Burlington Northern #24I've stopped buying videogames and may not buy many more seeing as how my 2 gaming systems are slowly becoming obsolete. My trains on the other hand are just now gaining more involvement from myself and a bit more attention from my family and friends(around my age 19).
Gary,I still play PS1/2 Final Fantasy games even though my PS2 is a dinosaur but,so is a lot of my cars and locomotives according to some my old Atlas and BB locomotives and my BB and MDC cars are not up to today's so called modeling "standards".
Who cares? I've having fun and that's the main thing.
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Some of the threads on this forum that claim the hobby soon come to a demise, and that young people have to join or blames them for this or that alienates me. While I'm aware thats not the intent of the threads it does often come across that way.
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I too have notice that and will never agree that young people are not interested in the hobby..I have notice teenagers at train shows,trackside and in hobby shops.
We have several youth members at the Bucyrus club.Again during the fair a lot of young people ask serious questions about the hobby and some even asked the best way to get started..I have had young 30 something mothers say their husband and son has a train set up on a piece of plywood or their son or daughter is crazy about trains.I have seen kids make 3 or 4 trips around the layout and return later to make more trips around the layout.
I've always been a friendly cuss and more then willing to talk about the hobby during the county fair or when ever the subject comes up.
Here's a thing that happen to me..
I was having breakfast at McDonalds when this 30 something lady approach (hubby and son was in a booth) and said "Sir,don't you go to the train club at the fairground? I replied yes and she then asked directions to the hobby shop in Mansfield.
That wasn't the first time that has happen since my mugg isn't hard to forget.
Larry
Conductor.
Summerset Ry.
"Stay Alert, Don't get hurt Safety First!"
True, but it is the issue that drives many of these "economic" discussions. And apparently meeting the ROI standards of your local banker or a buyer's CPA is a problem. Thus the closing of many LHS on retirement. It's not the sort of sensible investment outsiders are willing to sign off on. That should say a lot to those always telling us how prices should be lower, etc, etc.
And yet relative to gross profit margins, prices were higher "back in the day" because most all business owners saw inventory as a long term investment, not as a liability. There was some discounting, but the "closeout sale" was non existant.
Mike, you are correct, if it is your money, you can do what you want. I can tell you in most cases people in the hobby business are working on their own money, or on the money private investors who understand the business, not on money from the general "capital pool".
Off to work now,
Sheldon
PS - Back in the day, the big inventory shops stock piled product when it was available to offset production variables - My proposed super store would be no different today.
BRAKIEBRAKIE wrote the following post 29 minutes ago: Burlington Northern #24 I've stopped buying videogames and may not buy many more seeing as how my 2 gaming systems are slowly becoming obsolete. My trains on the other hand are just now gaining more involvement from myself and a bit more attention from my family and friends(around my age 19). Gary,I still play PS1/2 Final Fantasy games even though my PS2 is a dinosaur but,so is a lot of my cars and locomotives according to some my old Atlas and BB locomotives and my BB and MDC cars are not up to today's so called modeling "standards". Who cares? I've having fun and that's the main thing. ----------------------------------------------------------------- Some of the threads on this forum that claim the hobby soon come to a demise, and that young people have to join or blames them for this or that alienates me. While I'm aware thats not the intent of the threads it does often come across that way. ---------------------------------------------------------------- I too have notice that and will never agree that young people are not interested in the hobby..I have notice teenagers at train shows,trackside and in hobby shops.
Gary,I still play PS1/2 Final Fantasy games even though my PS2 is a dinosaur but,so is a lot of my cars and locomotives according to some my old Atlas and BB locomotives and my BB and MDC cars are not up to today's so called modeling "standards". Who cares? I've having fun and that's the main thing. ----------------------------------------------------------------- Some of the threads on this forum that claim the hobby soon come to a demise, and that young people have to join or blames them for this or that alienates me. While I'm aware thats not the intent of the threads it does often come across that way. ---------------------------------------------------------------- I too have notice that and will never agree that young people are not interested in the hobby..I have notice teenagers at train shows,trackside and in hobby shops.
Just in case my comment about the glass-mediated virtual reality many people take to nowadays was taken the wrong way, I specifically did not use it in reference to teenagers -- or to gaming for that matter, either....
BN#24 and Larry,
I don't see anything wrong with gaming, per se. In fact, my comment applies to just about any generation able to read this right now. It's not about gaming really at all, either. Because my concern about how that affects our hobby extends well into the golden years and just plain ol' TV is as big or bigger a factor than gaming. I pretty much stopped watching TV in the early 70s when my dad was stationed overseas and us with him. The only show I watch regularly is Saturday Night Live -- oh, and Downtown Abbey when it's in season.
