andrechapelon wrote: secondhandmodeler wrote:When was this 'hay-day' of model railroading everyone refers to? As far as I can tell, people have been saying it's declining since it started.I think you've pretty well hit the nail on the head. Everything was always better during some golden age (always undefined as to actual time frame) in the past.But then, I'm a contrarian. I personally believe that the golden age is right now. OTOH, you gotta take what I say with a grain of salt. I invested in Apple Computer when everyone else was at the point of writing it off.
secondhandmodeler wrote:When was this 'hay-day' of model railroading everyone refers to? As far as I can tell, people have been saying it's declining since it started.
I think you've pretty well hit the nail on the head. Everything was always better during some golden age (always undefined as to actual time frame) in the past.
But then, I'm a contrarian. I personally believe that the golden age is right now. OTOH, you gotta take what I say with a grain of salt. I invested in Apple Computer when everyone else was at the point of writing it off.
No...there most certainly was a golden age in model railroading and it surely isn't now. In the mid 1950's model trains was ranked as the second most popular and practiced hobby in America, only edged out by philately! Is there anyone here so naive as to think our hobby even ranks in the top 100 today?
Between 1948 and 1955, toy train sales reached mindboggling heights, with major commercial Lionel and Flyer outlets selling out their stock completely often weeks prior to Christmas. America was obsessed with trains, large and small, and Christmas just wasn't Christmas unless you had toy trains under the tree back then. That all ended by the 60's.
Likewise, from the mid 1940's through the 1950's, during which we saw the introduction of good looking shake-the-box plastic rolling stock and diecast RTR locomotives that sold for less than half of what loco kits were going for before the war, the HO hobby grew in size by nearly ten-fold. Since most scale hobbyists were craftsmen back then, at least to some degree, one saw the magazines continuously presenting inexpensive projects applicable to most every layout. Back then the hobby was also about the enjoyment of really building things, things that developed your modeling talents...not about buying and collecting, often to no point, as has become so much a part of the hobby today.
The biggest failing in the threads one sees here concerning the hobby's history is that so very few have any real idea of what actually went on in the hobby more than a few years ago. As a result, I'm afraid one usually sees simply a series of baseless speculations and opinions unrelated to the actual facts.
CNJ831
secondhandmodeler wrote:Were the fifties the best time for modeling, or buying toy trains?
Both.
For me Tyco was a lesson. The difference between cheap and quality.
I recall a commercial for thier Chattanooga Choo Choo. All black background with just the engine racing down the track. Boy all the kids just had to have one.
The actual product. Well... it was a incredible example of marketing for it's own sake; a means to feed a company with cash until they can crank out a different box-o-crap.
I dont have anything left bad to say about it except that money was wasted on this cheap trainset that could have gone into a nice Athearn Bluebox that had two flywheels, can motor of sorts and all wheel pickup.
They say the hobby has been dying for a long long time. I dont see it. I see it pink, full of life and infused with vigor and flood of wonderful new widgets every month. Indeed I think we are in the best of times right now. Open a catalog and type a few numbers into a internet keyboard and have it shipped to you with a very good price.
In the old days we had to take a bus to the store door, slog through a warehouse to dig up a box of trains, fight crowds, walk up hill both ways in a howling storm and learn quickly new ways of fixing things that dont work out of the box with these cheap toys.
ESPECIALLY cheap trainsets deliberately designed around a short lifespan.
Nowadays I walk past nicer trainsets. But feel a cold wind and pull my jacket closer.
Now Ive seen or is seeing demise of companies that are ahem.. struggling to get products delivered. Ive seen the courts groan with burden of lawsuits that seemed to threaten the hobby with a crushing death blow. Ive seen once great products get reissued cheaply without the necessary electronics generating pain, pleas and supplications for help.
But a dead hobby? Nah! It's only dead when you cart the whole mess to a roll off/on dumpster and have it shipped to the landfill and take up another hobby.
Model railroading seems to be a rather active corpse. People like trains. What can I say? I can't explain it, either. Look at Thomas, look at Geotrax, look at Harry Potter. The kids are running more steamers than the PRR had.
