it seems there was a whole lot of animosity towards younger modelers in the early days. In more than one early issue, a letter writer more or less actually stated that younger modelers just can't do as nice a work as an adult. Plenty of arguments against having junior members in clubs in those days, too. All this negativity had younger modelers on the defensive, witness the Jan 1950 letter from a 14 year old, commenting on John Allen's article on making figures from a wire core and layering on wax. He starts off "Since I am only 14, this might not be a good idea, but here it is anyway". His idea? Leave the end of the wire longer to use as a handle to hold the figure while coating it with wax and painting it, then snipping off the excess after it is completed. This suggestion is now commonly seen with nearly any article involving making objexts that need to be painted or glued, yet held somehow, like trees and, still, figures. Either the handle is used to hold the object without touching the finished surfaces, or it is used to stick the object in something like a piece of extruded foam to use as a stand while working on it. Not a very good idea? Even John Allen himself didn't think of this extremely useful tip, or if he did, he did not include it in his article.
Sometimes I think the only reason the hobby survived the first generation is that a lot fo them were younger than the average age of today. There were plenty of modelers contributing material who were in their 20's and 30's in those days. The amount of scorn heaped on younger modelers though - talk about cutting off your nose to spite your face. Thankfully things have changed in most palces and younger modelers are encouraged to take up the hobby, even if the takeup rate isn't as high as we would like. I'd like to say this mostly got going with the formation of TAMR, around 1964 or so? Sad that today is it reduced to a Facebook group with no activity, and their web site has been taken over by some sort of spammy diet site.
I know of some camp like activities where kid learn about real and model trains, and even build a kit, and at many of our shows we allow kids to take the throttle and run a train around the layout. No, this is not another one of those "omg, the hobby is dying" threads, more of an observation of how we've gone from scorn for the younger modeler to actively encouraging them.
--Randy
Modeling the Reading Railroad in the 1950's
Visit my web site at www.readingeastpenn.com for construction updates, DCC Info, and more.
Hi Randy
Interesting observation.
I believe that there was much more of a tendancy of 'feeling superior' in those days. Lots of people tended to support their fragile egos by openly criticizing others who they felt were inferior to them. My own family exhibited that same tendancy. My mother often implied that all the other families on their block had inferior parenting skills. In her opinion her parents (my grand parents obviously) were so much better at organizing family activities. She fairly bragged about the fact that she thought that the neighbourhood kids had a much better time at her house than she did at theirs. The old adage that someone was 'from the wrong side of the tracks' was strongly supported by both thoughts and words.
Fortunately, my parents also raised us with enough intelligence to see past those attitudes, which I think is the case with most of us on the forum.
Dave
I'm just a dude with a bad back having a lot of fun with model trains, and finally building a layout!
I think one change is that so many of us in the hobby today had some experience with trains and/or model building as youngsters.
Enjoy
Paul
Randy I think your observations are very much on point and indeed I think there are strong vestiges of them around even today. But having lived through at least part of that era, and having known many hobby veterans going right back to Charter Members of the NMRA, there are some aspects to this that need to be explained, not as a justification but purely as explanation.
My cousin Ken Ducat was not a charter member of the NMRA (but he did start subscribing to MR in 1934, albeit not to issue #1, and one of his track plans appeared in the July 1936 issue) but as a boy he was there at the famous meeting at the Milwaukee YMCA -- he was leaving after going swimming, saw a man enter a door holding an O scale locomotive under his arm, and followed that man to a meeting that was one of the NMRA organizational meetings. When he came in the room, one of the men there yelled "this is an ADULT hobby!" and ordered him to leave, but someone else said "let him stay" so he did.
Back in the 1930s and well into the 1960s, indeed to a certain extent continuing today, this importance of making it clear (to yourself if to nobody else) that this is an adult hobby, "No I am not playing with toys and I am not acting like a child by enjoying model trains," and the slight sense of shame that keeps some guys from letting their classmates, work associates, neighbors, relatives, etc., know they are model railroaders, was very strong. One way to reinforce that sense was to exclude youth.