Then there is the Wide Wolrd of the Internet. If I could just give this up, imagine waht I could get done?
That time goes to the layout (and other things, too). It's one way I tend to get a lot done on a semi-regular basis.
One thing I think we make a mistake about is thinking that all this talk of getting new folks in the hobby is about kids anyway. Even the hard-core rails tend to fall away, if they were interested in the first place that young, and get interested in college, girls, jobs, girls, cars, girls, , girls, TV, girls, games, girls, women...well, you get my point. Then we settle down and get interested in railroading again.
And as another commenter noted, many of us aren't even interested in the hobby until middle age, but suddenly encounter it and find we're entranced. Larry's outreach work at the county fair works just as well for older folks, who may not be so immediately open about their interest as teens are, but who nonetheless may turn out to find it interesting.
In fact, I'd say we probably worry too much about getting young folks into the hobby and probably not enough about the adults who might enter if given encouragement. Which is not to say we shouldn't help kids who are interested, just that many of us never go through that phase of loving the hobby and only do so when many of the other important things in life are squared away and who then want something interesting to do.
We really shouldn't obsess about one age group to the deficit of others in trying to recruit interest in model railroading. People have very different reasons and timing for when the join the hobby. It's all good, because interest in model railroading is a great leveler across generations. Talk to anyone, any age, who shares the same interest and you'll find it rewarding.
Mike Lehman
Urbana, IL
Geez, I might just break down and give Sheldon the $10 million if I thought that would bring this unending thread to a halt.
Rich
Alton Junction
-E-C-Mills Hmm interesting. Yeah, been to the LA Mesa (I think?) layout years ago, pretty cool. Have you been down to the new Mckormick RR park layout building in Scottsdale? Its nice. So was there difficulty in securing the model railroad supplies you needed? Did you feel any frustration in planning? Or is the internet a big ginormous store? Bonus your wife is getting into MRRing too.
Hmm interesting. Yeah, been to the LA Mesa (I think?) layout years ago, pretty cool. Have you been down to the new Mckormick RR park layout building in Scottsdale? Its nice.
So was there difficulty in securing the model railroad supplies you needed? Did you feel any frustration in planning? Or is the internet a big ginormous store?
Bonus your wife is getting into MRRing too.
(It is interesting to have a second discussion in the midst of the furor of the primary discussion in this thread.)
We have been to the McCormick RR Park a couple of times. The layout in there is pretty impressive. It is nice to have 10,000 square feet available for three layouts.
The only difficulty in securing the supplies I have needed was when I moved from Unitrack to flextrack. Everyone talked about using Atlas track and, as everyone knows, code 55 track is scarce, to say the least. Since I wasn't vested in Atlas, I shifted to Peco and so far, so good. The frustration I have had with planning was when I tried to plan my office layout using Unitrack. Being limited in the available curves and straight lengths (and you can cut to fit) was the motivation to try flextrack. So far, I have been able to get everything I have needed from the Ginormous Store.
And finally, it is really cool that my wife is enjoying the hobby. The general store she made is really impressive. (The quarter is in the picture for scale.)
Richard
richhotrain Geez, I might just break down and give Sheldon the $10 million if I thought that would bring this unending thread to a halt. Rich
Uh! how many more pages will that require?
Paul
IRONROOSTER richhotrain Geez, I might just break down and give Sheldon the $10 million if I thought that would bring this unending thread to a halt. Rich Uh! how many more pages will that require? Paul
I don't know about anyone else, but I'm trying to make lemonade here. I'm actually kind of surprised no one has picked up on my effort to step back and look at how these discussions fixate on the LHS as if that is tied to the rest of the hobby like a concrete block to the leg of an inconvenient corpse. It's just not that bad, for the hobby, and I think the LHS will survive where there is enough of a market for it and knowledgable people to run one.
But haven't we really been counting on the LHS as a One-Trick Pony?
We trot it out regularly, jump it through some hoops and say, "That's all folks."
Just not true, although I think we've tended to create that reality more by talking about it in online forums than it exists in real life as the root cause of whatever "problems" one happens to see with the hobby.
In fact, I'd argue we can create a better situation by talking about the health of the hobby just as easily as we can make it worse by talking about it.
