What does the hobby need???

I agree 100% of the bluetooth via phone/remote!  Its the way of the future!  And yes we need to reach all the youngsters that we can. And accept all the newbies that come along here. Ive been on this forum for a year or so and its a tough group! LOL 

Jim 

Great topic Mike!

I think you're right on the money - Phone and Tablet apps to run any tier level train is 100% the way to go, and get those kids interested. This hobby can be overwhelming when it comes to starting out, anyway we can make that easier is a huge plus for any age wanting to invest in it.

Kids don't make anything anymore. Do you remember the hundreds of model kit planes, boats and cars in hobby shops, hardware and variety stores? You don't see that now. When I was a kid it was rare if a boy didn't have a train set. I don't know of any kids with sets. Running trains by your phone is great but who is going to build their layouts for them. They are not interested. Wish it wasn't so. Don

Just my opinion but, I would like to see the O Scale/Hi-Rail suppliers deliver high-end and consistent QUALITY in their products, just like Sunset/3rd Rail/Golden Gate Depot does.

Disagree with the peak being 1960.  There's been several highs for the hobby but for Ogauge 1960 was a year in decline which started in the late 50's and ended with general mills buying Lionel.   The peaks in my opinion were in the late 20's, late 40's early 50's and the early to mid 2000's  We are not in bad shape now and frankly I'm getting sick of the doom and gloom out there, that are hoppy is going to disappear or something.  The hobby is fine.  Ups and downs like everything else.

What we need are well built trains that do as advertise with good customer service.  Something that is big time lacking from all of the importers.

Hot Water posted:

Just my opinion but, I would like to see the O Scale/Hi-Rail suppliers deliver high-end and consistent QUALITY in their products, just like Sunset/3rd Rail/Golden Gate Depot does.

I agree. 

All I ask is better quality. 

Everything else seems better than I would have ever hoped.

What the hobby needs is for people to stop complaining about how bad it is, how it is going down hill, when it peaked, how things are too expensive, if it doesn't fit your budget pass it by.  I don't concern myself with what will happen to either the hobby or my trains when I am gone,  I have no say in either case.  I just enjoy them now and let everyone else worry about things they can't change.  

More O gauge trains were sold by Lionel in the period 1950-1956 than today. Lionel at that time was the largest toy manufacturer in the world.  Today's dollar number may be higher but in the 1950's a high number of households owned model trains. Today the train market primarily serves the same now older but smaller audience as it did in the 1950's and 1960's.  From a children's hobby it has become a mans hobby. I say that this hobby needs to be marketed differently. The answer might be to set up large layouts in facilities (or shows) where kids can come with their smartphones to operate them.  Something along the lines of a Lionel or MTH hobby center.  You charge  admission by the half hour and open the place to families. If the kids like the operating experience you can show them how to build a layout of their own and sell them the equipment or allow them to run their trains at the layout center .  

Hot Water, I think your missing the point of this thread. As I read it, it's about getting kids into the hobby. Most kids I know don't have the two or three thousand dollars to buy a Sunset engine. The problem is trains running in a oval of track can't compete with the newest video game. Don

For Grown Ups to act Grown Up and realize that these these 'things' are after all....

                                                                        TOYS

and they do break!!                                        BUT

That is partly the Fun of it all!!  Unlike a Video Game which can't be repaired, these little toys can be

and help folks to learn how to do so that perhaps later, they can take on bigger repair jobs or model

builders. This way, youngsters can learn 'how to' not 'You Fix it for me'.

More people playing with and enjoying their trains and less people complaining!

Happy railroading,

Don

Dennis LaGrua posted:

I say that this hobby needs to be marketed differently. The answer might be to set up large layouts in facilities (or shows) where kids can come with their smartphones to operate them.  Something along the lines of a Lionel or MTH hobby center.  You charge  admission by the half hour and open the place to families. If the kids like the operating experience you can show them how to build a layout of their own and sell them the equipment or allow them to run their trains at the layout center .  