Second, the 1950s in particular saw a huge change in methods and materials and in quality of finished results and the old veterans who would hack a boxcar or flatcar out of plain steel or tincan material felt rather threatened by the new world of plastics -- being able to say "I built this" was deemed to forgive any number of really marginal models. I remember one letter to MR by a guy who seemingly with a straight face reported that you could not solder plastics so it was not a good material for modeling; another letter heatedly objected to guys engaged in what we would now call kitbashing. These were not tongue in cheek letters, they were really angry. It is likely that kids/teens were far more prepared to work with and exel in plastics than were some of the famous veteran modelers. Whether it was resentment or envy or just a failure of understanding, the new materials of the post War era caused a generational gulf. And one way to preserve the status quo was to be militant about model railroading having to involve casting your own parts out of metal and such.
And to be sure some of the letters to MR from teen and other younger modelers in the 1950s and 60s revealed at times (not always, but at times) a certain childish/tinplate/geewhiz approach to the hobby that likely rubbed some older guys the wrong way. Remember that for a while Kalmbach published a separate magazine for the younger modelers so for some time that element was in a sense segregated from the hobby as a whole.
And lastly remember the context of the times in terms of music, fashion, behavior, slang, television and movies. The generation gap is nothing new, but it might be that teenage assertiveness was a new thing in the 1950s and beyond. Kids with talent have always tended to irritate some adults, whether they be child prodigy musicians, actors, or modelers.
It is also worth pointing out that in general there were more really angry letters to MR back in the 1950s, 60s and 70s, on all sorts of topics. I don't know why that is but there were.
Dave Nelson
dknelsonIt is also worth pointing out that in general there were more really angry letters to MR back in the 1950s, 60s and 70s, on all sorts of topics. I don't know why that is but there were.
Were there really more, or did they just print more of them back then?
Model trains have always been seen as an adult hobby as a previous poster mentioned. That attitude still effects this community today, especially with more expensive prototypical models. A lot of modelers seem to think kids are incapable of handling expensive models and not breaking them. I've seen more adults drop and break models than kids.
I think another thing holding this community back is that we keep saying this hobby is art. It seems to feed peoples self centered egos. They think all kids can do is roll out a grass mat and snap snaptrack together and maybe place pre built trees wherever. Nevermind the fact that there are videos on youtube of 8 year old kids handlaying track and making their own turnouts.
Adults tend to always look down on the younger generations because they figure their experience outweighs kid's creativity. I find both experience and creativity go hand in hand and promoting and sharing both tend to grow our hobby. Where would we be if people didn't share their experiences or had vision to make something great or think outside of the box?
The worst problem in this hobby though, is people who can't just agree to disagree. I keep what I do in the hobby to myself not because I'm afraid of criticism or opinions, but because I don't feel like arguing and defending myself everday of the week. I'm trying to be more social with this hobby by joining discussions and forums, but time and time again I see so much back and forth arguing on many sites. We all know everyone likes different things, but some people can't seem to accept that. A good example is dcc vs anything else on the market. Or x company vs y company. Brass vs plastic. So on and so forth. Anything new or challenging to the old ways seems to be frowned upon as well.
We have a lot of work to do in all our model train communities.
hon30critterI believe that there was much more of a tendancy of 'feeling superior' in those days. Lots of people tended to support their fragile egos by openly criticizing others who they felt were inferior to them.
Dave,That hasn't change much over the years--we still see that on some forums under the guise of unwanted "constructive criticism"..
Anyway..Being a kid in the hobby back then wasn't easy although the Columbus HO Club and the Columbus O Scale Club allowed junior members at the age of 16. To be sure we junior members in the HO club formed our own little group and discussed what we would like to see in the future-some older members called us "dreamers" while others agreed with our thoughts.
All to sadly the young modelers today still face discrimination at most clubs-I know of one club you have to be 18 to join and visitors under 18 must be accompanied by a parent or guardian..
Larry
Conductor.
Summerset Ry.
"Stay Alert, Don't get hurt Safety First!"
We have moved on and we are somewhat better. Is there room for improvement, yet? You bet your sweet bippy there is!
I also read the article the 14 year old was refering to by John Allen and John did suggest leaving a handle to hold with a point for sticking into somthing while the figure dried. The kid might have overlooked John's suggestion. Making the handle bigger with a loop also made sense.
NP 2626 "Northern Pacific, really terrific"
Northern Pacific Railway Historical Association: http://www.nprha.org/
dknelson It is also worth pointing out that in general there were more really angry letters to MR back in the 1950s, 60s and 70s, on all sorts of topics. I don't know why that is but there were. Dave Nelson
maxman dknelson It is also worth pointing out that in general there were more really angry letters to MR back in the 1950s, 60s and 70s, on all sorts of topics. I don't know why that is but there were. Were there really more, or did they just print more of them back then?
dknelson It is also worth pointing out that in general there were more really angry letters to MR back in the 1950s, 60s and 70s, on all sorts of topics. I don't know why that is but there were.
