What Would You Do To Improve This Hobby?

[Anonymous]

QUOTE: Originally posted by cjm89

1. Make all MRR products in the USA. This would be a plus to people wanting to get into the hobby, and support their country too! Also more Americans would be employed by the MRR companies, thus maybe making them and their relatives/kids into mrr'ers too! Note I am not counting companies like Peco or Kato because they aren't American companies and should support their country's mrr'ing community as well.

2. Supply enough weights with a car kit so it actually comes up to NMRA standards!!!
This is one of those things that you think the manufacturers could figure out by now...(??)

3. More varied products. We don't need three companies making an HO scale Challenger all at once. There are many, many good, non-USRA engines that could sell well.

4. More decorated plastic kits. Too many companies are losing money on these and are thus discontinuing them, but if we could get about another 100,000 people into the hobby, maybe the demand would go back up for them.

5. "Easy weathering" kits, or some type of kit for developing certain parts of the hobby, for instance a weathering kit might include paintbrushes, paints to simulate different surfaces, and/or weathering powders and useful tips on how to weather.

[#ditto]

AND BRING ALL THE PRICES DOWN! ITS GETTING REDICULOUS!

[trainfan1221]

Make sure there are more options in all scales, and eliminate those store train sets that have lousy equipment. Not a good way to start a hobby.

[Anonymous]

Why not produce a series, like New Yankee Workshop, promoting model railroading? There must be enough clinics and the like to generate several 16 week programs, and clinics can be arranged to deal with any and all topics. Not a series about build a layout per se, but a series promoting the personal elation one feels when succeeding at a task that is new to them. Teach soldering relative to model railroading. Or building a scenic diorama. Or detailed painting with an air brush. Then mix in some train running along the way, showing how scheduling can benefit running multiple trains simultaneously. Produce these series without total emphasis on model railroading, but make model trains the focal point of everything that is taught/discussed. I think this will work, a subliminal sort of approach, where the trains are always there, but the topic being presented focuses on skills development. Now don't shoot. I only offer this as a suggestion. And how to pay for it? With contributions from manufacturers as suggested in a previous thread.

Tom

[egmurphy]

Tigerious posted:

QUOTE: How about getting the existing pulications put into more waiting rooms like at the doctors offices or car service places. Every time I take my car in for service, I just sit and read whatever magazine is there, but I never see and MRR publications. But then I don't know who would pay for it.

One possibility would be for those model railroaders who don't keep their back issues (I'm told that some people don't [:O] ) of MR or whatever model railroading magazine to occasionally drop off a back issue when they visit their dentist, doctor, etc. Doesn't need to be the current issue, people who aren't familiar with the hobby would be just as fascinated to see an issue from 5 years ago as last months.

Not a major campaign, but it is something that almost any model railroader could do. Well, at least those that chuck out old issues! [:D]

I know that my conversion from 'a kid who had Lionel trains' to a model railroader was the first time I saw an issue of MR. Prior to that I didn't even know that model railroading existed as a hobby.

Ed