First, let me say that the health of the LHS is not unimportant. It is, I just don't want to get diverted into arguing about that as the ONLY factor in the health of model railroading. You can see that approach on display in multiple threads and, well, some folks are starting to find it boring. TYhat's not going to help the LHS either, so I suggest...
Let's quit blaming, expecting, or anticipating that the health of the hobby is dependent on the LHS any more than several other factors, which I argue we should be paying much more attention to. Why should some struggling businessman trying to keep the lights on be expected to carry the hobby on his back as yet another burden. Seems pretty unfair, when you think about it like that.
I've mentioned two areas where I think we could profitably turn some of the wasted energy of the endless LHS discussions to better use. One is what we do as individuals with the hobby. The other is what we do as local organizations, if we do anything at all.
Not everyone has a layout, but those that do might consider layout tours during nat'l Model RR Month in November. Scary? Well, we can't all pick our neighbors, but it'slike many other things in life, you never know what you can accomplish until you try. Then there's the NMRA. It's a way to connect and promote the hobby that you can join at the individual level, but also get involved with it as a group. Maybe that layout tour could be a NMRA-sponsored event and covered by the available insurance? In any case, knowing others in the hobby is a rewarding experience.
Another way I[ve seen individuals aid the hobby is online. Forums are almost old-fashioned these days, but still are a great resource as this one is. There's all kinds of social media I'm clueless about, as are many folks my age. Not knowing about that may make it sound like the hobby is fading, but I'd bet there's a lot going on us old farts don't know about. Then there's Youtube. I mentioned I don't watch much TV and that includes online, but I have seen some great videos. There's always room for more.
As for group activities, I've already mentioned the NMRA. Clubs are a bit different. Guess there are lots in Ohio, but I know that's not the case everywhere. Modular clubs are a partial answer to that, but the impermanance has its drawbacks, too. But it's a reality that many don't have a home layout and even those that do may enjoy hanging out with fellow enthusiasts. Too bad that's not an option for many, but maybe something can be done about that.
I'm sure there are more ideas out there. If we worked on keeping some of these other irons hot, it might even help the LHS.
mlehmanLet's quit blaming, expecting, or anticipating that the health of the hobby is dependent on the LHS any more than several other factors, which I argue we should be paying much more attention to. Why should some struggling businessman trying to keep the lights on be expected to carry the hobby on his back as yet another burden. Seems pretty unfair, when you think about it like that.
Finally, a voice of reason. Mike you are correct, the health of the hobby is not related to any one factor, including the LHS. Product availability has always been a consideration. I don't know how many times I searched for an Item that was "temporarily not in stock". The other side of that equation, is that if you don't have "it", you cannot sell "it'.
I'm not a collector, although I have accumulated quite a collection of unfinished kits, structures that don't fit on the layout, and locomotives that don't run. Part of this collection, was for items needed for layouts and projects long discarded, or in anticipation of my next great layout. The next generation, improved, more prototypical version of the Rs3 etc. The minute I sell it or donate it or toss it, I'll need it.......but when I move, I won't necessarily need it or have room for it. Yet i continue to accumulate "it", as I did, long before pre orders and limited quantity releases, just in case I find a use for it, while it's still available.
Joe
Joe,
Thanks for your comments, much appreciated
I'll simply add that we Americans tend to have a problem with the commodification of happiness. WE think if we buy or consume the right product, it will lead to happiness. Which is not to say that it can't, as it often does. When I unbox a new Blackstone loco or car, it is a thrill.
On the other hand, as your mom probably told you several times (mine did), you can't buy happiness. The relentless focus on the LHS tends to do exactly that. If there was just a place where I could stroll through the door and repeat the equivalent to unboxing that Blackstone, all would be right with my world, only a hundred times over.
Then reality bites. I can't afford the cost of a loco 100x. It really needs a layout to run on and supporting cast of rolling stock, structures and scenery. True, a lot of that gets purchased, too, but now we're starting to get into building things, which to me is where real satisfaction lies in this hobby. Much as I love my Blackstone RTR, I know I get more personal satisfaction out of building something.
With RTR, more and more that doesn't mean building equipment, but the rest of that supporting cast. In the end, we can't build everything and some things we may not be able to do at all and have to go RTR. But that's OK, if you're putting something like a layout together and certainly no shame. We do what we can and what we find satisfying.
Then there are those who simply don't have a situation where a layout is possible. That's one place among many where things like a club or active operator groups can help where a LHS really isn't the answer anyway, no matter how much you spend.
Well, enough philosophy for now, back to work, including a little railroading.