That's a fact. In addition to my "real" trains, my 2 car garage size layout also has Thomas the Tank Engine and Hogwart's Express sitting in the yard. After all, the grandchildren like the trains, too.
Dave
Lackawanna Route of the Phoebe Snow
Tilden wrote:I agree with the cheap theory, that's why I'm not in N scale. In 1973 I purchased a Bachmann Postage Stamp train set. I could barely get it to run and returned it. Had that first experience been positive, or at least better, I would be modeling N scale today.Tilden
I agree with the cheap theory, that's why I'm not in N scale. In 1973 I purchased a Bachmann Postage Stamp train set. I could barely get it to run and returned it. Had that first experience been positive, or at least better, I would be modeling N scale today.
Tilden
Have you tried N scale lately? I agree that much of what was available back in the dark ages was worse than the worst. However, N scale now offers a wide variety of very reliable and smooth running engines, exquisitely detailed rolling stock, and a plethora of support supplies. The bulk of it is competitively priced compared to HO.
In this case, the sins of the old stuff shouldn't be visited on the new.
Lee
Route of the Alpha Jets www.wmrywesternlines.net
NeO6874 wrote: Autobus Prime wrote:The kids are running more steamers than the PRR had.Can you blame them (us)? Steam is definately better than diesel! Especially to a kid -- from a kid's PoV, Diesel = big boring box on wheels; whereas steam locos have all those moving bits that you don't exactly know what they do, but they're really (and I mean REALLY) cool to watch. I envy those of you lucky enough to have seen a big, breathing, living steam loco going about it's daily work. The best I can accomplish is old 50's and 60's era video (either put out by the RR's themselves, or shot by railfans) and the amusement park or museum RR's that use steam locos.
Autobus Prime wrote:The kids are running more steamers than the PRR had.
The kids are running more steamers than the PRR had.
Can you blame them (us)? Steam is definately better than diesel! Especially to a kid -- from a kid's PoV, Diesel = big boring box on wheels; whereas steam locos have all those moving bits that you don't exactly know what they do, but they're really (and I mean REALLY) cool to watch.
I envy those of you lucky enough to have seen a big, breathing, living steam loco going about it's daily work. The best I can accomplish is old 50's and 60's era video (either put out by the RR's themselves, or shot by railfans) and the amusement park or museum RR's that use steam locos.
I second that! I've always liked steam even though I've never seen a steamer in revenue service. To me, diesels are boring big boxes on wheels, although the prototypes in service are more efficient.
Alright so I've got to admit, I have a guilty secret in the hobby: I like the cruddy toy-trains.
Yes, on my layout I've got my Katos and Atlas that run like swiss watches, but I'll still pick up an old Tyco or AHM at yard sales. Usually I play around with them for a while, then use them for paint testing or parts, but there are some that I like enough to keep on the shelves in my office, just because I can.
It's kind of the so-ugly-it's-cute thing in my mind. I'm keeping an eye out for the Tyco Alco Super 630, the Sharknose and other odd ones. My first train set was a Tyco with an absolutely horrific Alco Century 430 in Santa Fe. Thankfully my grandfather bought me an Athearn F7A as soon as he found out what I was running. Amazingly, the old Tyco power pack still works and I use it on my circle around the Christmas tree every year.
Personally I think the worst thing about the cheap train sets is the fact that they are marketed as though they are realistic and true model railroads. Corporations that sell both cheap products and higher-end models should illustrate the difference.
Cheers!
~METRO
CNJ831 wrote:No...there most certainly was a golden age in model railroading and it surely isn't now. In the mid 1950's model trains was ranked as the second most popular and practiced hobby in America, only edged out by philately! Is there anyone here so naive as to think our hobby even ranks in the top 100 today?
Likewise, from the mid 1940's through the 1950's, during which we saw the introduction of good looking shake-the-box plastic rolling stock and diecast RTR locomotives that sold for less than half of what loco kits were going for before the war, the HO hobby grew in size by nearly ten-fold.