I think you're spot on. I regularly read that the younger generation prefer to buy experiences than things (think Uber over car ownership). I think your idea or something along these lines could save the LHS. I love my LHS due to nostalgia, but it has a hugely flawed business model and is only still in business as the owner's "lifestyle business," not due to its high profitability. It's stuck in the 1960s.

We took our 10 y/o daughter to a new place called Scene 75 here in Cleveland. Indoor entertainment like video games, laser tag, putt-putt in the dark under colored lights, etc. There's a bar for the parents. It's in an old supermarket and definitely has space for a mega layout. Could be like a club....BYOT (bring your own train), especially with a universal communication mode like Bluetooth enabling smart phones instead of proprietary CAB-1s.

I know that many LHS aren't keen on operating layouts because it's effort and people will play without buying things. It shouldn't be about getting people to buy things. In that model, the Internet wins.  I suggested my LHS offer training on repair (he said it would take away business) and on using new gadgets (like Legacy, etc.).

Lord, I'd pay several hundred dollars to pick the brains of a guy like GRJ or ACDX Rob and have them train me on basic trains electricity, basic train electronics, how to install upgrades, etc.  I'd also pay to have someone with knowledge of real railroad yards help me construct a more realistic yard that would be fun to operate.  There's a ton of knowledge out there, including a ton on this forum, that I think could be monetized if someone wanted to. The challenge, of course, is taking the risk. 

I think THIS industry can thrive if/when it converts to more of a service business. Not service repairs for poor quality, I'm talking about finding ways to sell knowledge and provide skills that will create users of the products. Heck, my brother-in-law would probably struggle to connect two wires from a transformer to a lock-on, but I think he'd pay to have someone do it for him or show him how.

I agree with Scale Rail about trains competing with the electronic, video and the virtual reality world.  Few young people...who are possible the future of the hobby... have any interest in building a layout and watching a train run on the tracks...not when you simulate realistic war battles, sports and even Poke Man.  Also...making more "high end" trains is not the answer.  That will just eliminate more people from being attracted to the hobby and turn many off (or prevent) from continuing the hobby.  Matt

I think that reliability is the key,when a young family buys a train to run around their Xmas tree from Amazon or any of the other big stores and it breaks down,the fun is gone and the bad Memory remains.Product reliability is the key wheather it is entry level or what we forum members are buying.

Mikey

Here’s my 2 cents...

Trains and train sets need to do something. It’s great we have app controlled locomotives, what about app controlled interactive accessories? This past holiday season my nieces and nephews loved the train under the tree but the loved my permanent layout even more. They ran trains loading coal and blocks of ice, tripping  the Lionel firehouse and blowing the horn on the tugboat. The more interactivity the better. 

Also, FPV vehicles are huge now- how about locomotives that have a camera that connects via Bluetooth to your phone  that give you a view of a cab ride in an engine or caboose

Also - think STEM or STEAM maybe one of the manufacturers can come up with a program that gets these toys into the schools to teach tech, engineering and math using trains as examples. Hess does this with their trucks now. 

More Club Layouts, even commercial ones.  How are newcomers supposed to see them run?  Run them themselves?  I belonged to a Club? in San Diego where you could pay to run your trains, or pay and run theirs on their huge layout in a vacant shopping center.  Plenty of vacant shopping centers around.  Many Collectors I know started off as Operators even as kids.  I believe that Layouts are the key to future for all.  More layouts, more operators, more operators, more collectors, more collectors, more manufacturers products to buy.  Thoughts?

Chris Sheldon

scale rail posted:

Hot Water, I think your missing the point of this thread. As I read it, it's about getting kids into the hobby. Most kids I know don't have the two or three thousand dollars to buy a Sunset engine. The problem is trains running in a oval of track can't compete with the newest video game. Don

OK, so you are saying that the starter sets for the beginners, from both Lionel and MTH, are far better quality than the high-end Vision Line items? 

Like all things the hobby has changed greatly.  But 1960 peak??? No.

