Modeling the Baltimore waterfront in HO scale
Trying to update my avatar since 2020
MartyE and Kodi the Husky Dog! ( 3/31/90-9/28/04 ) www.MartyE.com My O Gauge Web Page and Home of Kodiak Junction!
Hopper, you havent't been reading here much I take it? From my conversations with various people directly involved in the manufacturing of these trains, they too know the vast majority of folks participating are: tubular track operators with table top layouts, do not use digital control and buy traditionally sized trains. Even Lionel has said they are very disappointed with the low numbers of users who have switched to command control. So this is the silent majority of the hobby.
Lionel has consisitantly stated over the past few years that the clear majority of their sales are on starter sets, track and starter related cars and items, and not the more expensive scale items that seem to get so much undue attention.
That said, I have always been on of the operators you described, with a small layout. My current layout is made on styrofoam insulation board, designed to be easily moved if need be. I run lesser expensive items, junk and beaters which I lovingly restore, or I should say completely redo into my favorite fallen flags or into relatively operating lines like Conrail, NS, CSX and BNSF.
Most folks in the hobby are just ordinary guys with smaller layouts. As was discussed in a recent thread, I don't think the train companies would want to lose the sales from all these ordinary operators with smaller layouts... it would put many of the train companies right out of business.
Yep, you look at the magazines and the train catalogs and get the impression it is all very big with large layouts, very scale and very expensive. But sometimes things are opposite of what they appear to be. This hobby is one of those things at least on this topic.
brianel, Agent 027
"Praise the Lord. I may not have everything I desire, but the Lord has come through for what I need."
Hi! This "older" guy's current O-27 layout is a 6' x 6' square. (Really wish that I could go to 8' but then I could not get into the room.) Someday, maybe I'll be able to have a layout space like "Reggie-Thatboy 37" but in the meantime, I just enjoy what I have. All the best!
Hopper,
Most of us don't have the large layouts that you see in CTT magazine. My current layout is 8ft by 11ft, with a second level, the layout before that was 8ft 4in by 14ft with an elevated passenger train on 027 track.
If space is of any concern to you I would recommend using tubalar track like 031 or 027 as the curves are smaller than Lionel Fastrac system. Only one or two problems using 027 and that is with the switches and the train cars hitting the switch housing with longer cars.
Lee F.
Orginal layout 4x 16. Four switches. Started in 1999. 70 feet of track. Essentially complete except for some changes that I want to make in the future.
New addition 3x16 and 4x6 Four switches. Started 2006. I can run trains. When the addition is completed the total layout should have about 180 - 200 feet of track.
At the rate I am going, my layout should be essential complete in 2020. (Note: CTT, I would like to be in the November 2020 issue of CTT Magazine.)
Celebrating 18 years on the CTT Forum.
Buckeye Riveter......... OTTS Charter Member, a Roseyville Raider and a member of the CTT Forum since 2004..
Jelloway Creek, OH - ELV 1,100 - Home of the Baltimore, Ohio & Wabash RR
TCA 09-64284
Jon
So many roads, so little time.
There are two distinct camps in this hobby, as well as all sorts of sub species of either! There's the toy train guys who, however much they may add scenery or accessories or even command control, basically run trains as toys to enjoy for that more than anything else. I'm in this camp.
Then there's the 'realism' oriented fellows who tend to run large layouts, do their best to make it all look as much like the real thing as any 3 rail system can and are probably those most responsible for all the high end stuff being made and the resulting rivalry between manufacturers or their fans ( a bit of both I suspect).
On one of the forums, not this one, there are the occasional sniffy remarks made about 'craftsmanship' or the lack thereof, much bewailing about those of us with low standards and other such pond scum whose ignorance is entirely responsible for the downfall of the hobby!
Rubbish. The ones who are keeping it going are the ones who plug along running trains on 8 x 4's or the floor or making their own ingenious adaptations like David Verguns RC system. Who's passing on the torch? The "please dont touch the scale models" or the "lets see how many cupcakes we can balance on the pullman coaches and run them from the kitchen to the living room without any falling off? If they DO fall off, you have to eat them!"
Here is how I see our fellow hobbiests, this is pure speculation:
-75% or more of the folks on these forums, and in the hobby, do not have a layout. If they do have a layout its a carpet central, or just tons of track on bare plywood.
-20% are probably like us: a small to medium sized finished layout. Mine is 8x16.
-5% or less have the monster layouts.
Someday I might expand my layout to be in the 5% group, but I am very happy with where I am now.
You are SO RIGHT thor with your last couple paragraphs. Adults today look at youth and consider them spoiled in this "me, me, me" generation, like the Burger King logo "Have It Your Way." Yet so many of the adults in this hobby are actually more spoiled and actually worse than children. I can understand kids selfishness... they're just kids and need to be taught.
I'd also suggest it's time for Neil Young to bow out of his involvement with Lionel. While the high end technology has it's merits, it has done absolutely nothing to make this more of a "family hobby" that he somehow thinks it is. Nor has the high end technology made the hobby more affordable. Matter of fact, with all the lawsuits involving high-end trains and technology, the high tech stuff has actually made the whole hobby more expensive, even though production costs are at their lowest level in decades. Overall command control has not even made big inroads with the adult operators, nevermind the kids, who don't even know what Lionel trains are. I suspect though Lionel needs Neil's financial involvement right now.
I get a kick out that last one too thor. You'll be at a train show, see a layout with the latest trains and the newest technology with signs saying "do not touch." I recall one kid asking if he could run the trains, and was told the technology was too complicated for a kid. Man, what an endorsement for the hobby. Bet that kid never asks for a train set. On the other hand, no kid ever left my display without the chance to run my primitive trains off my old fashioned 1033. And I know for a fact I helped sell train sets and there are kids in this hobby because of my efforts even minus the wonderful technology that supposedly makes this hobby "better."