Since most scale hobbyists were craftsmen back then, at least to some degree, one saw the magazines continuously presenting inexpensive projects applicable to most every layout.
Back then the hobby was also about the enjoyment of really building things, things that developed your modeling talents...not about buying and collecting, often to no point, as has become so much a part of the hobby today.
Larry
Conductor.
Summerset Ry.
"Stay Alert, Don't get hurt Safety First!"
In 1972-73 I worked at a discount store in Anderson, In. We sold Tyco train sets by the ton, especially that C-mas. About a month after C-mas, a friend of mine who also worked there made a deal with the toy dept supervisor and we bought - and I mean this literally- 32 (IIRC) Tyco train and slot car sets that had been returned!
We re-wired the engines, soldered the track, in general made them usable, and proceeded to slam them around his basement for about 2 years before they were all sent to the big trainyard in the sky. We ambushed them with BB guns, packed them with firecrackers, and generally just had a great time with them.
That was about the only fun I ever had with Tyco stuff. I was quite pleased when they left the hobby business.
BRAKIE wrote:Actually RTR isn't new to the hobby..We had RTR in the 50/60s..
marknewton wrote: CNJ831 wrote: No...there most certainly was a golden age in model railroading and it surely isn't now. In the mid 1950's model trains was ranked as the second most popular and practiced hobby in America, only edged out by philately! Is there anyone here so naive as to think our hobby even ranks in the top 100 today?Who cares how it ranks with other hobbies? I'm not a railway modeller because I want to compete with other people with other hobbies over which is most "popular". Using that as a measure of the hobby's health is meaningless. I'm led to believe philately is not as popular as it once was either, but no-one's predicting the death of stamps.Your insistence that the 50s was a golden age is laughable from my perspective. In the 50s none of the things that enrich my hobby experience were available. Likewise, from the mid 1940's through the 1950's, during which we saw the introduction of good looking shake-the-box plastic rolling stock and diecast RTR locomotives that sold for less than half of what loco kits were going for before the war, the HO hobby grew in size by nearly ten-fold.Yes, and most of those products look like junk compared to today's models - some golden age that was! Since most scale hobbyists were craftsmen back then, at least to some degree, one saw the magazines continuously presenting inexpensive projects applicable to most every layout.Hobbyists had to be craftsmen back then, since there wasn't as much RTR available, nor were the models anything like the quality they are now. You're trying to make a virtue out of necessity, but it's an unconvincing argument. Back then the hobby was also about the enjoyment of really building things, things that developed your modeling talents...not about buying and collecting, often to no point, as has become so much a part of the hobby today.That's just your curmudgeonly take on things - you don't care for other people's approach to the hobby so you run it down at every opportunity. And you've contradicted yourself - what was the mad scramble for Lionel and AF if not buying and collecting to no point? It certainly wasn't building on your modelling talents. The biggest failing in the threads one sees here concerning the hobby's history is that so very few have any real idea of what actually went on in the hobby more than a few years ago. As a result, I'm afraid one usually sees simply a series of baseless speculations and opinions unrelated to the actual facts.Which is funny, because a lot of your posts come across as exactly that - opinions unrelated to the actual facts. When did you get appointed Professor Emeritus of MR History?Cheers,Mark.
CNJ831 wrote: No...there most certainly was a golden age in model railroading and it surely isn't now. In the mid 1950's model trains was ranked as the second most popular and practiced hobby in America, only edged out by philately! Is there anyone here so naive as to think our hobby even ranks in the top 100 today?
Aw come on, Mark. Tell us how you REALLY feel.
I don't know why CNJ thinks the 50's were the golden age. I was there, too, and I remember it very distinctly myself. Compare a Walther's SP C30-1 caboose to the Silver Streak caboose based on that prototype. There's no comparison. If you like kits, American Model Builders has one of the same prototype that makes the Silver Streak kit look positively crude in comparison.
Compare Walther's heavyweight passenger cars of today to the wood and metal kits of the time. There's no comparison. And if I were to run a price comparison of yesterday's kits to today's RTR adjusted for inflation it would, at worst, be a wash.
