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Maybe newbie’s shouldn’t “armchair railroad”. I’ve noticed a lot of advice to new model railroaders is ‘read as much as you can’ or ‘get a hold of magazines’ or ‘armchair railroad’ Well I’d like submit that maybe that isn’t the best way to get into this hobby and maybe that relates to the other strings recently about ‘Why this hobby is not growing’ or ‘What can be done to improve this hobby’. I’m starting the think the best thing a ‘newbie’ can do is go get a train set and start ‘playing’. Reading about this hobby will just overwhelm you with its complexity, cost, space requirements and “cliquishness” I’m not trying to get anyone angry and I’m obviously only expressing my opinion which you get for no cost :-), but I do want to say that as a 43 year old newbie to MR, I’m more discouraged in my last couple of months of ‘armchair railroading’ than if I had just gone out and gotten a train; I’d go so far as to say it has tarnished my initial enthusiasm to get back into this hobby. The latest icing on the cake is the October MR magazine I just got. The first main article is an in-depth article about prototyping passenger trains of the 1950’s. I’m not real sure how it relates to model railroading except to highlight one gentlemen’s fascination and expense in recreating something I can’t relate to. The second article is a room-sized layout with more track and cars than I can imagine. The third article is about detailing a steam locomotive including shortening the stack by 1/32 of an inch. And, of course, the first product review is for a $380 engine. I can’t wait till next month to read about someone who didn’t have enough space for a model railroad so he went and parked a trailer next to his house . . . not really something I can relate to. It makes me think that this magazine and, from what I can read, many of the clubs are nothing but avenues for experts & ‘long timers’ in the hobby to discuss their advanced creations and never realize that only a small percentage of people understand or have the time, money or space to ever come close to these types of layouts. If model railroaders make up only .001% of the population and .1% of those folks can relate to these types of articles, then no wonder the hobby continues to shrink. There was a bunch of suggestions about putting this magazine in doctors offices or the library or at boy scout meetings. I can’t really see how these types of articles would inspire anyone to get into this hobby. It makes everything about this hobby appear huge, costly and utterly life absorbing. Not the kind of impression that will get new blood into anything. I apologize for the length of this rambling diatribe, I mean to offend no one and just offer my opinion who is experiencing these feeling first hand.
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