But where's the evidence that those kids continue to stay with the hobby when they grow out of the Thomas age?
Well, build me a time machine and I'll go forward 30-40 years into the future and find out for you. It's the only way to find out if the hobby will still be alive and kicking. 'Course, it might then be in the process of shuffling off this mortal coil and I would have to return to tell you that the hobby's dying, but you got the time frame all wrong.
For crying out loud, could anyone have predicted back in 1951 when I was 5 and watching the daily D&RGW local go by our house that, at the age of 61, I would still be interested in trains? Yeah, there were toy trains and steam in revenue service when I was a kid and this is touted as a reason that Boomers who are into the hobby ARE into the hobby, but how many others of my age had similar experiences and could care less about trains today?
Boomers weren't all born at once and the birth rate peaked in the years 1957-1961, essentially after steam was gone and after Lionel's and American Flyer's businesses had started to decline significantly. There's a lot of Boomers out there who never actually saw a steam engine in regular service and who didn't have an electric train set when they were kids. For those of us Boomers who were born prior to 1950, steam was essentially gone well before we reached puberty (SP's last official revenue steam trip occurred several months before I turned 11 and 350 miles from where I lived at the time).
But it does no good for people to say things like they see lots of people looking at holiday train displays or that their kids like Thomas or that the hobby shop looks busy or that a manufacturer just came out with the model they need.
Oh no? One could have made the same observation when I was a kid. Lots of people did look at holiday train displays back then. Kids did like Lionel and American Flyer (Thomas was in the future). Some even got train sets. Not everyone who did became a model railroader, but some certainly did. From what our pal CNJ writes, one gets the impression that Thomas emerged full blown as a phenomenon back in the late 80's/early 90's and has remained steady state ever since. That's not the case. It started relatively small and grew larger year by year until you can't go into any store that carries toys without finding Thomas in some form. We're not talking flash-in-the-pan fads like Cabbage Patch Kids, either. Thomas has demonstrated a staying power that other toys can only wish for.
The hard evidence--number of people involved in the hobby, i.e., building scale models, layouts, operating, etc., is not at a record high. It is dropping.
O.K. You've made the claim, you provide the numbers. Are you including 3 rail O gauge, garden railroads, etc., or are you blowing them off as something that shouldn't be counted? And if the numbers are dropping, why is that there is more stuff available than at any other time in history with more on the way? The manufacturers must lack any business sense whatsoever to be investing in new tooling when their market is shrinking as we speak.
Maybe the hobby will die, I don't know. What I do know for sure is that I will eventually die and what I object to is the non-stop playing of funeral dirges (for the hobby, not me). The reason I say this is that I have much more of my life behind me than in front of me. Having said that, I intend to have some fun with whatever time I have left. The hobby's not dead yet, so why not enjoy it and quit worrying about its demise (imminent or otherwise)? As a grandparent, all I can do is expose my grandkids to the hobby (be it through Thomas or some other method or a combination). Whether or not memories of Grandpa and their own experiences will be enough to induce one or more of the grandkids to take up the hobby remains to be seen. And in the end, who cares? Life is to be lived and you don't live by constantly obsessing about your own death or the death of your favorite hobby.
Andre
Autobus Prime wrote: vsmith wrote:All I was observing was that while the hardcore modelers do appear to be a dying breed, the manufacturers ARE finding ways to adjust to the new market and continue to make money, another is the plethora of RTR cars and buildings, and what about all that plastic ballasted snap-track out there, which I think looks like crap, all which old timers point to the as the death, or at least severe wounding, of true craftsman building, which I do agree with. RTR, Thomas, dont do the "Old School" modelers any good, but as things change, the hobby changes, and we have to adjust to those changesvs:But preballasted sectional track used to be hugely popular: Tru-Scale Ready-Track. Lots of people used it! Like preballasted snap-track today, it looked a little stiff and was a bit restrictive, but it was a huge convenience for a lot of people.I used to worry about RTR taking over, but I've gotten over that. I think there will always be plenty people in this hobby who like kits best, plenty of RTR fans who want to branch out, and plenty of manufacturers to supply the material. I now suspect that the big expansion of RTR was a filling of a supply void that had developed somehow.The first RTR boom by Mantua etc. years and years back probably got a lot of people into scale railroading. I think this hobby has always been a largely RTR thing for a lot of the people in it -- before the RTR (and simple screwdriver kits), Joe Sixpack was probably a hi-railer. At some point, somehow, RTR became synonymous with the top-end brass and the bottom-end trainset stuff, and all the "good stuff" was some sort of kit.Of course, I have a book from the early 1940s, MODEL RAILROAD ENGINEERING, a very good work by an editor of Popular Mechanics, and excellent good reading, which explains the merits of the currently available loco kits, but is quite careful to explain that something so simple "can hardly be considered model building". He's mostly referring to 1940s O, folks. Scale-Craft and the like...