The hobby back then was largely about building the individual components rather than creating a cohesive whole. There were exceptions of course, but the primary emphasis was still on the parts rather than the whole.
Craftsmanship? Look at what Dave Vollmer's doing in N with a Spectrum 4-8-2 and a couple of K-4 boiler and tender shells. Have a gander at Doctorwayne's kitbashed motive power or Ray Breyer's work. How about Pelle Soeborg? Not only can the man detail and paint otherwise RTR motive power, but he can create a layout based on a town I lived in for 2 years as a kid and which I drove through less than a month ago and make me see the resemblance. The only thing missing on Pelle's layout are Joshua trees. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Image:Jtree.jpg
I don't know if you ever watched the TV series "MASH", but all this talk of some past golden age is, in the immortal words of Col. Sherman T. Potter, "Horsehockey!!"
Andre
I don't want to rain on this walk down memory lane, but back then there were 2 major players in the toy train industry (Lionel and American Flyer) and a couple of minor ones (Kusan-Auburn and one other one whose name escapes me).
Lionel is still around and going strong. MTH didn't even exist in the 50's/60's. Neither did Weaver or Williams (recently bought by Bachmann). Interestingly enough, if you type "Lionel" into Google, the first thing that appears is the website for Lionel Model Trains. Instead of 1 manufacturer for S gauge toy trains there are now 3 (AF by Lionel, American Models, and S Helper Service). Oh yeah, they're more scale than toy now. If you're into 3 rail O gauge, there are more products available today than Lionel has probably made since its founding and if you prefer S, more is available now than at any other time. Shoot, Lionel's even gone across the pond for its new "Harry Potter" set. I've seen one. It's a beaut and it's not that expensive.
G gauge (regardless of the scale used) didn't even exist back then. Now you can get items in 1:29 scale, 1:32 scale, 1:20.3 (3 ft narrow gauge) and 1:22.5 (European meter gauge). How many garden railroads existed in the 50's? Now there's an entire magazine devoted to that hobby. There are 2 devoted to toy trains (CTT and O Gauge).
We haven't even gotten to the other scales like O 2 rail, HO and N scale. Oh yeah, did I mention that you can buy live steam locomotives in various scales off the shelf.
I don't know about you, but there are going to be trains running under the tree at the Chapelon house for the amusement of the Chapelon grandchildren, 3 of which just love them. The 4th is only 4 months old and can be excused at this point.
Yup. It's dying alright.
P.S. I forgot to mention that the inflation adjusted price of that 'Harry Potter" set is just under $39 in 1954 dollars.
Not to mention that K-Line is now owned by Lionel.
WARNING! This is an opinion which, while based on observation, should not be mistaken for fact!
Anyone who thinks that the 1950s were some kind of golden age probably thinks that the 4-4-0 was the ultimate development of the steam locomotive.
Yes, there were magnificent models built by master craftsmen, often with only rudimentary tools. Bill Hoffmann's Sacramento Northern and Pacific Electric interurban cars were NOT made with laser-cut parts. Mel Thornburgh used all hand tools - his workshop was a roll-top desk.
OTOH, the typical products available to the average hobbyist (including me!) looked like something cut out of odd scraps with stone tools. MR featured a couple of construction series on locomotives with boilers that started life as broom handles. Not until late in the decade did aftermarket detail parts start to approach what we consider 'average' quality.
As far as the popularity of model railroading as measured against other hobbies, in my house the only competition is high quality crocheting! (My wife can, and does, make lace.) As far as the demise of the hobby, it will die when I do - but not before.
Chuck (modeling Central Japan in September, 1964 - for the forseeable future)
OK, the 50's. As I recall, my best Lionel Locomotive was a used 1940's model that someone gave my Dad. Stuff was so expensive, we only had two cars in our train, a tank car and a gondola. When I got into HO in about 1958, Iliked the idea that I could buy a half dozen Athearn box car kits for the price of one Lionel box car. Come to think of it, not much has changed.
But then the 50's made the great automobiles, right? NOT! A few of the looked really classy, but look at the engineering advances in automobiles over the past 50 years. Same with our toy trains, everything is better built, more reliable and actually cheaper than it was back then.