Another name that appeared regularly in letters almost always chastizing MR for something or other came from a fellow with the last name Bogart.
Difference today is just fewer letters total, I think. Within a day of an new issue apeparing, there are posts here with likes and dislikes, so the old "letter to the editor" I think is going a bot the way of the dodo. Even the ones that are printed - be curious to know how many are emails vs someone actually writing something- I suspect nearly all of them these days.
I just remembered this and got a chuckle..Remember the letters about Student Fare,Working On the Railroad,Bull Sesson and Paint Shop was a waste of magazine space? All to sadly MR caved in and done away with those columns. It seems the nay sayers usually get their way.
Fast forward to today and everybody complains about how thin MR has become.
I think Dave's historical insights into how the model railroad hobby wanted to differentiate itself from "kids playing with trains" is a good one; an easy way to do that was simply to exclude kids. That mentality is still out there among the public as witnessed by some of the coverage of the recent Amtrak accident, where considerable focus was one the fact that the engineer enjoyed trains as a hobby since he was a kid. Seemingly, this was a significant factor, as he could have just been "playing with trains" and cuased the accident by being involved in such a "childish" hobby. We need not discuss this further, as attempts to do so elsewhere revealed what may certainly strengthen such ill-founded prejudices as another aspect of the hobby that definitely doesn't make us look "adult" -- the childish and petty bickering we often read going on between us.
Going back to Dave's historical angle, there's another aspect that could be involved. It used to be that you were pretty much either a child or an adult. At 13 or 14 (if you were lucky enough to wait that long) you got a job and were on the cusp, at least, of adulthood. Now if you get through all kinds of school, you may be 25 or older before you start a serious job hunt (never minding all the PT work in between). The in between status of being a teenager was something that only really sorted itself out after the Great Depression and the full implementation of child labor laws, etc. Then that more legally defined status became a target for marketers of clothes, music, etc, further defining this generational interlude.
So the founding years of the hobby and the NMRA were also years when rapid societal change was underway, including the status of young people. We've not always been good at dealing with change as a society, so we really can't expect much better from our hobby. Not making excuses, just offering some additional explanation and context to things in the past, which may also give some insights into the present.
Mike Lehman
Urbana, IL
mlehmanI think Dave's historical insights into how the model railroad hobby wanted to differentiate itself from "kids playing with trains" so an easy way to do that was simply to exclude kids.
Allow to mention something I always thought didn't help the "Adult" side of the hobby.
A lot of Lionel ads of the 50's featured a boy wearing a Lionel engineer hat .. Several MR cover photos featured a smiling adult with a engineer's hat during those years and yet,it was just like you said.
Larry,
That brings up another aspect of things. Spend time enjoying yourself with a hobby? How juvenile! Or at least that's often the social message we get in terms of doing anything other than work. Many "professionals" seem to spend an inordinate amount of time emphasizing how they're "always on." Many take to one-upping each other how many hours they spend at work. Americans take less time off work than most other modern societies (although that's largely because the weak situation for labor sees us getting far less vacation and personal time than most in other such nations.)
Work, work , work.
Yet most would agree that all work and no play makes Jack a dull boy...and a dull adult.
We're very conflicted as a society on the human need for recreational time. And this feeds into social norms about what "adult" behvior is vs kid's. Kids play, adults do "serious" stuff for recreation. Frankly, I have no trouble saying I "play with trains" and to then argue that every adult needs a similar outlet -- or they risk a very dull and unfulfilling life. And that one should start young in cultivating such a healthy, yet socially controversial habit.
Oddly, despite all the emphasis on "productivity," few critics of recreational enjoyment seem to have trouble with so many Americans doing nothing but parking themselves in front of the TV for daily multi-hour viewing sessions. To me, that's a real waste, especially when one could enjoy an active and engaging hobby, rather than serving as the passive, fleshy containers for marketing every useless thing to they make us feel anxious to need.
MR still gets "angry" letters, mostly via email. Most of those letters address things beyond MR: prices, manufacturers, lack of kits, lack of younger hobbyists, lack of new and interesting things in the hobby, and stuff like that. We also get letters about too much or not enough DCC and too much or not enough N scale and other scales (except for HO).