vsmith wrote:All I was observing was that while the hardcore modelers do appear to be a dying breed, the manufacturers ARE finding ways to adjust to the new market and continue to make money, another is the plethora of RTR cars and buildings, and what about all that plastic ballasted snap-track out there, which I think looks like crap, all which old timers point to the as the death, or at least severe wounding, of true craftsman building, which I do agree with. RTR, Thomas, dont do the "Old School" modelers any good, but as things change, the hobby changes, and we have to adjust to those changes
All I was observing was that while the hardcore modelers do appear to be a dying breed, the manufacturers ARE finding ways to adjust to the new market and continue to make money, another is the plethora of RTR cars and buildings, and what about all that plastic ballasted snap-track out there, which I think looks like crap, all which old timers point to the as the death, or at least severe wounding, of true craftsman building, which I do agree with. RTR, Thomas, dont do the "Old School" modelers any good, but as things change, the hobby changes, and we have to adjust to those changes
vs:
But preballasted sectional track used to be hugely popular: Tru-Scale Ready-Track. Lots of people used it! Like preballasted snap-track today, it looked a little stiff and was a bit restrictive, but it was a huge convenience for a lot of people.
I used to worry about RTR taking over, but I've gotten over that. I think there will always be plenty people in this hobby who like kits best, plenty of RTR fans who want to branch out, and plenty of manufacturers to supply the material. I now suspect that the big expansion of RTR was a filling of a supply void that had developed somehow.
The first RTR boom by Mantua etc. years and years back probably got a lot of people into scale railroading. I think this hobby has always been a largely RTR thing for a lot of the people in it -- before the RTR (and simple screwdriver kits), Joe Sixpack was probably a hi-railer. At some point, somehow, RTR became synonymous with the top-end brass and the bottom-end trainset stuff, and all the "good stuff" was some sort of kit.
Of course, I have a book from the early 1940s, MODEL RAILROAD ENGINEERING, a very good work by an editor of Popular Mechanics, and excellent good reading, which explains the merits of the currently available loco kits, but is quite careful to explain that something so simple "can hardly be considered model building". He's mostly referring to 1940s O, folks. Scale-Craft and the like...
Whats the old saying? "I used to be offended, now I'm just amused"
I agree with you, I never said the stuff wasnt popular, then or now, even that crappy looking old wood tru-scale stuff, I knew a guy whos whole layout was that stuff. I just chose not to use it myself (too poor)
The RTR trend is definetly here to stay, I've known that for a long time. You should check out my scale, in G, everything is RTR, literally! Use to be in HO or O you bought a kit to save money, but in G, the only affordable kits to really speak of are just structures, and even most of those like Piko or Pola kits, are pre-colored, snap together type kits with predetermined signage stickers and get put together out of the box and plopped down on a layout without a wink, so theres a very annoying aspect to large scale in that almost everyone has the exact same buildings on their layouts, and to make matters worse they run their trains straight out of the box so many people have the same trains running around the same buildings! the only thing unique is the track plan!
THAT is the true danger of RTR, the numbing conformity of complacency, of same trains, of same structures, what next, is someone going to market RTR layouts straight out of the box?
Now I'm old enough to have grown up reading about the older generation who virtually carved their HO trains out of styrene, and scratchbuilt almost everything they had. I have tremendous admiration for layouts like the Gorre & Dephitid or the Crooked Mountain Lines, from them I learned to carve the styrene RTRs into kitbashes, cut my fingers a lot but I did learn...I guess I just find that resistance to trying to learn hardest to accept in some (not all) model railroaders today, regardless of what scale they run, they just "want it now".
Have fun with your trains
jfugate wrote:Thanks to the internet, the hobby will continue to survive well into the future, which works for me.
Thanks to the internet, the hobby will continue to survive well into the future, which works for me.
Joe,
I've met your grandson - twice now. Even let him run my personal locomotive that was visiting the Siskiyou Line the first time.
