Appalling lack of train stuff

[FJ and G]

Hi everyone. I've been channel flicking of late and have noticed that there are certain hobbies that get a lot of attention on the boob tube; namely, motorcycles, street rods, home improvement, cooking, gardening, military history, airplanes; but almost nothing ever on trains or model trains.

Two days ago I went to Barnes & Nobles Bookstore in Manassas. There wasn't a single book about trains in the transportation section; tho there were books on farm tractors and equipment and fire trucks.

Went to the hobby & craft section and not a single book about model or toy trains; but a fat book on hot wheels and all sorts of other things.

This was NOT a small Barnes & Nobles, but the big one. And, this was a first as usually there are at least a dozen or so books on trains and even several on toy trains; you know those book table toy train books with a lot of pictures in them.

I'm beginning to wonder if I'm a member of a small group of fanatics.

Dave Vergun

[Anonymous]

Dont know if you guys have PBS but every week there is a show called Tracks Ahead it's really good. They take you all over the world and show different railways, Also they do a clip on model railroading all scales .Some of the views are great espcially with a 51inch tv with HDTV


hey hows you waterfall coming along

scratch

[cnw1995]

We have both a Barnes and Nobles and a Borders in town - Borders has dozens of train books, including Lionel overviews, and lots of magazines including CTT, OGR, and even Briti***rain modeling magazines. B&N, right down the block, has next to nothing, as Dav mentioned, tractors, cars and trucks. Just MR mag...so I go to Borders...

[Anonymous]

Dave,

In Run 200 of OGR there was an interview with the heads of the big six train manufacturers. Jim Weaver of Atlas (there should be a Joe Atlas of Weaver) described the Model Train hobby as a "Small and eccentric market". We, deep in the trees sometimes lose sight of how small our forest really is.

I would suspect that at most there are only about 250,000 people in the hobby no matter their gauge or preference. And our eccentricity is readily apparent - just spend a day or two on any forum. Even within O gauge there are three or four main 'religions' and they are typically engaged in various holy wars. And this doesn't include the various sub-cults such as the "MTH"ers or the Lionels or the Atlas fanatics.

So since publishing is at its heart a business, the reason there is so little published is due to the diminutive size and fractured nature of the market. Next time you are at the bookstore go to the magazine rack and count the titles for model railroading (any type) versus the number for photography, computer gaming, stereo, or even quilting. We are a small and eccentric market.

How is our market demographic characterized? Upper middle-class, older male. You can see that in Lincoln and Lexus car adds wherein model trains where featured (the LS adds were about three years ago). So while we are a small and eccentric market we are a relatively well-off market. This demographic also explains our, shall we say, tendencies; most successful, upper-middle class males are rather opionated.

So its not surprising. What is surprising is that we do have so many manufacturers providing goods to the market. Most of the publishing for our market is done as cottage industries. Maybe something you should look into????!!!!!!

[FJ and G]

Doug,

Yes, Borders does have train books. Perhaps there's an anti-foamer at B&N?

Tex,

Good observations. It is a wonder that there are so many toy train companies; and a holy war is a pretty good way to describe it, with attack ads, court battles, and mullahs on the various forums espousing their brand religion.

If you like birds or Xmen or travel, there are a bunch of magazines and you have cited others. With so many toy train companies, I'm esp. surprised that there is only CTT and OGR (imagine their horror with another startup). And both magazines have trouble holding to their material. CTT runs modern stuff sometimes, not considered classic; and does not always include an S article; and OGR runs Boyle's "classic toy" column as well as classic toy layouts and doesn't seem to run much of O scale 2 rail or On30.

So, it wouldn't surprise me if another magazine, perhaps titled Hi-Rail, might make inroads.

Another point. In the old 50s and even early 60s National Geographic magazines, there are bunches of ads for train travel; whereas today, the only one you might find would be Acela.

dav

[DSchmitt]

QUOTE: Originally posted by FJ and G

Hi everyone. I've been channel flicking of late and have noticed that there are certain hobbies that get a lot of attention on the boob tube; namely, motorcycles, street rods, home improvement, cooking, gardening, military history, airplanes; but almost nothing ever on trains or model trains.

Two days ago I went to Barnes & Nobles Bookstore in Manassas. There wasn't a single book about trains in the transportation section; tho there were books on farm tractors and equipment and fire trucks.

Went to the hobby & craft section and not a single book about model or toy trains; but a fat book on hot wheels and all sorts of other things.

This was NOT a small Barnes & Nobles, but the big one. And, this was a first as usually there are at least a dozen or so books on trains and even several on toy trains; you know those book table toy train books with a lot of pictures in them.

I'm beginning to wonder if I'm a member of a small group of fanatics.

Dave Vergun

On the other hand Motorbooks http://www.motorbooks.com/ , a big player in the car and tractor book field started a line of train books awhile back, and has published some very good ones[:D]

[Anonymous]

While I was getting a new tire put on at Sears last night, I stopped by the local Books a Million, and browsed through all the train books I could find. There were at least 15 train books in the transportation section, and about 5 different Lionel and 1 MTH book in the collectables sections. Seems that Books a Million caries what people want to read around my town.[^]

[guilfordrr]

Guys:
Border's is actually owned by Barnes and Noble.

Seems our local B&N is doing well on train stuff...there are (at last count[:D])
7 different train magazines. On the other hand, no train books in sight....?

[Dave Farquhar]

I think it's actually B. Dalton that's owned by Barnes & Noble, and Borders is a different company.

I'm pretty sure I've seen MR at both B. Dalton and Waldenbooks, let alone the bigger stores like B&N and Borders. Sometimes the selection isn't much more than that. That's OK with me though, the techniques for other scales still apply.

For that matter, there's a lot we can learn from other types of modeling too.

We're eccentric, yes, but I think there's one eccentricity or another associated with any hobby. Look at the popular view of people who collect comic books, or sci-fi memorabilia. If there's no eccentricity there's definitely a stereotype. I have a friend who's an ex-Marine who enjoys telling people he does counted cross stitch. I think he likes their reaction.

[sulafool]

Borders is in bed and sleeping with Amazon.com

[DSchmitt]

QUOTE: Originally posted by sulafool

Borders is in bed and sleeping with Amazon.com

and Amazon is a good on-line source for train books[:D]

[Anonymous]

I live in CT and Borders used to have lots of model trains, toy train, and real train books and even had some train videos. A couple of years ago they phased them out! I was bummed out as my wife and I loved to go there, she would look at her books while I looked through the train stuff. We still go but its not the same. [:(]

[Anonymous]

Here in Fond du Lac the bookstore (Bookworld) is right next to the hobby shop!![:D]

It is kind of small but it has plenty of model train books, but mostly HO.They do have CTT and OGR, so thats where I get my magazines.

[guilfordrr]

Thanks for correcting me, Dave[:)]