Model railroading has always been a hobby in flux with the first nothing but scratch builders to todays mostly RTR. This is not a, "the hobby is dying thread" (which it isn't), but to discuss the changes and as the world changes faster and faster, so will this hobby. There were no fixed scales in the begining but this changed with mass merchandising. The small manufactures which are still out there are getting fewer and the bigger ones keep on expanding, gobbling up the little guys which didn't used to happen as often as in the non hobby world but with todays modern tecnologys and changes in manufacturing methods, this is happening all the time.
Some of the small manufacturers were in fact mom and pop operations, perhaps starting part time. As they get older, replacing worn out equipment, or commissioning new mold becomes less viable.
Positive change: The number of people doing 3D printing.
For mass producing 3d printing dose not have the detail or is it cost effective for larger amounts of product. Emulsion printing, now called resin printing I believe, fixes the detail but still can't be used economicly for larger amounts of product.
The way we buy things is changing too. We used to go to hobby shops and then came mail order. Then with the advances in computers and the internet, shopping online became a reality and even here things are not static, e-bay is no longer a viable sourse for a lot of hobby stuff due to shipping and the changes the company made. One problem with teck is they keep breaking the cardinal rule "if it aint broke, don't fix it", they do this all the time and they tend to eventually get it to work but sometines it can take awhile.
While it is more expensive, I see 3D printing/resin printing as the way a lot of things will be headed in the hobby. The problem is going to be finding what you want as everybody and their brother start to offer things for sale. Searching for something specific through shapeways can be an adventure of its own.
Mike
I like the way how are trains are interacting more with other IT components. I now "drive" my trains using my cellphone. It's a bit intimidating, but one day I will get into connecting my DCC system to my computer.
My ongoing pet peeve is decalling. I'm still looking for an easy printing system that I could do from a lazer printer at home. The Testors print sheets don't seem to be available anymore...
Simon
rrebell For mass producing 3d printing dose not have the detail or is it cost effective for larger amounts of product. Emulsion printing, now called resin printing I believe, fixes the detail but still can't be used economicly for larger amounts of product.
It has much higher detail and resolution than "filament" printing (which is frankly unusable for this application) but there are still some limitations with curves and angled parts that can show layer lines, and it's slow, taking a few hours to print an item, and then all the supports (and designing them in the right places can almost be an art in itself) have to be cut away and cleaned up.
However it is a way to get unique stuff made that will never get mass-produced, and in some cases, can be used to produce the masters for resin casting kits (once layer lines or other artifacts from support attachments etc. are cleaned up)
Chris van der Heide
My Algoma Central Railway Modeling Blog
Speaking of mail order, who among us remembers "Please allow 4-6 weeks for delivery"? Maybe it was really 3-4 weeks, but it typically took weeks. We kids had to be really patient in the 60's and 70's!
This past Sunday I placed an order with Tichy, and I received an email on Monday saying that it had already shipped. And that's typical of a lot of suppliers who have same day shipping. A big improvement from the past.
JR Santa Fetypically took weeks. We kids had to be really patient in the 60's and 70's!
And you never knew if they would have the products in stock. Back when I was young we'd order slot car parts from Auto World, and not only did you wait weeks and weeks, but half of the items would be out of stock. I know they weren't trains, but I'm sure it was that way with a lot of the model RR mail-order houses too.
Jim
If you build a layout, RTR products are simply a component of the model railroad that you assemble in your basement.
If you build models; the ends, underframe, details and paint are the components that you assemble when you build the model on your workbench.
Since age 14, I've always been interested in building layouts, not models.
My interest in the hobby has not changed, and over the past ten years, the explosion of RTR model railroad components has changed the hobby for the better for me.
Long live the hobby.
- Douglas
Me, I always wanted high detail items, the new RTR cars fit that bill. I have the skills to build wood cars and plastic kits well and even the paint part but never mastered decals and really just prefer RTR. I don't mind building what I can't find RTR like decent wood structures.
JR Santa Fe Speaking of mail order, who among us remembers "Please allow 4-6 weeks for delivery"? Maybe it was really 3-4 weeks, but it typically took weeks. We kids had to be really patient in the 60's and 70's!
I was born in 1982 and still remember "6 to 8 weeks, 8 to 10 west of the Mississippi."