I know _exactly_ who is going to inherit your railroad stuff, as he's already inherited your passion.
tomikawaTT wrote:As for the bucket of brass for $10.00, wait for my estate sale. Of course, the brass will be 1:80 scale Japanese prototype. (Don't hold your breath waiting. My father died in his 90s, and I'm WAY healthier than he was at my age.)
As for the bucket of brass for $10.00, wait for my estate sale. Of course, the brass will be 1:80 scale Japanese prototype. (Don't hold your breath waiting. My father died in his 90s, and I'm WAY healthier than he was at my age.)
jfugate wrote: I too tire of all the chest beating going on about who has the best knowledge of the future of the hobby. The truth is none of us knows exactly what the future holds -- but I can guarantee you this -- it will be different than it is today. As long as there's an internet and at least two people in the hobby, they can share ideas instantly and keep in contact to send each other parts, etc. This is way better than the fix we'd be in if the hobby died after the 1960s as was predicted back then. Thanks to the internet, the hobby will continue to survive well into the future, which works for me.
I too tire of all the chest beating going on about who has the best knowledge of the future of the hobby.
The truth is none of us knows exactly what the future holds -- but I can guarantee you this -- it will be different than it is today. As long as there's an internet and at least two people in the hobby, they can share ideas instantly and keep in contact to send each other parts, etc. This is way better than the fix we'd be in if the hobby died after the 1960s as was predicted back then.
Some times one can judge the hobby by what we see or don't see..Again the WGH push back by those that stand to lose the most isn't a unexplainable anomaly as its real and verifiable as is the closing of hobby shops beyond the normal retirement or passing of the owner.
Larry
Conductor.
Summerset Ry.
"Stay Alert, Don't get hurt Safety First!"
This is the thread that never ends...This is the thread that never ends....This is the thread that never ends....Let's sing it again, This is the thread that never ends....
Oh, you may have thought it ended. But it'll be back next week under a different title. Can't seem to get enough of beating that horse carcass, even though it's unrecognizeable due to all the mutilation.
David beat me to the bunch: what difference is it going to make to me if one side or the other is correct? If the hobby is going to die soon, I have no additional $$ to buy while I still can. If the hobby is still going to be around, then I have no reason to change what I am doing.
It's a hobby, and we're supposed to having fun. So, bye for now.
Midnight Railroader wrote:... The hard evidence...
...
The hard evidence...
Well that's the rub. We don't have any, so no one really knows. Some magazine circulation numbers are lower now than a selected point in the past, some hobby shops are closed, train shows and Internet dealers seems to have arisen as major points of sales. But no one knows how any of that correlates to the number of model railroaders or if there even is a correlation. Heck, we can't even agree on who is a model railroader.
This is one of my favorite monthly threads. We all pool our ignorance with much argument and not a whisper of knowing.
Enjoy
Paul
Dave Vollmer wrote: Okay, I have to ask...If you knew for sure, with irrefutable evidence, that the hobby was in fact going to die in 20 years, what would you do differently?Whew!
Okay, I have to ask...
If you knew for sure, with irrefutable evidence, that the hobby was in fact going to die in 20 years, what would you do differently?
Whew!
Well, there are a few things I'd try to add to my roster before the meteor takes out the factory
Midnight Railroader wrote: vsmith wrote:Thomas is bigger today than ever, and those kids have parents that are buying an awful lot of Thomas stuff today. So the New Blood is disguised as such, the income is coming into those making the Thomas stuff but there's a negligable overflow into true scale modeling, so we get stealth hobbiests who dont even realize they are part of the hobby with all that Thomas purchases.But where's the evidence that those kids continue to stay with the hobby when they grow out of the Thomas age?Look, I love this hobby. But it does no good for people to say things like they see lots of people looking at holiday train displays or that their kids like Thomas or that the hobby shop looks busy or that a manufacturer just came out with the model they need.That's called anecdotal evidence. If I go in to Caboose Hobbies on Monday at 2pm and there's no one there, it wouldn't be right for me to claim the hobby is dead because of that. If a hobby shop closes down, that MIGHT be evidence that the hobby's in decline--or it could mean the owner mismanaged the place and went bankrupt. The hard evidence--number of people involved in the hobby, i.e., building scale models, layouts, operating, etc., is not at a record high. It is dropping.
vsmith wrote:Thomas is bigger today than ever, and those kids have parents that are buying an awful lot of Thomas stuff today. So the New Blood is disguised as such, the income is coming into those making the Thomas stuff but there's a negligable overflow into true scale modeling, so we get stealth hobbiests who dont even realize they are part of the hobby with all that Thomas purchases.