Change......how many stereo stores are left?? Stationary stores??  Or record shops?? We still use all these things....but how we get them is different. The WGH train show shows LOTS of folks like trains....but there are hundreds if not thousands of other 'hobbies' that compete for disposable income.....they didn't have drones when I was a kid......or many of the other diversions. Change....only constant. 

I think the 1990-2005 was a boom era for trains.....and even today we still get lots of great products.....and folks like Menard;s feel it's worth investing in. Again...change....

Gentlemen,

    Lionel needs a Remote Control Drown type air craft that flies both lifting off, and landing on a Lionel Legacy Military Transport Train, with HHRC that operate both Train and Air Craft.  From the kids interest at the worlds Greatest Hobby Train Show in Monroeville recently,this engineering would make a fortune, and renew interest in the O Gauge hobby with the younger generation.  

PCRR/Dave

For any product manufacturer Quality is king. Regardless of how on-target the Mission and Vision are, without Quality the business cannot thrive. Customer Service is extremely important, but without product Quality, only the most devoted customer will weather frequent disappointments. 

Nowadays, there is so much prewar and postwar bargains. I realize that newcomers entering the hobby might not be attracted to something that isn't new, isn't shiny or something that doesn't have a sound chip in it, but there is lots of great "classic" stuff to be found. Take a look! 

Tom 

The peak for Lionel was 1935 to 1956. The peak for collectors was 1975-1978.

The more reliable our trains are the more mfgs. will sell. But it saying that I have been harping on QC for at least ten years without any improvement from what I have seen. Improving  QC is the only way to get more people involved and that includes kids. 

Mike ..   I have a 18 month old granddaughter who only likes or maybe only can crank it up to full speed ...  Finally I took an old Lionel Number Ho  # 81 RHEOSTAT  ...Wired it in series with one of the Xformer wires ... was able to adjust it to a reasonable speed . 

It does sadden me to see these posts, I am 29  and all this hobby dying talk is a downer. I went to the NC Worlds greatest show. I went with a close friend of the family, practically my uncle. He is an HO man but a genius engineer and helped me wiring and building my layout. On the way to the show he was telling me how he thinks HO is dying and O gauge or Lionel scale is what every one is doing. His mouth dropped open at the show. While it was a great show and i loved it. felt like 25% O and rest was HO or N. All that to this;  I wasn't alive in the hay day, but to me that reads these posts and worries, The Sunday crowd was a breath of fresh air. I could tell  some parents just wanted a free place for kids to run wild well minus their fee; I could see though more people there that were into trains. I know i heard at least 3 time, an older man say, Grandpas day, Pawpaws day. even one that was liked shocked to see something like Fasttrack and kept telling his kid about tubular. I seen plenty of 20-40 some genuinely interested.  I think  the blu tooth, tablet Apple way may be the future. I say that out of 1000 people 600 may be the break out the starter set. a few lionel chief plus and even fewer on the MTH premier, Legacy side. I can see maybe 100 of those 600 starter set guys make to a layout and dcs type control . I will say this, once they start the layout it will consume them in good way. Love my trains but i swear sometimes i enjoy learning stuff from youtube tutorials, DIY and buying stuff for layout is actually better thanrunning them.. jeeez longest post i think ive ever wrote.

superwarp1 posted:

Disagree with the peak being 1960.

I certainly disagree with that as well. As I see it (and I have actively participated since the mid-1950s), the peak years were the post-World War II period up through the early 1960s, followed by an equally important peak from 1990 through about 2010 (give or take a year or two). I really don't worry all that much about the future of the hobby, and it continues to offer me more than what I need, in a material sense and otherwise. I cannot even imagine a more creative and relaxing hobby, and I know for a fact that it has enriched my life in ways no other hobby possibly could.

I think all the model train makers should pool their money and buy a super bowl commercial slot each year. That would have an impact for sure. 

-Eric Siegel

AmeenTrainGuy posted:

I agree with Eric, back when Lionel and other toy train manufactures were popular they used to have ads and department stores featuring their products.  

