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.
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.
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.
Have fun with your trains
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:... 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
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...
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.
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.
Thanks to the internet, the hobby will continue to survive well into the future, which works for me.
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!"
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: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.
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...
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".
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).
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.
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
If you ask the question - why do people get involved in model trains, then the answer to the prophets of doom is that our hobby will always be around.
IMO, the main reasons why people start in this hobby are a love of trains, a love of creation or both. This is why you see layouts where the trains dominate and others where the trains only seem to serve to animate a static model display. The former group are the ones who fall for the hobby as kids, maybe drop it for wine, women and song but return once their life is settled. The latter group are the ones who take the hobby up from scratch at a later time in life.
Numbers will rise and fall, but there will always be a percentage of the population with the mindset and the time to take up the hobby.
Escalating costs are down to volume and the demand for models of higher standards. The costs do not stop determined and committed modellers from shelling out the bucks or getting creative. Down here we pay the best part of $700 for a BLI standard loco with DCC and sound. Make that over $900 for a garret. If our loco of choice is not available RTR, then a whitemetal and brass kit (2 months of spare time to assemble and paint) will come in between $350 and $550. We are just happy to have models of our favourite Aussie locos available.
The high cost here probably explains why the vast majority of Aussie modellers are trains fans first and foremost. The high costs of the models push the creative types into some other persuit.
Cheers, Ian from Oz.
ps: Multiply those numbers by 0.9 for US dollars.
vsmith wrote: 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) 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".
No, I knew you weren't saying the prefab track wasn't popular. You were saying it was sort of ugly. I can agree with that. I was just trying to say it wasn't a new thing. I think when Tru-Scale went out, it left a track-shaped hole in the available product range, until the plastic-roadbed stuff came in.
You also make a good point regarding sameness. This also happens with kits. The great thing about that is that it tends to self-limit. Sooner or later somebody gets tired of the same damned Walthers/Suydam/Plasticville on every damned layout and decides to do some customizing.
The old-timers did that a lot, as you have noted.
I think what keeps people from doing more is that people want their first attempt to turn out perfectly, and if it doesn't, they give up and decide they can't learn. Well, not that way, you can't.
I don't think you understand the prophets of doom. They aren't happy unless they're convinced everything is going to Hades in a handbasket. There are several variants to this as follows:
1. The hobby is dying. Reminding the POD's that this has been forecast since before you reached your teen years (in the 50's) doesn't matter. It actually doesn't matter to the POD's whether or not the hobby actually dies as long as they can suck energy out of everyone else.
2. The hobby is overpriced. It doesn't matter that the hobby has always been "overpriced", the POD's are outraged that it's "overpriced" now and something should be done about it. None of the suggestions for fixes are workable because none of these guys understand the economics of a restricted market, which is probably just as well. If there wasn't the outrage, the POD's of this variant would have to find something else about which to be outraged.
3. Craftsmanship is dead. Apparently the craftsmanship that goes into making the tooling for a highly detailed ready to run model is not considered craftsmanship. Counter-examples won't sway them. The work of such people as Lance Mindheim, Eric Brooman, Tom Johnson (GMR 2008), Allen McClelland, our own Dave Vollmer and Doctorwayne is ignored. I don't know why. It seems to me that if you can create an overall effect that bears a striking resemblance to the real world then that's craftsmanship. No doubt there are some painters out there who long for the "golden age" when painters had to grind their own pigments to make their own paint (i.e. "scratchbuild").
There may be more, but these seem to be the Holy Trinity for the POD.
Me, I like to refer to them as "The Three Faces Of Peeve"
andrechapelon wrote: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.
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.
andrechapelon wrote: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.
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.
Does anybody besides me find it highly amusing that the guy who is taking shots on train set quaility was the same guy responsible for the New One line of Aristocraft die cast locomotives?