Look, I love this hobby.
That's called anecdotal evidence. If I go in to Caboose Hobbies on Monday at 2pm and there's no one there, it wouldn't be right for me to claim the hobby is dead because of that. If a hobby shop closes down, that MIGHT be evidence that the hobby's in decline--or it could mean the owner mismanaged the place and went bankrupt.
I cant prove anything other than I know alot of LHS here make their bread and butter with Thomas stuff sales, I'd agree that most of these kids move on to other things as they get older, some may return when they themselves start having families but I would agree that number is small.
All I was observing was that while the hardcore modelers do appear to be a dying breed, the manufacturers ARE finding ways to adjust to the new market and continue to make money, another is the plethora of RTR cars and buildings, and what about all that plastic ballasted snap-track out there, which I think looks like crap, all which old timers point to the as the death, or at least severe wounding, of true craftsman building, which I do agree with. RTR, Thomas, dont do the "Old School" modelers any good, but as things change, the hobby changes, and we have to adjust to those changes, I'm not saying we have to go along with them but change happens whether we like it or not. Its how we adapt to them that counts.
If the answer is "nothing," then the argument is eventually futile.
If the answer is to hoard up as many model trains as possible, get spendin'!
If the answer is to quit the hobby, then have fun in whatever else you choose to do.
For me, I'd do nothing different.
We need hard numbers. I suggest the federal government to a trace on all purchases of model train-related products and track that number monthly. More importantly, they need to identify the number of people making purchases rather than simply the number of purchases.
Sound silly? Well, I can't think of a more irrefutable way to get hard evidence. All this "I know a guy on the inside" is no more concrete than "my kids love Thomas" or "my LHS closed" or "that WGH show was packed."
So, in all seriousness, it's agonizingly clear that some people have rose-colored glasses, others have very dark-colored glasses, and the rest have fogged-up glasses (like me). No one has changed anyone's mind in the dozens of threads on this topic. We all claim our own anticdotal or incomplete data are all the evidence we need to prove our point, but in the end we can't predict how much the hobby has declined, will decline, or when and if it will plateau, or if it will, in fact, die completely.
Just don't tell the manufacturers the death throes have begun, because some of them seem to think there's still money to be made in the hobby!
I have a great respect for some of the long-time hobbyists who can vouch for their personal observations of the hobby of the past 50 years. But in science, we have a thing we call "the dangers of extrapolation." That is, trends that are not linear cannot be extrapolated into the future with 100% certainty.
Case in point: the housing market. Just a few years ago, if you'd extrapolated the then-current trend, the average US home would be going for close to a half mil. The "trend" didn't foresee the market collapse. The same is true here.
Will the hobby continue to decline to zero? I doubt it, but I don't know. Will it get smaller but more focused? That's my personal bet, but I don't know. All I know is that it will be different. Model railroading is a nonlinear system; there are natural unpredictabilities that are profound enough to render this whole debate irrelevant IMHO.
Modeling the Rio Grande Southern First District circa 1938-1946 in HOn3.
To quote the Vulcan Ambasador, Sarek:
"Telarites do not debate, they just argue"
Dave
Lackawanna Route of the Phoebe Snow
Since none of those teenagers/young adults who are or aren't present/potential model railroaders live under my personal roof, I'm not going to worry about them - or their potential influence on this hobby.
The ones who should be concerned about a possible decline are all you DCC hounds. Anyone who knows the difference between an electron and a proton can build an analog DC power pack from electronic parts house components. DCC items usually require an electrical engineer with a minor in data processing (and a skilled hand with a pencil iron!)