Recently we received a few negative letters about the radio-control/battery story in May's issue. One reader said "why run such a story, absolutely no one does that." Well, the people in the story do it. :)
Neil Besougloff
MR editor
editor, Model Railroader magazine
That's nothing new either - check out the negative letters when they ran the original CTC-16 command control series. And all the while when the Bruce Chubb C/MRI series was running. Predictable complaints "this is way too technical" "nobody is doing this, it's way too difficult (and expensive)" - Bruce was of course using his C/MRI to run his layout, AND he used CT-16 at the time.
I guess it takes some people a while to get up to speed with reality.
Joe
JoeinPA I guess it takes some people a while to get up to speed with reality. Joe
Maybe MR should refer to "model reality" as much as "Model Railroader." It's what we try to achieve as a hobby, so it rather fits as much as some resist the concept in practice.
Neil B. "why run such a story, absolutely no one does that."
Reminds me of the famous Yogi Berra quote:
"Nobody goes there anymore. It's too crowded."
How many times does just such a story plant the seed for further ideas and development to the benefit of all modelers?
Chronic complainers take all the fun out of life!
Ed
Them as can, do. Them as can't, criticize.
I've always been a lone wolf, so I didn't notice any pro-adult bias during my pre-teen and teenage years. Of course, I didn't walk around with a sign proclaiming, "I'm a model railroader." I'm also revoltingly self-confident, so criticism flows off me like water off the deck of a surfacing submarine.
I do recall hearing about the rather rancorous debates about the difference between 'toys' and 'serious scale models' when the Federales were setting up tariffs to favor the US toymakers. (I think the final result was that HO scale = serious model, but anything larger = toy.) One ploy the Fed lawyers tried was to put some PFM models on a table and then ask some children if they'd like to play with them. I remember thinking at the time that there were a lot of things I'd like to play with, mostly serious military hardware, but that didn't make them toys.
There are still people who act as if their scale, era, control system, operating scheme is THE ONE TRUE RELIGION, and all who disagree are infidels. As one who models in a very unusual (for the US) scale, one specific month, a very nearly unique control system and an operating scheme based on a prototype almost no one else models I simply smile and move on...
If this be heresy, so be it. (Translation - What? Me worry?)
Chuck (Modeling Central Japan in September, 1964)
tomikawaTTThere are still people who act as if their scale, era, control system, operating scheme is THE ONE TRUE RELIGION, and all who disagree are infidels. As one who models in a very unusual (for the US) scale, one specific month, a very nearly unique control system and an operating scheme based on a prototype almost no one else models I simply smile and move on..
So true.
When I was young and thought I knew it all, I was taught that I was given two ears and two eyes to listen, observe and perhaps learn a bit before opening my one mouth to speak on a subject.
As I got older, I came to see the wisdom of my folks admonition.
In the same breath, the old and aged often feel they are wiser due to age alone. The truly wise should listen to the youth who see things through eyes often more adroit and fresh than older folks. They should not be sent packing or discounted on account of their youth.
This hobby's future will rely on the youth of today, as it always has. It would be terrible if the hobby fades or dies with us old guys.
Richard
If I can't fix it, I can fix it so it can't be fixed
gmpullman Neil B. "why run such a story, absolutely no one does that." Reminds me of the famous Yogi Berra quote: "Nobody goes there anymore. It's too crowded." How many times does just such a story plant the seed for further ideas and development to the benefit of all modelers? Chronic complainers take all the fun out of life! Ed
One of the reasons I keep back issues is because something I'm not doing today I may decide to do in the future. Battery operation is just such a topic. I don't see myself doing it, but next year or the year after who knows.
Plus, I find it interesting to see what's going on in different aspects of the hobby. It's why I occaisionally buy Garden Railways, N Scale Railroading, British modeling magazines, etc.
tomikawaTTThere are still people who act as if their scale, era, control system, operating scheme is THE ONE TRUE RELIGION, and all who disagree are infidels.
Chuck,If I may share a experience I had.
Several years ago during a open house at a club I was a member of I was working the yard and building a train and was doing some "cherry picking " switching any-woo a fella told me that railroads never switch cars like that because they would never get a train built and I should buy this (I forgot the name) book since it was a excellent source of prototype switching information and here's how railroads switch cars yada,yada,yada he was all excited he was showing up a poor unlearned modeler in front of his buddies...