And I know whereof what I speak...My first HO "scale" (??!!) locomotive was an Aristocraft 2-8-0. Ah the thrill of out of round drivers, missing parts, no quaility motors, christmas sticker type lettering! Compared to those engines, Tyco was a Cadillac, and AHM a BMW.
And in spite of it all, I'm still a model railroader and rather enjoyed the entire experience. I think some people just like trains, and the hobby will be with us for some time. I'd bet there are the same number of scratchbuilders and craftsman kit builders out there as there were in the 50s. There's also a lot of guys who have great layouts thanks to todays high quaility RTR stuff who would at best have been armchair modelers back then.
Model railroading will survive, tho in a different form than in the days of the Christmas train set. Afterall we were supposed to die from TV, or was it slotcars? We seem to be dealing with computers rather well. Pretty lively corpse I'd say from the discussion on this board.
JBB
marknewton wrote: andrechapelon wrote: 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.For a bloke that presents himself as the forum's official historian, CNJ displays an astonishing ignorance of Thomas, and his influence on modellers. As I've pointed out to him before, the Thomas books were first published in the UK just after WW2 , and some of the best known and talented modellers there, and in Australia, have readily acknowledged that they were inspired and influenced by the Thomas books they read as children. But he's strangely silent on this - apparently only those Golden Age Craftsmen who got Lionel trains for Xmas are worth considering.All the best,Mark.
andrechapelon wrote: 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.
Well, Thomas did start outside the boundaries of North America, so it is suspect on that basis alone. . My wife and I were in a COSTCO (big box warehouse store, don't know if any are in Australia yet) and there was a rather large display of Thomas books for sale, including all of Awdry's original stories in a single collection. Most people who might buy that collection probably wouldn't have a clue as to who Awdry was but would buy the collection based solely on the fact that they were Thomas stories. I wanted to buy the collection to read to my grandchildren, but my wife threatened me with grievious bodily harm since we had already bought quite a bit of Thomas related stuff. Oh well, I'll just have to go shopping by myself. The thing that strikes me about this is that COSTCO is a high volume retailer. If the powers that be aren't reasonably confident an item will sell, it won't go on COSTCO shelves.
Personally, I'm rather pleased that Thomas has become the phenomenon he has here in North America. Unfortunately, we haven't had someone like Rev. Awdry to do for us what he did for the UK, Australia, New Zealand, et. al.
Just as an aside, last night I watched "The Titfield Thunderbolt". I just recently bought the DVD because I wanted to see if I would react the same way I did when I first saw the movie (about 1960 or so). I can't say as I reacted the same way as I did when I was a teen, but I still enjoyed the movie thoroughly. I still think the funniest scene is where Stanley Holloway and Hugh Griffith steal another ex-GWR 14xx off the turntable and run it through town, across a highway and into a tree. The movie may be a bit of fluff, but it's a thoroughly enjoyable one. I plan to watch it again with the grandkids.
Hmm, a quick search of the net revealed that COSTCO is going to start building stores in Australia. http://www.theage.com.au/news/business/costco-megastores-may-be-heading-for-australia/2007/06/01/1180205497420.html
Here are my reasons why I believe that there is no demise to model railroading
1. Tyco trains, I had one that I ran for over 7 years with no issues. Mine was the yellow and red Rock Island. Remember the cool Tyco TV commercials?
2. As long as there are new customers (like me) then there will be people to sell it. Capitalism at its best.
3. DCC and sound. I would not have gotten into the hobby again until one day I got a wild hair......and walked into a train store in Lincoln NE. I saw an O scale lionel making sounds and being controlled with a DCC remote.
4. Thomas the Train, people are fighting over this stuff to buy for their kids. So when their kids are a little older what we be the next step? Hmmm maybe a trip to the LHS?
5. Us in general. I have had two friends seen my small first time layout and they have already annouced they will be starting railroad modeling right after tax season.
6 On Ebay under toys and hobbies, Model railroading is one of the largest subcategories.
This is just my from the great plains of the noob
andrechapelon wrote: 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.
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.