Least that is the way I remember it.
Oh, want to argue about the car thing, a friend is rebuilding a 55 Chevy and he reminded me that they had vacuum windshield wipers. Even the electric windsheild wipers of the 57 Chevy suck compared to the stuff on my Tahoe.
Athearn had rubber band drive, now that was smooth and reliable. My Lionels would only sit and tick when I tried to get them to move, did they call it the E unit?
No, today is the best years of model railroading, just log off your computer next week end and go find a show, swap meet or visit one of the big layouts around.
But hey, this is only my 2 cents, never worth another penny.
Joe Daddy
You mean like disc brakes and ABS, cruise control, variable intermittent wipers, collapsible steering columns, airbags, padded dashes, computer controlled fuel injection, and 200+ horsepower engines that get 25 MPG?
Naw, things were better in the 50's.
Does anyone in here actually care how many other people share their hobby?
Did you get into it because YOU like it, or because other people like it?
It's a safe bet that everyone in here enjoys it. Who cares about everyone else?
Besides I have other problems. Where, exactly should I put Hogwart's Castle in early 1950s Upstate New York and Pennsylvania? Maybe it was in the Poconos. They had all those places with the heart shape bathtubs and champagne glass hot tubs.
Things got so complicated when the grandchildren discovered the joy of railroading. It's just hard to work Thomas the Tank Engine and Hogwart's Express into the Erie Lackawanna and Delaware and Hudson systems........... I have built a small staging yard in a tunnel to park them out of sight when the grandchildren are not present.
PS:
I hope they don't decide they want Polar Express. There is no room in the tunnel to park it.
Folks let's stop and catch our respective breaths for a second on this matter. There are, as I see it, two principal issues surrounding the future of model railroading: 1) Availability of quality items; and 2) ability of the hobby to attract younger modelers to counter the "grim reaper effect."
There is no question in my mind, and this is supported by a lot of the previous comment on this thread, that the answer to #1 is that things are improving all the time. In a few weeks it will be my 50th anniversary in the hobby; and the options available today absolutely boggle the mind as compared to what was available even 20 years ago, let alone 50!
That said, #2 concerns me. I'm afraid that is not happening. There's a staggering amount of activity competing for young people's attention and time today (Just the sports activities alone make me think that if I was a kid today, I, with my general incompetence at athletics, just couldn't cope!) I guess dealing with this issue is what the "World's Greatest Hobby" campaign that we read so much about in Model Railroader is all about. I hope they succeed.
Thomas beating up Horseshoe Curve on a visit from the UK towing a hatful of happy children.
No need to hide anything. Maybe it's me, but if you are quick you might catch me inventorying the latest in the Thomas stuff. If Strasburg can arrange for a steam Thomas and run it on thier line I dont see a problem as long the children enjoy it.
The real test is when the old gaurd rolls in for the ops session. What do you suppose will happen if they were confronted with Sodor and Sir Toppenhat with a fist ful of train orders and waybills?
Once we get past that, we might have a little fun. I recall a trainshow recently where they had a small layout that featured Thomas and Sodor running inside a armored and child proof glass display case. It was right next to a highly finished quality built HO scale layout with a reasonable reproduction of a town, yard etc.
The children didnt pay the big layout any mind. All they wanted to see was Thomas.
I take the position that perhaps the big trains have thier time and when Children are over, break out the Thomas and let them run it. Once they get old enough they might get into the bigger trains.
The challenge is in us old folks who may be too corroded by life to consider it.
The other challenge and a much bigger one is stopping the kids from zoning out on the end of the Ethernet Cable or transporting themselves to neverland on a video game long enough to actually enjoy something that requires laws of physics and mechanical/electrical power of the old style to provide entertainment.
If you keep a home free of such distractions the school will feed them the internet and ruin em that way. In fact, with the wealth of knowledge now on the Internet, who needs skool anyway? =) Just a retorical question folks...