I said is that so? Why should I buy a book when I have 9 1/2 years experience as a brakeman and know cherry picking is part of every day switching? Pin drop time and the guy move along rather quickly.
A recent occurrence, for what it's worth:
A 14-year old boy was tagging along with a relative who is a member of a live steam group. The occasion was a work session to perform maintenance on track, rolling stock, etc. The boy didn't expect to have much fun. The club members involved him in the work and showed an approprate level of trust. This was in contrast to the boy's own past experience, where his own father had never taught him to work with tools and frequently told him he didn't trust the kid's ability and judgment. The kid learned to use a power drill and power saw, and was trusted to do some work that was fairly simple and within his capabilities, but which was a new experience for him. He loved it! He considers some of the club members his new best friends and wants to become a member of the group. The group wants him to become a member.
Now we are wondering what his father will say.
Even the oldest, most experienced among us was a kid once upon a time. We were eager to learn. All we needed was a bit of respect and fairness from elders. Those of us who got it are the fortunate ones, and we have a responsibility to pass the torch.
Tom
As my moniker says, I'm an old-timer, growing up next to the Milwaukee Road in the '40s, when we had trains roaring past in both directions on the double-track racetrack between Milwaukee and the Twin Cities--mostly pulled by steam. Half the boys in the neighborhood had Lionel, American Flyer, and Marx sets, most of 'em running on ovals of track fastened down on green-painted plywood. I inherited my brother's prewar Lionel, a delux outfit with electric uncoupling, when he signed up for the Air Force rather than be drafted into the Army for Korea.
My mom sold that set to my aunt, for my little cousin, when I was 12, but I got an American Flyer (2-rail!!!=terribly realistic!) for Christmas when I was 13. We had moved to Waukesha that summer and my same-age cousin and several of his friends were building in HO. Naturally, they all read Model Railroader and I found the magazine fascinating. Brother Dwaine had been stationed at Biloxi, MS, at Keesler AFB, and mustered out in '54, just before my 14th birthday--with a particularly virulent case of Model RR Fever. He ferreted out every hobby shop in a 50 mile radius, buying every issue of MR as it came out and every back issue he could find, so I became really familiar with The Hobby.
GET TO THE POINT, DEANO! Dwaine kept every model RR magazine he ever bought, both MR and RMC, including duplicates, but as I shifted to HO, my finances didn't always include the monthly "Bible," so when I spotted an ad for bound volumes, I started buying them, starting with 1958 and '59, because my stack was incomplete. Later, I bought '50 through '57 and really steeped myself in the model railroad community, becoming aware of a kind of bigottry I underestand even less than the racial kind: for some reason, a lot of "O-Gaugers" were of the staunch opinion that "HO-Gaugers" were, as a group, inferior modelers!
They berated HO modelers at every turn, even griping that MR was "anti O scale," a condition that still existed in the early '90s, when I moved my used paperback bookstore and HO model RR shop to Duluth. I was reading a new Model Railroader behind the counter one day, when an elderly man, who had looked over my HO stock with a disparaging eye, said something to the effect of, "Oh, I never read that rag; they favor HO and don't print anything about O."
This attitude always amazed me, as I always go through a new magazine, looking for stuff that directly interests me, then as the days go by, I read everything else, even all the ads. As someone else said above, you never know when some article or technique will be useful. I don't care about the scale of the models, just teh workmanship and, yes, the sheer industrial or artistic beauty of it. I also can't count the number of times something in another scale (I model OT stuff in O) inspires or informs me for my own modeling. I seldom have to growl, "Jeez, people, we're all brothers and sisters," anymore--at least regarding model railroading, thank goodness.
Deano
P.S. I'm the proud owner of bound MRs from 1945 through 1961, which really keeps me in touch with the roots and growth of model railroading--and my own roots. DHH
OT Dean I underestand even less than the racial kind: for some reason, a lot of "O-Gaugers" were of the staunch opinion that "HO-Gaugers" were, as a group, inferior modelers!
Deano,Then it was the HO modelers turn to become racial.. N Scalers are not serious modelers since N Scale is to small to see,model or even operate. Even today N Scalers is looked down upon as inferior modelers.
They're some that thinks N Scale is nothing more then tiny Lionel toys-I told that at a train show while looking over a N Scale dealers offerings.