JR Santa Fe"Please allow 4-6 weeks for delivery"
Russell
On another note, look how train mags have changed, used to be lots of them. Also the few remaining have really changed. MRH used to have a format that looked good on a small computer but they changed it to be more phone compatable, only it made the computer version worse. Also it veired to their TOMA ideas and advanced computer interfaces plus split it into free and plus which is a paid subscripion. MR is pushing their new web site but I find finding my way around things to very difficult and they send me updates but I can't just click on them to veiw, I have to relog in or go to my bookmark. Don't know if either will survive long term as neither has a viable long term plan and both are having issues with getting viable content (content that people will pay for)as some of the best modelers out there are free on u-tube and other sites, especially since to get a grab in the modern world, you need new content all the time, it is not like reg magazines where it was new content monthly.
Water Level RouteSearching for something specific through shapeways can be an adventure of its own.
Now that there is so much product on Shapeway's site, they really need some sort of good categorization to help us find what we need.
JR Santa FeWho among us remembers "Please allow 4-6 weeks for delivery"?
That was the worst. Thank goodness for package tracking!
-Kevin
Living the dream.
Layout Design GalleryLayout Design Special Interest Group
No one yelling or complaing, just discusing.
rrebellModel railroading has always been a hobby in flux with the first nothing but scratch builders to todays mostly RTR.
Today, with little doubt, having a completed an enjoyable layout is much more of a real possibilty.
DCC and autoreversers have made wiring and control more simplified, and there is no reason to spend a lot of time on kits if your main interest is running trains.
Today it is all better. You can have your cake and eat it too, or just have cake, or just eat. You can really do whatever makes you happy.
Of course, even with some of the advancements out there, there are some of us who stick with the older tech.
I have no intent to ever take my layout to DCC. Given I have 20+ engines that would get a bit expensive and a few AHM U25Cs (older than I am) that I don't even know if could be converted.
I have a few RTR cars but I have many more that I have painted and decaled myself. Protolancing accounts for a chunk but I have done a lot of prototype cars as well. There are even a few "RTR" cars that I've had to "fix" the lettering as the stock lettering was wrong verified by prototype pictures.
On the positive side of advancement, when I first started seriously railroading, I ordered out of catalogs without knowing half the time what the item actually looked like. Now for the most part I can actually see what I'm buying.
Sound is what draged me into DCC and the fact that DCC engines seem to not need as clean track proubly because of the higher voltage.
I wish someone would please 3D-print feelers for the Mantua Clearance Check Car. I have three of these cars, but only one with feelers.
Please let me know when these are available.
I look at 3-D printing for the near future as filling several niches, perhaps eventually becoming the standard way of producing models. For example, I like the Great Northern. With maybe one exception (BLI Heavy Mikado), accurate HO GN steam models are only available as very expensive brass or (in one case) a fairly expensive hybrid model. But, except for their Belpaire fireboxes, many GN engines were fairly typical for their era. If you could buy say a Bachmann USRA 4-6-2 or 2-8-2 and then buy a new 3-D printed boiler that would fit on it but be correct for the GN, even if that boiler cost $100-200 the overall cost of everything would still be much less than a brass model of a GN engine.
SeeYou190Today it is all better. You can have your cake and eat it too, or just have cake, or just eat. You can really do whatever makes you happy.
No, today is not "all better". You are obviously living in a dream world. I became a very late in life diabetic. Yes, I can have my cake, look at it, touch it, and smell it (covid allowing). But I can't eat it.
And that does not make me happy.
Shock ControlI wish someone would please 3D-print feelers for the Mantua Clearance Check Car. I have three of these cars, but only one with feelers.
Maybe you should put out some feelers.
When I started in HO the average age of a model railroader was early adulthood to the mid 30s and since there were plenty of senior citizens in the hobby back then that meant there was a really large supply of young modelers, meaning beginners, to put the average where it was. It would be interesting to know what the mean age was back then but nobody was doing statistical gathering like that. My hunch is that there were actually relatively few model railroaders of the so-called average age of 25 to 35.
Result: lots of model railroad goods aimed at beginners, which in turn had an impact on pricing and availability, and frankly, on prototype accuracy as well. Everybody complained that it seemed like the only road names available were the Santa Fe, Union Pacific, and Pennsylvania Railroad. The guys who modeled those three railroads seemed like kings of the hill. Fewer noticed or mentioned that those models were rarely accurate for Santa Fe, UP, or Pennsy.