We don't need that. As has been pointed out, Thomas has been around for decades already but has had a very small impact on the number of scale model railroaders he's recruited, at least in the US.
marknewton wrote: andrechapelon wrote: 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.For a bloke that presents himself as the forum's official historian, CNJ displays an astonishing ignorance of Thomas, and his influence on modellers. As I've pointed out to him before, the Thomas books were first published in the UK just after WW2 , and some of the best known and talented modellers there, and in Australia, have readily acknowledged that they were inspired and influenced by the Thomas books they read as children. But he's strangely silent on this - apparently only those Golden Age Craftsmen who got Lionel trains for Xmas are worth considering.
Quite to the contrary, Mark. I'm very much familiar with the Rev. Awdry's Railway series of books and stories. But I'm also well aware, as you apparently are not, that Awdry and Thomas were largely unknown in the United States until the appearance of Shining Time Station on PBS 20 years ago. As I've reminded you before, this is 99% an American hobbyists' forum and what goes on, or went on in the hobby, or influences it in foreign lands, is generally not applicable or relevant to the hobby's evolution over here. To date, I've seen no one able to provide even the least shred of evidence that Thomas serves as an influence to becoming a model railroader over here. It's always baseless opinion that is put forward.
In the States, lots of kids read The Little Engine That Could or Tootles The Train (or had it read to them) as small children, more-or-less in place of Awdry's books, but there is certainly nothing to suggest that it led any of them into taking up model railroading in their later years. Certainly, I've never heard it claimed.
My point regarding Thomas has always been that the American audience it appeals to is largely pre-school children who, in my day, played with such as TinkerToys....and who did not grow up to have structural engineering as a hobby, by the way! Potential model railroaders over here have, historically, almost always come from older pre-teens and teens that had classic Lionel, Flyer, Marx, et al. - even Tyco HO - of their own, or in the families' background. In the majority of cases this interest was carried well into their teen years before going "underground" for a time, only to re-surface once they became established adults. Now I realize this isn't everyone's background but I'd bet it was the formative and deciding element in about 80% of the instances for those over 45 years of age.
Today those same pre-teens that would have played with the classic tinplate train sets in years past are playing with video games, or spending hours on-line with their friends. The pre-schoolers move right into this same venue quickly as they age and never seem to look back. I'd say that the odds are if they do look back upon Thomas in their adult years it will be as nothing more than a young child's toy and certainly not as the inspiration for an adult hobby interest.
Some here have expressed in posts that playing with Lionel as teens often brought with it a certain sigma back in 70's or 80's. I would suggest that Thomas could prove a far worse stigma for younger hobbyists to bear in the future.
CNJ831
Midnight Railroader wrote: andrechapelon wrote: 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. We don't need that. As has been pointed out, Thomas has been around for decades already but has had a very small impact on the number of scale model railroaders he's recruited, at least in the US.
Very true..How many kids had trains and as Adults they are no longer interested in "toy trains" but,will enjoy golf,fishing,restoring cars,hiking,coin collecting,stamp collecting,photography bicycling etc etc..After all these are "adult hobbies".
Of course comments like "relive your childhood dreams" doesn't help the image of modelers in general when there are some that think we are immature adults playing with "toy trains".
OTOH there are those that enjoy looking at "toy train setups" and ask many questions.I have also notice during the week of the County fair-the Bucyrus club is located at the fair grounds open for the week-many use "model trains and your layout" rather then "toy train set or toy train set up and many adults and kids made return trips to view the layout.
What does that mean in reality? More then likely nothing more then a passing interest or questions along with the normal pleasantries.
Not only in Australia, Mark - I saw my first Thomas book in the mid-1970s; some of the tourist railroads here in the States sold them in gift shops. I still have seven or eight, and one of my neighbors had the entire collection - and this was years before the TV show appeared. It wasn't the phenomenon it is now, but the books were definitely around.
http://mprailway.blogspot.com
"The first transition era - wood to steel!"