Very good points, Thor. I would like to suggest that if you desire realism, buy an actual railroad. Your problems will change from "How do I make that rock outcropping look realistic?", to "How do I keep those rocks from falling on the track, derailing the train and destroying millions of dollars of new automobiles?"
mikegraz wrote:In regard to the original topic: I have a smaller layout and don't really have any desire to upsize. I enjoy the challenge of creating convincing scenes within a smaller space. http://home.comcast.net/~graz6/wsb/html/view.cgi-home.html-.html Mike
one of the neatest layotus around in my opinion, regardless of size. Clearly the most finely detailed small space layout. Outstanding work.
Don
hopper,
By now I guess you have figured out that most of us either have a small layout or started with one.
Be sure to check out Mikes (mikegraz) web site slide show, it really shows what can be done in a small space. Wish mine looked half that good.
I started out with a 6'-8' X 10' layout, thats 4 - 30" holllow core doors covered with homosote. Later added a 12" shelf along one wall and a tunnel into the unfinished portion of the basement to a 5' X 13' new layout. I ended up with a larger dogbone layout that gives me a nice long run where I can keep two & sometimes 3 trains going with TMCC & DCS. Yes I love the new systems. Gradually selling or converting everything that will not run on one or the other.
My advice, start small and take your time & enjoy.
Mikegraz, yes my personal feelings are strong. Putting those aside, I not the least little bit off base. My conclusions are based on what I have heard personally from various train company people and from what the various CEO's have stated in the pages of the train magazines in which we all can read. The last statement regarding usage of TMCC was made under Brady's tenure at Lionel, where the statement was made that usage of TMCC had not made the inroads Lionel had hoped for and was only at around 25% of the market. Granted, that number could be higher today, but it is very unlikely that number has doubled in the course of only a few years, given the steady price increases.
I won't argue that the new scale realism and new technology has made the hobby more fun for some, and even has helped bring people into the hobby. But again, based on Lionel's own statements, the strongest area of new sales has been with starter sets and related items. And since none of the new affordable lower priced stater sets include TMCC, it's not unreasonable to conclude that many new modelers are not running their trains by digital control.
Going to the original topic for a moment, even Nick Ladd at K-Line told me he knew the majority of modelers were just as I stated earlier. Ladd, along with some of the prior Lionel CEO's seemed to understand that while the new technology and high end trains were creating excitement, there was also a big liability to them. Mike Wolf has said the profit margins on these items are slim, and so haven't others. Even Calabrese has conceeded to the shortsightedness of that thinking. Yet, this is what the majority of new product offerings are. Sorry but that seems foolish to me.
What is driving the high end of the market is two pronged: a minority of potential buyers spending the majority of dollars, and the fierce unrelenting unforgiving competition between Lionel and MTH (and K-Line before they folded). While the competition has been good and has driven the hobby forward, there have also been liabilities. The train companies have (one could almost be tempted to say foolishly again) put vast sums of investement dollars into development and new tooling of products that do not attract the majority of buyers. I think they individually feel the need to do this for fear of being one-upped by the competition. How many times have we heard folks say "well, I like that, but I'll wait for the other company to make one." Then folks wonder why there is so much duplication of the same product types from the differing companies.
K-Line mostly went under from doing too much tooling on the high end and accumulating too much debt. Ironically, the sad thing about K-Line going under was at the end they had started making some products that had much more appeal: the redesigned 027 switches, the small switcher and steamer, the neat new accessories and last but not least SuperStreets. These last items should have been done first at the expense of the Mikados, Hudsons and some of the other high end engines that ended up as blowouts because they weren't selling in sufficient quantities.
Again, while the competition has been good, it has also unwittingly created a deep divide of brand loyalists in the hobby. But that just follows the bitterness that is within the companies themselves. MTH has no love for the current Lionel company, and reading Clyde Coil's public comments, there's obviously little love for MTH at Lionel either. the resulting lawsuits illustate the point even more so, and have hurt the companies and as a result have and will continue to hurt the buyer.
Three rail trains have always been about rugged action and play value. Three rail trains are what introduced youngsters into the hobby. Now things have changed and there are more options with our trains. But as I have said before, it is obvious that the product offerings are lopsided towards the high end. And as my grandmother used to say "when you have too much of a good thing, it can easily become a bad thing."
And in my opinion, I am not so confident that both big companies will be left standing depending on which way the final verdict goes this coming winter. They both have debt and they both have been stretched thin. MTH is very quick now to cancell anything that doesn't generate enough preorders (advance cash) to help pay for the production. And MTH doesn't have the annual sales figures that Lionel has. Does anyone think that Lionel's parent company Wellspring wants to swallow a $40M judgement. Or even half of that? Remember, many high level Lionel employees were fired when the first verdict came down.... employees that probably had little to do with it. So we shall see.
And one more thought: the 1033 transformer is rugged by the testing of time. We shall see if TMCC can withstand the same testing as the 1033. Used, the 1033 is very affordable by comparison and by using the B-U voltage setting, kids won't be running the trains off the track either.
Bob Mitchell Gettysburg, PA TCA # 98-47956 LCCA# RM22839
All of my recent layouts have been on the small size: a 5x9 O-27 layout that lasted two years and a 6x6 Christmas layout last year. Current plans are for a small Christmas layout on a 3x7 hollow core door, then work to begin on a new incarnation of the 5x9 O-27 layout.
See if this works based on Kooljock1's links:
Looks like a great layout!
RIP Chewy - best dog I ever had.
Jon : the second one should be, [/img] like that .
Thanks, John
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