State of the hobby?

[Buckeye Riveter]

  We seem to be lousy ambassadors.

BINGO!  You gotta put the kids hands on the controls.

[RR Redneck]

Well I will admit that sometimes when I look in Model Railraoder, I think of how old the modellers are. But then I remember that building such layouts require years of work and spending merate to small amounts of money at a time.

[twaldie]

I'm starting to get a little worried about our hobby.  I know this has been discussed a lot recently, but I'm going to beat this horse a little more and see if anyone out there has any ideas for changes to get "youngsters", maybe 30 & under, more involved.

I went to an event recently where the local HO club had set up in a childrens museum.  This was a great location, but I was left wondering what they were trying to accomplish.  There were 6 or 7 people there running trains, but they were so tied up setting up consists, fixing derailments, working on engines, adjusting couplers, etc., that the kids that were there to see trains (and I believe hopefully run trains) were being totally ignored.  A steamer pulling 50 hoppers is an impressive sight, but the kids were blowing right by looking for something they could do.  The clubs layout looked great, but it seems like a 20' x 20' with multiple loops of track with seperate controls and some "expendable" rolling stock that the kids could run would have been a lot more effective at getting them interested in trains. 

One thing funny about trains, it seems like the hobby is passed from son to father as often as father to son, and at this event the kids (and by extension, their 20 to 30 something parents) had better things to do.

Does anyone else out there see this happening?  We seem to be lousy ambassadors.

Tim