Chuck (modeling Central Japan in September, 1964)
Joe Fugate Modeling the 1980s SP Siskiyou Line in southern Oregon
CNJ831 wrote: Autobus Prime wrote: CNJ831 wrote: The Thomas series began in the United States nearly 20 years ago (1989), making its earliest viewers perhaps 20-25 today. So where is the influx of new blood as a result? C:Dating. They'll be back around age 35, after being married a few years.And upon what bit of insight re Thomas' influence on the hobby do you base that? As always, I am afraid when it comes to Thomas such linkage is only the wishful thinking of the hobbyist, not based on any actual evidence or even a rational evaluation of the situation.If I am incorrect about Thomas having no influence whatever on creating future hobbyists, please do point out what varifiable evidence indicates otherwise. Some posters claim, "My kids love Thomas and my layout", or something similar. What does that indicate? Odds are it's only true for them simply because they are modelers already. In reality, if there is no indication of new hobbyists coming from the ranks of Thomas lovers after 20 years of the show being on TV, you can pretty much write off the idea of it having any hobby influence. By comparison, in the days of tinplate the evidence of that influence in creating new scale hobbyist, from pre-teens on up in age, was overwhelming...and most didn't wait until 35+ to exhibit it, according to MR, 1 hobbyist in 5 was a teen in 1956!CNJ831
Autobus Prime wrote: CNJ831 wrote: The Thomas series began in the United States nearly 20 years ago (1989), making its earliest viewers perhaps 20-25 today. So where is the influx of new blood as a result? C:Dating. They'll be back around age 35, after being married a few years.
CNJ831 wrote: The Thomas series began in the United States nearly 20 years ago (1989), making its earliest viewers perhaps 20-25 today. So where is the influx of new blood as a result?
The Thomas series began in the United States nearly 20 years ago (1989), making its earliest viewers perhaps 20-25 today. So where is the influx of new blood as a result?
C:
Dating. They'll be back around age 35, after being married a few years.
And upon what bit of insight re Thomas' influence on the hobby do you base that? As always, I am afraid when it comes to Thomas such linkage is only the wishful thinking of the hobbyist, not based on any actual evidence or even a rational evaluation of the situation.
If I am incorrect about Thomas having no influence whatever on creating future hobbyists, please do point out what varifiable evidence indicates otherwise. Some posters claim, "My kids love Thomas and my layout", or something similar. What does that indicate? Odds are it's only true for them simply because they are modelers already.
In reality, if there is no indication of new hobbyists coming from the ranks of Thomas lovers after 20 years of the show being on TV, you can pretty much write off the idea of it having any hobby influence. By comparison, in the days of tinplate the evidence of that influence in creating new scale hobbyist, from pre-teens on up in age, was overwhelming...and most didn't wait until 35+ to exhibit it, according to MR, 1 hobbyist in 5 was a teen in 1956!
CNJ831
Some people think the cup is half full. Others think it is half empty. Then there are the few who think that the cup is a mythical beast and arguing about its contents is an exercise in futility.
I wish this hobby would hurry up and die so I can get some real bargains on eBay. Imagine a box full of brass locomotives for $10. I can't wait.
dstarr wrote: 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 1995JimThe 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.
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.
On an inflation adjusted basis, a train set going for $24.95 in 1960 would sell for $176.11 today and a $19.95 set went for today's equivalent of around $141. Both Walthers and Athearn have sets for less and the 6 car Athearn passenger set sells for roughly the inflation adjusted price of the $24.95 set in 1960.
Incidentally, most HO sets back then didn't include a power pack.
It will be interesting to see what influence (if any) Thomas has on model railroaders in future years. It may still be a little early to tell, since the Thomas "boom" really only goes back to the nineties. I know in my generation (49 now) and older there was often a pattern - O27 or S train set as as kid, sometimes continuing in tinplate into the teen years or switching to scale trains along the way, then a hiatus during college / military service / girls / starting a career and family, then returning to the hobby in their 30's or 40's.
I know my alma mater has a model railroad club now (I'm an alumni member) and is building a substantial layout on campus. We didn't have any such club c.1980 when I was there, so it does appear there is perhaps a growing interest in model railroading among the younger folks...or maybe they're just better organized than we were at that age?!
"while Thomas is simply a fantasy character, the same as TV's Jay Jay the Jet Plane. "
Try telling that to my granddaughters. They have ridden Thomas. The rest of the tour of the Transportation museum where it took place has generated a tremendous fascination with trains.
The eldest now reads my Model Railroader magazine, and begs to go to a crossing to watch freight trains go by, and is in heaven ever time she gets to ride our local light rail.
I really need to take her somewhere on Amtrak.
Midnight Railroader wrote: on30francisco wrote:For the holidays, the San Francisco Public Library set up a Christmas display of an O gauge Lionel Thomas and regular steam engine pulling lighted passenger cars. The trains and lights in the village can be controlled by the public by pushing various buttons. There is always a standing crowd around it of both kids and adults.Encouraging, but that really doesn't have any bearing on the number of people involved with scale model railroading as their hobby.
on30francisco wrote:For the holidays, the San Francisco Public Library set up a Christmas display of an O gauge Lionel Thomas and regular steam engine pulling lighted passenger cars. The trains and lights in the village can be controlled by the public by pushing various buttons. There is always a standing crowd around it of both kids and adults.
