lionel, according to the article, is going to introduce a non train looking remote controlled roller coaster of sort. This is to help appeal to today's kids.
I do not think these are working. You can buy a whole set at Ollie's Bargain Outlet for $20.
Mr. Muffin, in his latest York Grandstand report, said Ryan Kunkel reported that Lionel had the strongest year in over a decade. Not sure what "strongest year" means, exactly, but still it's encouraging news for the hobby, it would seem.
I WENT TO THE TRAIN SHOW AT THE NEW YORK BOTANICAL GARDENS LAST YEAR. I SPOKE TO ONE OF THE MANAGERS THERE AND WAS TOLD THAT THEY GET BETWEEN 450,000 AND 500,000 VISITORS BETWEEN THANKSGIVING AND JANUARY. THERE WERE SO MANY PARENTS WITH THEIR KIDS AT THIS SHOW, I WAS AMAZED. LIONEL AND MTH SHOULD HAVE SIMILAR SHOWS AT VARIOUS VENUES AROUND THE USA AND EVEN THE WORLD. KIDS LOVE TRAINS AND SO DO THEIR DADS. IT TEACHES THEM SO MANY SKILLS THAT CAN BE USED IN LIFE. IF THE NYBG CAN GET THAT MANY PEOPLE WALKING THROUGH THIS LAYOUT, IMAGINE WHAT LIONE AND MTH COULD DO NATION WIDE?
Marty Fitzhenry posted:Wall Street Journal, and why would people believe that story??? I see the hobby very strong at this point in time. I feel the people involved in the hobby may have a better insight on things. Do not believe everything you read. I learned a long time ago in life to believe someone who has been there and done that.
Well said Marty, These so called Journalist always got us with one foot in the ground. I am taking mine with me. So they can kiss my dead end. My son will be taking over.
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