Yeah, I'm tellin' ya. You do a high quality commercial during the super bowl that can appeal to both kids and adults and it would do wonders for sales numbers. A big issue today is that a lot of people simply are unaware that Lionel (and others) are still making trains...let alone with the kind of technology they feature these days.

A super bowl ad would be way to expensive for one company to afford, but if say Lionel, MTH, Bachmann, Atlas, 3rd Rail and others all chipped in they might be able to do it and just have a commercial that promotes the hobby in general and not one specific brand...though you could have all the brand logos shown somewhere in the commercial for sure. What comes to mike  is when the milk industry did the whole "Got Milk" campaign years ago. It was promoting the drink itself, not any specific brand.

-Eric Siegel

I'd like to see a return (or new issues) of lots of Plasticville-style buildings.  Not all of us care about super detail and lots of parts.  I'm building a toy train layout, not a model of anything that ever existed in the "real world".  The old PV stuff is very bashable, too, if you want something different.

MONON_JIM posted:

What the hobby needs is for people to stop complaining about how bad it is, how it is going down hill, when it peaked, how things are too expensive, if it doesn't fit your budget pass it by.  I don't concern myself with what will happen to either the hobby or my trains when I am gone,  I have no say in either case.  I just enjoy them now and let everyone else worry about things they can't change.  

IMHO this has to be the best answer.   

For or those that worry about what kids think go to a show that has an operating layout. There are plastic barriers and grumpy old men telling them not to touch.  If you want kids to care treat them like you care

Most Boomers were entering high school starting in 1960. That was the beginning of down turn in interest.

Twenty five years later they were established and had money to rekindle their childhood. That started the hoarding/collecting era. Now they're dying at a couple thousand a day. There is a very small number replacing them in the hobby.

The idea that high end pricey stuff will save the hobby is fallacy. Maybe putting an ad in the Sears catalog would work. Most NIB stuff is already down to 50-60 % of purchase price. Adjusted for inflation, maybe 25-30%. The primo (very primo) stuff will hold some better value for awhile.

i don't know the current financial condition of Lionel or MTH, but I would bet they both have drafted an exit strategy. 

Here's what the hobby needs, IMHO:

I'm not doom and gloom about the hobby. It's fun, I have no real complaints. But looking at it from the POV of someone starting? Well...

We need better quality control, ESPECIALLY on starter sets.

I love starter sets. In the last 3 years, I've purchased 5 MTH starter sets and 9 Lion Chief sets. I've had great luck with the MTH sets--zero issues, zero problems.

But of the Lionel sets, the train manufacturer with the biggest brand recognition in the hobby--, 4 were DOA or lasted 5 minutes of operation. For the good of the hobby, these sets need better quality control, or at the least, there needs to be an ironclad guarantee that a kid can get a free replacement shipped to them-- ASAP. Amazon customer service style. That has to be the future--it is becoming expected in the retail world, and I think to get a kid interested, the product has to WORK. Or if it doesn't there has to be an attitude of complete customer satisfaction--instant get er done. Period.

That's missing, I'm afraid. (Which is why I will only buy Lionel starter sets from Amazon if I can help it. When it doesn't work, I ship it back. End of story.)

I might add--when it DOES work, these Lionel starter sets are just marvelous. And that's how to build the hobby.

Secondly, it needs everyone of us who has the means, to put a set into a kid's hands. This Christmas I gave a Polar Express set to a neighbor. She loves it. My pledge is to give away a starter set at least once a year.

We should Johnny Appleseed our way into the future--but to do so, the products need to work.

Pennywise11788 posted:

It does sadden me to see these posts, I am 29  and all this hobby dying talk is a downer. ...

when i was in my late teens, early 20's, i visited a local live steam track frequently and most times they were glad to have a pair of young hands around for construction and maintenance projects.  at the time i remember looking around and thinking, ..."the average club member is probably in their late 60's to early 70's.  it will be sad to see this hobby dying out."  well, it's now 40 years later, i recently got involved with live steam again, and the average club member is still in their late 60's to early 70's.

fun stuff! ...gary

This hobby has been on a decline for several years and that's a reality as sure as death and taxes but some choose to ingnore the facts.