Encouraging, but that really doesn't have any bearing on the number of people involved with scale model railroading as their hobby.
Unfortunately, absolutely nothing whatever. Many these days like to point to Thomas as in some manner the hobby's potential savior and as generating future hobbyists, in the same manner that Lionel and Flyer did for youths of two generations ago. However, there hasn't been even a shred of evidence that their actually exists any such tie-in. Looked at objectively, Thomas appeals largely to pre-schoolers, not particularly to kids in their later pre-teens, where yesteryear's model railroad hobbyists came from. Further, Lionel and Flyer represented real trains in miniature, while Thomas is simply a fantasy character, the same as TV's Jay Jay the Jet Plane.
So far no one has been able to show any fact or figure even suggesting that kids who watched the Thomas series in their earliest years are influenced toward becoming model railroaders. The Thomas series began in the United States nearly 20 years ago (1989), making its earliest viewers perhaps 20-25 today. So where is the influx of new blood as a result? A posted question here from a while back asked who among forum members had been influenced by Thomas to later take up model railroading. Only a single individual came forward to indicate he had. On a forum of supposedly 40,000+ members, that is hardly an influential or encouaging figure!
My advice is to forget Thomas as being in any manner influential in helping generate future hobbyist..it just isn't a realistic idea.
wm3798 wrote: If you look around you, it's hard to argue that RIGHT NOW isn't the Golden Age. Adjusted for inflation, model trains are as affordable as ever, and available in greater variety and quantity than ever before.
If you look around you, it's hard to argue that RIGHT NOW isn't the Golden Age. Adjusted for inflation, model trains are as affordable as ever, and available in greater variety and quantity than ever before.
No disagreement with those points
wm3798 wrote: There's tons of younger guys involved in the hobby, and tons more guys in their 40's who are coming out of the woodwork all the time now that they have careers in place, the mortgage payment is manageable, and the crumb catchers have grown to actual size. There are certainly more hobby choices these days, but hasn't that always been the case?
There's tons of younger guys involved in the hobby, and tons more guys in their 40's who are coming out of the woodwork all the time now that they have careers in place, the mortgage payment is manageable, and the crumb catchers have grown to actual size. There are certainly more hobby choices these days, but hasn't that always been the case?
You're making that assertion with all the authority in the world. I hope you're right!!
Dave Vollmer wrote: And now for a lighter moment...This hobby will not die until I authorize it to die! You will need to pry my DT400 throttle from my cold, dead hands before this hobby will be allowed to meet its demise!Ifn' I have to build trains from empty Play Station 3 and XBox360 game cartridge boxes, then that, by gum, is what I'm gonna do!...and, they'll probably still run better than a Tyco!And now back to your regularly scheduled "hobby death/cost" debate...!
And now for a lighter moment...
This hobby will not die until I authorize it to die! You will need to pry my DT400 throttle from my cold, dead hands before this hobby will be allowed to meet its demise!
Ifn' I have to build trains from empty Play Station 3 and XBox360 game cartridge boxes, then that, by gum, is what I'm gonna do!
...and, they'll probably still run better than a Tyco!
And now back to your regularly scheduled "hobby death/cost" debate...!
If it dies tomorrow, then you and I will be the envy of the neighbors. WE HAVE OURS.
I have enough trains to hold me until my end of days. I'll just spend the rest of my life tinking with the structures and terrain.
Sincerely'
Other Dave
Now just wait a minute there, Dave. Nobody has the authority to authorize the hobby to die unless I give them that authority and I ain't giving that up until I die.
That's going to be a while because my wife refuses to authorize my death. 'Course, that could change at any time.
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.
You're welcome, Dave, and what you said is precisely the point. It was pretty much the point in the 50's/60's as well. You scratchbuilt/kitbashed something because it just wasn't available, not as an exercise in showing off your skills. Interestingly enough, the word "kitbash" was borrowed from the Brits and was a relatively unknown term here until about the mid-1960's.
I could kid you a bit and suggest that you'd have a lot less work to do in HO scale, since BLI/PCM actually did release an M-1 and one is available in kit form from Bowser, but I don't want to ignite the war of the scales especially since I don't care what scale it's in. Good modeling is good modeling.