Controllers that are implanted in your brain, so you can control your entire layout by force of will.
The logical pinnacle of RTR evolution - layouts that spontaneously build and operate themselves when you open the box.
Four-figure price tags on average-to-good quality locomotives, so loaded with features that an engineering degree is required to operate them properly.
Layouts that need to be plugged into the wall to run considered to be quaint relics.
Of course, we were also predicting atomic-powered automobiles in the '50's...
"I am lapidary but not eristic when I use big words." - William F. Buckley
I haven't been sleeping. I'm afraid I'll dream I'm in a coma and then wake up unconscious. -Stephen Wright
I think it can be summed up with one term: better technology.
The advances of the past 30 years have been incredible.
DCC is huge - now we can control the locos instead of just controlling the power to the tracks. Styrene injection molding is so much crisper. Technology has also allowed many small manufacturers to exist; there is so much more to choose from today.
I think the biggest advances will be in electronics. There will be more animation as in roundhouse doors that open and so forth; ultra-easy to use and install signal systems; building illumination. Maybe even automobiles that drive around on their own.
Craig
DMW
In response to CNJ831, I believe that within 25 years, there will be a surge in the hobby, as people my age (people in their mid teens) will come back into the hobby after college and marriage. I foresee myself participating in the hobby for the rest of my life, and I'm sure there are other teens with me. For example...I was in a hobby store the other day (about 2 hours from my house) and met a 17 year old, who was an employee! Obviously there are younger modelers out there.
Also, I'm surprised nobody has mentioned the fact of increased technology. I'm sure as the hobby becomes for digital, and as RRs come into the public spotlight again (Amtrak ridership is up, NS has commericals on everyday, GE has locomotive commericals on everyday, and government grants are being passed out left and right), it may create an whole new batch of modelers, who are drawn to the digital and computer aspect of the hobby.
Also, I can't say that people purchasing commerically available modules is a bad thing. Remember that many manufacturers produce these, and if their module sales are up, it increases their bottom line, so that they can increase production in their other lines.
Just my 2 cents
Based on how the hobby has evolved over the last 25 years and thus based far more on fact than on fantasy, the next 25 will see the number of hobbyists shrink to only a small fraction of what it is today, perhaps even back to the levels where the hobby was in 1945. This will be as the result of a number of changing societal factors which are already clearly apparent.
The pricing of all hobby items will escalate to the point where only a relatively well off segment of the population can participate fully and have complete layouts. Technology will allow every item to be done as an extremely limited run...perhaps no more than 100 units at a time...yet still be profitable to the manufacturers because of the prices charged the buyer. Personal craftsmanship and advanced modeling skills will have dwindled to almost nil, their place taken by the store bought, highly advanced technology offered from the manufacturers.
Nearly all layouts will be assembled from commercially made, totally finished-out, modules that can go together in a number of possible arrangements. Personally building your own individual unique layout of any size from the benchwork up will be an looked upon as an anachonism. The trains, themselves, will be completely operated through a computer program, without any need for human operator intervention. You will plug-in a pre-written chip, or maybe occasionally punch in yourself, a set of routing instructions for the train, hit enter, and it will go dutifully through all its stops, setouts and pickups automatically as the "operator" simply stands by and watches.
"Model railroaders", themselves, essentially will have become computer/electrical technophiles, no longer skilled hobbyists in the way we understand the term today, basically using someone else's (the manufacturers' or some custom builders') layout and equipment, much as is done with virtual layouts on-line today. Virtual layouts, in particular, will constitute a very large segment of the hobby and be in great demand, again because of societal changes and time limitations. They will replicate all the famous layouts of the past for you to call up and play on...in full 3-D, with prototype surround sound and seen from a viewpoint as if the operator were 1/87 scale...and riding in the cab, of course!
CNJ831
The prototype technology being modeled will advance somewhat behind the prototype technology in the real world, just as it has always done. Fewer people will model steam, and those that do will model it as used on tourist lines or in excursion operation. There will always be a market for the very latest locos and rolling stock, and an even larger market for prototypes a decade or two old.
The reason is simple. Most folks model what they saw when they were at their most impressionable age. For folks currently drawing Social Security that's the age of superpower steam, and the first diesel generation. People getting their portfolios into shape for retirement model the later transition era and road switchers begin to dominate. New empty-nesters go for Conrail and early Amtrak...
Of course there will always be exceptions. After all, ship modelers still build clippers and 74s, and none of them have been in service during the lifetime of the centenarians among us...
Anyone for an HO model of NYC 999 as-built, with the monster drivers, DCC, sound and smoke?
Chuck (modeling Central Japan in September, 1964)
Decoders in each train car speaking to your PDA by wireless preciesly what is loaded (Or not loaded) and where it needs to go.
Instead of shuffling car cards one would tap a bunch of buttons and squint into a small screen.
Trains will have sort of mini GPS onboard and know pretty much where your track goes and where down to the milli-meter level. If you hooked a local engine to a train full of decoders talking to it it might be able to proceed to a town and switch it without human input.
You probably will be reduced to a role of MOW.. fixing derailments and balky couplers asap.
People will log onto your home server and operate your railroad by Signalling via the Internet instead of actually trying to meet together one night a month.
Maybe a virtual railroad will be build that precisely replicate your layout down to the last tie and spike so that these operators from the other side of the globe will know where they have been and where they are going. Thier virtual trains will be updated by your layout's sensors and loconet plus signals data from all the trains currently running.
We already have people commuting to a base in Nevada to fly combat missions via remote control of unmanned robot aircraft 24/7 around the globe in real time. So it should not be too difficult.
In fact, it might be easier for a real railroad to allow control of thier trains this way instead of trying to maintain actual humans on that engine obeying the hog law.
I've seen the MR article about what some people think about the future of model trains, but that's only like 10 people. I want to know what other people think. It could be anything. Like I think someday, they will have mini diesel engines that will fit inside HO scale locomotives and have a real horns and air brakes.