Now the average age is post-retirement and getting older, not because more seniors are in the hobby but because there are fewer on the other end of the age spectrum to drag down the average. We often already have all the track and control systems we'll ever want, we're up to our armpits in locomotives and rolling stock, and now our interests are more granular like scenery, more specialized in era and locale, better informed about prototype, and quite possibly not shared enough with other local modelers to support a money making train store.
And yes I do recall the achingly lone wait for packages from America's Hobby Center. But the joy when the box arrived is well remembered too even if the dreaded "credit slip" showed that something ordered was sold out. I even liked the smell of the AHC packages. Plus they used pages from the New York Herald Tribune, Sun, Mirror, or Journal-American to cushion the shipments.
Dave Nelson
maxman SeeYou190 Today it is all better. You can have your cake and eat it too, or just have cake, or just eat. You can really do whatever makes you happy. No, today is not "all better". You are obviously living in a dream world. I became a very late in life diabetic. Yes, I can have my cake, look at it, touch it, and smell it (covid allowing). But I can't eat it. And that does not make me happy.
SeeYou190 Today it is all better. You can have your cake and eat it too, or just have cake, or just eat. You can really do whatever makes you happy.
Way to kill the metaphor.
I'm big on 3d printing. With proper modeling techniques I can get a 2-3 story building measuring up to 7"X 8" in footprint printed in a day or two. Printers these days are better at resolution and better at printing overhangs and "bridge" conditions where filament is deposited in air with nothing beneath it for support. I generally model everything in real world scale with no items less than a half inch. Otherwise anything less than a half inch won't show up when at HO scale. I think 1/2" to 1" resolution at HO scale is pretty good for model representations so I don't see this as a shortcoming. Yes it takes many hours to print, but you can just leave a printer running while you aren't home. Mishaps are extremely rare. I've printed 7 miles of filament over 260 days and only came home once to a ball of string. More updated printers will use AI to smooth out mistakes or use collision detection to work around issues before they get worse. Owning a few printers one can mass produce models. The benefit is filaments are safe to use and produce low hazard fumes that can be vented without expensive exhaust systems.
I hope 3D printing will benefit the hobby. It takes less human time to build models. I realize the human element is what makes it enjoyable, but others I know into the hobby and I are in their 30's, don't have much time spent at home and want entire downtowns built in months, not years. I can only squeeze in a couple hours each week to paint stuff so it's preferable to have a machine building my layout while I'm away. The benefit is once you have equipment, a fully built structure may only cost a couple dollars. Often the paint costs more!
[quote user="cv_acr"]
maxman
SeeYou190 Today it is all better. You can have your cake and eat it too, or just have cake, or just eat. You can really do whatever makes you happy. No, today is not "all better". You are obviously living in a dream world. I became a very late in life diabetic. Yes, I can have my cake, look at it, touch it, and smell it (covid allowing). But I can't eat it. And that does not make me happy.
maxman Shock Control I wish someone would please 3D-print feelers for the Mantua Clearance Check Car. I have three of these cars, but only one with feelers. Maybe you should put out some feelers.
Shock Control I wish someone would please 3D-print feelers for the Mantua Clearance Check Car. I have three of these cars, but only one with feelers.
Ha ha! I was kind of doing that with my post! Anyone want to send me a PM?
dknelson When I started in HO the average age of a model railroader was early adulthood to the mid 30s and since there were plenty of senior citizens in the hobby back then that meant there was a really large supply of young modelers, meaning beginners, to put the average where it was. It would be interesting to know what the mean age was back then but nobody was doing statistical gathering like that. My hunch is that there were actually relatively few model railroaders of the so-called average age of 25 to 35. Result: lots of model railroad goods aimed at beginners, which in turn had an impact on pricing and availability, and frankly, on prototype accuracy as well. Everybody complained that it seemed like the only road names available were the Santa Fe, Union Pacific, and Pennsylvania Railroad. The guys who modeled those three railroads seemed like kings of the hill. Fewer noticed or mentioned that those models were rarely accurate for Santa Fe, UP, or Pennsy. Now the average age is post-retirement and getting older, not because more seniors are in the hobby but because there are fewer on the other end of the age spectrum to drag down the average. We often already have all the track and control systems we'll ever want, we're up to our armpits in locomotives and rolling stock, and now our interests are more granular like scenery, more specialized in era and locale, better informed about prototype, and quite possibly not shared enough with other local modelers to support a money making train store. Dave Nelson