In trucking at a place in Missouri there was a old style electro mechanical game that required a dime to run. It was carefully balanced with a helicopter on a pole where you had to fly it to hit the various trip wires. I recall one evening where about 200 dollars fell into that thing sitting in a hall full of the latest, loudest and best high tech video games. All the drivers had a good time trying to get all of the sensor hits in the shortest time. They actually wore it out a little bit. Some of these fellas were old with one foot in the grave but for a time, everyone was having fun and none of that mattered.
Those big fancy video games? Not one game played on there all that night.
We're run into a problem defining "heyday."
The 1950's were the height of popularity for model and toy trains, as has been described. That's a heyday.
However, the technological development of the hobby is obviously much better today, which can also be defined as a heyday.
The concern of those who worry about such things is that, as the pool of people interested in scale model railroading shrinks--and don't kid yourself, your personal experience notwithstanding, it HAS shrunk--there will be less impetus for new technological development and prices for individual models will rise.
Falls Valley:
Just a month ago the grandchildren (& I) attended "A day out with Thomas" at the North Carolina Transportation Museum.
They got to ride on the full size Thomas, and to see many real trains, both steam and diesel. They got to explore the insides of several cars, including a railway post office, and there were about a dozen running layouts provided by local clubs. One very well done and quite large HO club railroad. One fairly large S guage railroad with dozens of buttons they could push that made things happen on the layout. Two Thomas layouts, one HO and one wooden. Etc.
The highlight of the day, though, seemed to be the turntable ride.
That day did more to foster their fascination with model railroading that anything I ever did.
And yes, I have converted both Thomas and Hogwarts to DCC with working headlights. Kids are not concerned with prototypical realism. Thomas looks really weird running in the subway tunnel. The turns in the subway are too sharp for Hogwarts...
joe-daddy wrote: Athearn had rubber band drive, now that was smooth and reliable. My Lionels would only sit and tick when I tried to get them to move, did they call it the E unit?
I doubt many of the current crop of toy or model trains will be able to make that same claim in 2040 or so.
I don't know why CNJ thinks the 50's were the golden age. I was there, too, and I remember it very distinctly myself..
Compare a Walther's SP C30-1 caboose to the Silver Streak caboose based on that prototype. There's no comparison. If you like kits, American Model Builders has one of the same prototype that makes the Silver Streak kit look positively crude in comparison.
Craftsmanship? Look at what Dave Vollmer's doing in N with a Spectrum 4-8-2 and a couple of K-4 boiler and tender shells. Have a gander at Doctorwayne's kitbashed motive power or Ray Breyer's work. How about Pelle Soeborg? Not only can the man detail and paint otherwise RTR motive power, but he can create a layout based on a town I lived in for 2 years as a kid and which I drove through less than a month ago and make me see the resemblance.
marknewton wrote: BRAKIE wrote:Actually RTR isn't new to the hobby..We had RTR in the 50/60s..I realise that. My point was that the RTR of that period wasn't as plentiful as it is now, nor was it as good in quality as it is now. Modellers then had no choice but to be craftsman. If CNJ were to remove his rose-tinted welding goggles he'd acknowledge that. But I don't think he likes to let the facts get in the way of a good story.
Yes RTR was look down on back then more then today..Athearn,Varney,Mantua,brass engines and cars(true the majority had to be painted),Tyco,Lionel(HO) Atlas,Linbergh and others had RTR cars or engines but,there was still tons of kits and more modelers willing to build those kits or buy brass.Even I looked down on RTR back then but,embrace it today.
You and CNJ will need to hash out the "rose-tinted welding goggles" thing.
tomikawaTT wrote: WARNING! This is an opinion which, while based on observation, should not be mistaken for fact!Anyone who thinks that the 1950s were some kind of golden age probably thinks that the 4-4-0 was the ultimate development of the steam locomotive.Yes, there were magnificent models built by master craftsmen, often with only rudimentary tools. Bill Hoffmann's Sacramento Northern and Pacific Electric interurban cars were NOT made with laser-cut parts. Mel Thornburgh used all hand tools - his workshop was a roll-top desk.OTOH, the typical products available to the average hobbyist (including me!) looked like something cut out of odd scraps with stone tools. MR featured a couple of construction series on locomotives with boilers that started life as broom handles. Not until late in the decade did aftermarket detail parts start to approach what we consider 'average' quality.
