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         I believe the number of people in the hobby is declining as the number of railroads decline.  I live in central Illinois close to what used to be the Illinois Central tracks.  This is now the Canadian National and there have been other changes in between.  As a child, I would hop on my bike as soon as I heard the crossing bell clanging and saw the wig-wag swinging so I could have a front row seat as the passenger and freight runs sped through every couple of hours.  Now there are no passenger trains on this branch and there are only 1 or 2 freight trains a day; and most of these are locals. Yesterday I was thrilled to watch a hundred car "grain train" travel through.  I believe this is the only time I have seen more than 15 or 20 cars go through at a time since last harvest.  The branchline line that used to travel east and west across this main is now gone along with the occassional train that traversed it.           Stopping at a crossing for a passing train used to be a wonderful experience.  Now it is just another agravation stopping us from getting to the ballgame, or the grocery store, or the Playstation or Nintendo game.  I worked as an appliance and electronics servicer for 30 years and found most of my customers to be friendly and appreciative.  There were of course a few "know it alls" out there but I quickly learned to ignore them.  Afterall if they really knew as much as they thought they did they wouldn't have needed me to fix there equipment.          No, I don't think the hobby is being ruined as much as simply fading due to the lack of contact with prototype railroads and the cookie cutter looks of the modern railroads.  You no longer can debate which passenger line has the best looking color scheme or marvel at the caboose at the end of a train.  Several decades ago I saw the interest of kids moving from model railroading to slot cars, then to RC cars and trucks, to Atari and then more advanced video games.  Now you can buy computer simulations and don't even need a layout because you can run virtual trains with an engineers view.  DCC and all the other electronic systems we develop won't spark new hobbyists until they have had contact with either the real thing or are taken to model railroading shows and meets and see for themselves what we are talking about.          The next time you are sitting at a grade crossing grumbling that you are going to be late for something that really is not that important anyway, take the time to focus on the children with you (the really important ones) and point out things that might help them become enthused with the hobby.
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