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As I stated in my first post. I do not believe that the Model Railraoding hobby is doomed. Many are correct in that my initial posting on this thread is almost an exact copy of a post I did on another thread. In my defense after I posted my coments that started that thread to the other post it went dorment for 4 days. And I felt what I had to say was important eneugh for consideration, that I reposted it in its own thread. Since I initially posted this thread I did come across the article which contained the data I used in my initial post. It was an article about model railroading in the march 1997 Issiue of Boys Live by Robert Schliecher. Maybe those figures have changed in the past 9 years but not by much. Hare are some things to consider. If the hobby is in such dire straights then please explain the following. 1. Why do manufactures continue to produce more and more new items every year. Walthers alone seems to come out with 5 or 6 new buildings and 10 or 12 new pieces of rolling stock every year. 2. If the hobby is dieing. Why are there as of 23:32 MST 546 pages of HO Scale model railroad items alone on Ebay. And that number keeps going up. I remember when the everage number was 250 pages then 300 pages then 350 pages. and since most of the people in this country subscribe to the capitalist doctrin. One can only assume that there is a demand and that demand that seeks to to be satisfied via e-bay is being filled. 3. If the hobby is going to die when the baby boomers die, Then why are there a large number of people I see that are in the 18-24 catagory surely we are going to continue in the hobby. We may reject the obseen prices that are now being asked. But we will be around. If anything when the baby boomers die we will buy their Steam engines and diesels cheap. 4. A related note. Some one previously up in the forum said that the offspring of baby boomers are not replacing the baby boomers on a one for one basis. But isn't it also true that the Baby Boomers did not have as many children as their parents did? My Grandparents on my moms side had 7 Chidren. My Grandparents on my Dads side had 8. How many did my parents have? 3. And it seems the average number of kids per house hold is 2. To Illiminate my point If we fallow the liniage of my mothers brothers and sisters. Each of my moms brothers and sisters got married. One sister never had children. So she is removed from the gene pool. Of the 6 that were left. One child had 4 kids.Three children had three kids and the rest had 2. So our initial group of 7 children produced another generation of 17 kids. So it took the reproductive efforts of two of the offspring to match the reprodutvie efforts of the parents. Sounds like to me that the baby boomers aren't having as many kids as their parents did. Now for sake of argument assume that out of each generation 1/20 of the population takes up model railroading. But if one generation (The baby boomers) does not reproduce the same number of offspring as the previous generation (Baby Boomers Parents) . Isn't the 1/20 of the next generation (Us Kids of the baby boomers) going to be smaller than the 1/20 of the generation befor it? So I feel that model railroading is alive in well among my contemporaries (I am 23 Years old and Fall within the 18-24 age bracket) We just aren't as numborous as you baby boomers so our desires and interests are being drowned out by you older people who are probably close to retirement Your children are iether out of the house or so close to being out of the hosue it doesn't matter. And thus have more time and money than us busy bodies who have to worry about getting through school establishing a career and getting a foot hold in this great big pain in the rear end world of ours. I am sure when I am in my 30s. I will have a layout well under way and trains running. And alot more time than I have now. Especially since my marriage prospects are bleak and thus my chances of ever having children slim. Just me, my proverbial dog, and my trains. But lots of trains. My prediction for the hobby in 30 years. Kits will be gone. Everything will be Ready to Run. DCC and Sound will probably be standard. But It won't be as expensive as it is now. Because frankly $400.00 for a diesel locomotive is just nuts. (Tower 55 ES44AC) A system of benchwork will be invented for the carpentry impaired. (Sad because everyone should develop a basic knowledge of how to build things) And we will probably be exploring new exotica such as animated figurines that actually walk and talk and have "a life" and are controlled by some means of artifical intelligence. And then there will be people like me who buy all the borken down Locomotives that all the people who buy RTR don't know how to fix (Probably be somthing simple as a fried decoder, [theory holds that separate decoders shoulds till be available given the fact of 75+ years of Model Railroadings existance prior to DCC. But I am figuring out how to make my own just in case]) Train layouts will probably be smaller. And movable since It is fact that my generation will probably never see things like pensions and Job security went out the window 20 years ago. At the rate we are going we will be lucky if we even get our Social Security Benifits. And then probably if we only work into our late 90s at that. So Is model railraoding Doomed? No Is Model Railroading expereincing fundamental changes. Yes. Are those changes going to be interesting? Only if you come out from your hidey hole (as I have) and stop complaining how the sky is falling.
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