TTT:
When I read something like this, I can't help but feel the urge to throw on a little cold water, because I have made a lot of observations of my own. Warning - this is going to be long. I tend to do that.
I like the present day. I don't think the hobby is dying. I prefer, though, to defend our present era on its own merits, and I don't feel we should put down an earlier one by saying it was worse than it really was.
The 1950s were actually not that long ago in model railroading, when we speak of rolling stock technology...and the blanket era-term is misleading, as there was a *ton* of advancement in that decade. Manufacturers and modelers alike were very progressive, and the model-railroad world of 1951 was far, far different from that of 1959, way more than the comparatively miniscule difference between, say, 1999 and 2007.
The typical products available to the average hobbyist -- are still available to the average hobbyist, in many cases, and they were not crude. Mantua was the Athearn of their day, a good, solid product that everybody owned, and some of the best engineering in economical HO steam. Older die-cast steam wasn't generally superdetailed, but for durability and repairability it's hard to beat, and once you get the binds out, they usually run very well. Nothing crude about Penn-Line's large flywheel-worm, much like a Helix Humper, or Bowser's pillow-block bearings.
Diesels were a little different. Diesel drives hadn't developed as long, so there were all sorts of different designs. Athearn's Hi-F drive was there, but it's easy to forget that Athearn also had a gear drive at the same time, and at any rate Hi-F drive wasn't typical. If anything was, it was a chassis-mounted motor driving one truck through some sort of flexible shaft, possibly with another shaft below the chassis connecting the two trucks. Done well, this could work beautifully (Hobbytown). Done badly - ditto. Power trucks were also common. Done well, these could work beautifully (Lindsay). Done badly - likewise. Again, though, the worst of the power-truck drives weren't a product of the 1950s.
As for the Hi-F drive, it was controversial even then. Some authors would express doubts in MR, and then somebody would write in claiming that his Hi-F locos were the best he had. They say the units operate very well in multiple-unit lashups. I can't vouch for that.
Much later, we see a lot of cheaping-out on some formerly good lines, notably Varney, but also MDC, and later Tyco. MDC would redeem itself before Horizon ruined it as a steam line, and Mantua would do the same before trying to be the Franklin Mint. Varney would never recover. I really wonder - is it people's experience with downgraded mid-60s to 70s versions of 1950s locomotives that color their opinions of the decade? Originally, though, they were not crude.
As for crudity of detail, that wasn't entirely typical, either. Molded-plastic and die-cast models could have very good detail, again, much better than some of the stuff that came later. The blue-box Athearn F7 shell was designed back then. It's not perfect, but it's certainly not crude, and the 1950s-designed Athearn Blomberg truck is positively beautiful. The average modeler's equipment wasn't particularly bad. What I see in photos from back then is a lot of Varney and Mantua equipment. The average modeler did also build some craftsman kits. These weren't crude, either. The proportions were usually good, if the superfinest detail wasn't there, and if assembled carefully they got good models -- judging by the photos, a lot of ordinary people could find the needed skill.
I am always amused when I read some Super Modeler in MR describe How Much Better It Is Today, and talks about how crude his old kitbuilt models were, or maybe how he failed to build one and gave up. Well, of course, silly. Skills develop. If you never build that first bad one, and get some practice, you'll never build that first *good* one that makes you feel proud for 3 months. I ruined 6 model car kits before that first perfect 1957 Chevy. I ruined my first locomotive kit by rushing through it, and drove myself nuts on an Arbour kit with a warped frame, but then I bought an MDC Mogul and took my time and it runs like a watch. Nobody ever made progress by fearing to take a step.