As far as the decline of quality well that's simple. When you manufacture something with inpure materials overseas then add electronic boards to that product your guaranteed to have problems for life. US made conventional control engines rarely had problems and most still run today even after being tortured by little Johnny sixty years ago.

As far a the younger generation grasping this hobby it ain't gonna happen in large numbers. We need to face the the fact that the internet age has taken our children and we're not getting them back.

As far as useing WiFi tablet operated trains to lure the younger generation in again it ain't gonna happen in significant numbers. No matter how interesting you may think that train looks or sounds it still only goes around in a circle and that's not going to compete with video games, Facebook etc.

So here's the bottom line. I wish I could leave my trains and my love of the hobby as my legacy to future youngsters but I know that's not going to happen. I wish all my kid's would fight over which one was going to run the trains but again that's not reality.

So here's the reality I've concluded. I'm gonna buy what I want, build what I want, and run what I want then when I'm gone I don't care what happens to it. It'll probably end up being bought by some old collector who's got some retirement checks to burn.

Personally, Exposure to the Hobby is lacking. Decades back toy, Hobby, department, and even hardware stores had trains, and train sets for sale. There were banners and window displays and ads posted. There were Television ads, especially during Christmas time and catalogs filled with pages of toys and trains. Over several seasons and during the years, I have not seen a single train set in any big stores. What I do see is large aisles and spaces taken up filled with videos games.

There are no more Christmas catalogs, most the big stores, Sears, Wards, Penny's, etc. have closed down. As have Hobby Stores. When was the last time you saw a train set being advertised on TV? Seen a Lionel Banner, or display in a store?

When we were young, we were enticed by catalogs, ads, and displays. What is there to get the younger generation to look into trains except maybe us, ---------------the fathers, and grandfathers that had trains, and still play with them. So unless a child has a mentor to the hobby, they may never be interested, or enticed to the hobby. In a way it's also the train makers losing out, by not advertising, letting the younger generation be exposed to trains.

When toy trains were at their peak, many houses had no TV. Those that did, had 3 channels in most areas. You may as well lament the fact that train ridership in very low. Many of today's kids may never have ridden on a train. 

How come kids today don't collect stamps, build models, or pursue activities that rely on imagination?

Personally, Exposure to the Hobby is lacking. Decades back toy, Hobby, department, and even hardware stores had trains, and train sets for sale. There were banners and window displays and ads posted. There were Television ads, especially during Christmas time and catalogs filled with pages of toys and trains.

Which came first? I think the interest in toy trains and building things were there first. Trains were carried because they SOLD. Businesses advertised because they wanted the customers to buy from THEIR STORE or purchase THEIR BRAND.
Trains were still fairly exciting things in the early postwar period. Kids still aspired to work on the railroad or at least to travel by train.
Do it yourself, building and fixing things were very popular.

We live in a different world today. Trains aren't exciting, they are just there. Kids generally don't talk about going to work for the railroad as an exciting job. (Not that they aren't good jobs, and some folks certain do enjoy working for a RR). US familes don't value the skills developed building a train layout. And how many parents have the skills, space, time, and willingness to spend time building a train layout?

It seems that many younger kids do like Thomas, and are interested in trains for at least a few years. But most of those kids move onto something else.

Enjoy your trains. Introduce interested family and friends to the hobby (which ever sub-hobby you choose).

The hobby will go on, even if every major manufacturer / importer closed their doors.

Enjoy your trains.

C W Burfle posted:

It seems that many younger kids do like Thomas, and are interested in trains for at least a few years. But most of those kids move onto something else.

I think that even from the "good old days" of the 1950's, you'd find that a majority of people that had Lionel, American Flyer, Marx, etc. as kids didn't move on to become model railroaders in any form later in life.

Rusty