Most Hilarious Letter Ever (In My Experience) To The Magazine!

[Darth Santa Fe]

richhotrain

Toy trains began to lose their fascination in the early 1970s, and video games caused their decline.  In 1972, Atari introduced Pong.  Two years later, in 1974, Nintendo introduced its first video game.  The rest is history.

And then after the video game crash of '83, people started putting their money into trains again, and some real quality stuff started to appear around that time in all scales!

Toy trains and video games are part of a healthy, balanced entertainment diet.

That's one side of the entertainment room, and the other side is my HO layout, and then my room upstairs has all the Lionel, AF, and Marx trains.

Some people only focus on one thing. I divide my time instead, and it works out well for all but my wallet!

[RAVL]

My takeaway was the same as the editor's so I thought the letter was fine.  There were other "distractions" for kids, and kids like to play with things they see in the world around them.  For my two boys, they like trains but they don't share the same enthusiasm for the NYC and PA railroads that I have.  They see Amtrak equipment, and have been on Amtrak trains, and so when they show interest in O gauge trains they want a Genesis locomotive or an AEM-7, or a "bullet nose" locomotive.  And when they want to play with freight trains, they show great interest in the newest generation of diesel locomotives, not the GP-9s of F-units that are my primary interest.  (My youngest does have great enthusiasm for steam engines that smoke, however.)

Plus all of a sudden there were other neat toys for kids -- R/C and slot cars, TV, etc.  Today that issue has only grown more acute with video games.  Hence some of the challenges in trying to get young kids into the hobby.   As far as indoor hobbies go (they need to go outside and play some sports too), I prefer trains for kids because building a layout teaches actual, useful skills and requires some discipline, all things necessary for life.  Whereas a "skill" such as being proficient in video games is largely, in my opinion, useless and likely to lead to other behavioral issues.

[Dave632]

 To get serious about this issue I have to agree there were more than one reason for the decline of toy trains thru the late 50s and on. My grandsons who are now 6 and 8 do like the trains and they like to run them whenever they come over.

 They do however like video games and so do I. I play the games with them and I feel there are surely some benefits to playing the games such as improved concentration and surely hand eye coordination. Those skills are very useful in life. Some of the games are pretty awful however, just like today's music, and I do not like them at all.