The Kitchen Table Loco series you refer to was a sort of gimmick, and again, like the Hi-F drive, it was controversial, and not really typical of the time. It would have been more typical of the HO modeling of the Thirties, when such materials were promoted by Eric La Nal, who made decent if simply detailed models from them. He even tried making truck frames from oak tag paper. Even in the Thirties, however, this sort of thing raised considerable letters-page controversy. These techniques still crop up now and again. Bud Sima wrote an MR article about his wood-and-card Ma & Pa 2-8-0, built on an Old Lady chassis, in 1972.
The only time when a lot of average hobbyist products really looked like something "cut from scraps with stone tools" :), in HO, was at the very beginning, in the 1930s, and even then there were many fine models available. Things got better through the 1940s, and by the late 1950s the scale was really not so different from today. N saw a similar, faster evolution. O was already pretty good in the 1930s. Later we would see various devolutions and revolutions in the various scales, but that's a story for another day.
In the end, though, what makes the 1945-1959 period of model railroading so attractive isn't related to the models themselves, but to the attitude of the modelers. There was a huge increase in popularity, and a lot more innovation than we see today. People really wanted to have fun with their trains. I love reading old RMC's and MRs. What I like about this forum is that a lot of that attitude exists here, too.
andrechapelon wrote:Craftsmanship? Look at what Dave Vollmer's doing in N with a Spectrum 4-8-2 and a couple of K-4 boiler and tender shells. Andre
Craftsmanship? Look at what Dave Vollmer's doing in N with a Spectrum 4-8-2 and a couple of K-4 boiler and tender shells.
Thanks for the shout-out, Andre! But this makes an excellent point I've tried to make before.
I'm not doing the PRR M1 kitbash as an excercise in the lost art of craftsmanship (of course, under close scrutiny, my work isn't all that...look at Max Magliaro if you want N scale steam craftsmanship!). Rather, I'm doing it of necessity, doing what a well-advertised manufacturer failed to do.
It seems to me much of the craftsmanship of old comes of necessity, not as some Zen art. My father is a true craftsman; he still scratchbuilds from basswood with plans he builds himself. But he does this for things he can't buy. He has RTR stuff too.
So my M1 kitbash is not as much a means to keep a golden art alive as it is to fill a need. I suspect that is why so many modelers in the 50s did what they did. Were RTR so prolific then as now, I think the history of the hobby would be different. After all, even in the 50s, TV had begun seriously competing for spare time with traditional hobbies in well-to-do households.
Modeling the Rio Grande Southern First District circa 1938-1946 in HOn3.
Soo Line fan wrote:Down boys, I am not referring to present day. I came across an interesting interview with Nat Polk. His theory of why trains declined back in the 60s was the following:"The demise of toy trains came when everybody began to chase the $19.95 or $24.95 starter sets of trains from Sears and Montgomery Ward.In other words, the manufacturers all thought that the starter sets had to sell for $19.95 or $24.95, and they couldn't come up with any kind of quality at that price, so things got worse and worse quality wise.People had bad quality experiences with them. Even the small storekeepers had bad experiences with them.You know it all culminated in that Scout set. The Scout set was the final ruination of all the cheap, cheap catalog sets that we all, sadly, had to have." -Nat Polk 1995Jim
Down boys, I am not referring to present day.
I came across an interesting interview with Nat Polk. His theory of why trains declined back in the 60s was the following:
"The demise of toy trains came when everybody began to chase the $19.95 or $24.95 starter sets of trains from Sears and Montgomery Ward.
In other words, the manufacturers all thought that the starter sets had to sell for $19.95 or $24.95, and they couldn't come up with any kind of quality at that price, so things got worse and worse quality wise.
People had bad quality experiences with them. Even the small storekeepers had bad experiences with them.
You know it all culminated in that Scout set. The Scout set was the final ruination of all the cheap, cheap catalog sets that we all, sadly, had to have." -Nat Polk 1995
Jim
The December 2007 RMC lists train sets for Christmas. In HO they start at $99.98 (Athearn) and go all the way up to $416 (Trix) . Bit pricey for a child's toy. Looks like the $19.95 price line has failed to hold. One of the Bachmann sets comes with the 2-8-0 Consoidation, which is one hell of a nice locomotive for a trainset.
David Starr www.newsnorthwoods.blogspot.com