CNJ831,As far as Thomas and Friends/Shining Time Station our local PBS station doesn't air it and hasn't for quite some time. Some department stores no longer carry the Thomas toys.
IMHO I don't think Thomas or even the Hogwarts Express will have a lasting impact unless the child develops a interest in the hobby while enjoying the hours spent playing with those trains.
Phoebe Vet wrote: Does anyone in here actually care how many other people share their hobby?
Does anyone in here actually care how many other people share their hobby?
Kind of. The more people in the hobby will keep companies alive and hopefully drive the production of new items and lines and help keep prices low. Plus it's nice to have a large group of like minded people to share ideas with.
I've only been to a couple train shows, but I saw no lack of young people getting started in the hobby. I was really surprised to see the amount of women and young girls taking an interest.
Dave
Lackawanna Route of the Phoebe Snow
Go back 2-3 years on this forum and you will find the same arguments and discussions going on about the hobby's future. That's not changed.
But then if you go online and google "Model trains sales comeback" you get links to news that hobby sales have grown up to 40% in the last two years.
If we're all so smart with our crystal balls, why didn't the posts 3 years ago from the so-called hobby history experts predict this turn of events?
So much for our crystal ball gazing about the future of the hobby. Truth is its future will have ebb and flows, but overall I believe we can say the hobby has a long future ahead of it in some form -- like WWII vehicles, these railroad machines are just too interesting to totally disappear from the hobby landscape, especially when the model trains *do stuff*.
Joe Fugate Modeling the 1980s SP Siskiyou Line in southern Oregon
You seem to think that Thomas has been a phenomenon ever since the publication of Rev. Awdry's books. This hasn't been the case, not even in the UK where the whole thing started. I didn't hear about Awdry until I was in my teens (1960's) and then only because I picked up a couple of British model railway magazines that had somehow made it to a newstand in my area. The popularity of Thomas has grown over the last 60 years from a number of stories by the Rev. Awdry until it's almost an industry unto itself. It's not just books anymore for (as CNJ puts it) pre-school kids. Several major manufacturers make Thomas sets including Bachmann, Hornby and Lionel. Being full fledged electric trains, these are not really designed for the pre-school set, although indulgent parents (not to mention grandparents) will sometimes buy these sets with the excuse they are for their pre-school kids/grandkids. Thomas is a relatively recent phenomenon (last 15 years or so) in the US and we haven't yet had the time to see how things pan out. As Mark Newton pointed out, where Thomas has been around longer than here, a number of modelers have cited Thomas as one of the reasons they got into the hobby.
I don't know if my grandkids' experience with Thomas coupled with Grandpa's love of trains will translate into future model railroaders. What I am pretty sure of is that the probability dimishes quite a bit without some encouragement from me and fond memories of that funny old man who just loved trains. Whether or not the hobby dies, I think it's rather more productive to play trains with the grandkids than wail, gnash my teeth and wear a hair shirt because "the hobby is doomed, doomed I say".
"In the long run, we're all dead" - John Maynard Keynes
"Who cares? There are trains to be played with until that happens" - Yours Truly
jfugate wrote: Go back 2-3 years on this forum and you will find the same arguments and discussions going on about the hobby's future. That's not changed.But then if you go online and google "Model trains sales comeback" you get links to news that hobby sales have grown up to 40% in the last two years.If we're all so smart with our crystal balls, why didn't the posts 3 years ago from the so-called hobby history experts predict this turn of events?
Now how about passing on to posters what the real content of that Reuters article was, Joe?
In fact, it dealt specifically with a comeback for tinplate reported by Lionel, who has had a dismal sales record to the general public in recent years. There is no mention of scale model railroading in the story, nor any claim whatever of any resurgence therein.
The story goes on to point out, and those interviewed acknowledge, the rapidly increasing age of those who are purchasing "model trains." The figure provided by Kelly Shaw of Kalmbach's Classic Toy Trains, at the time the story was written, averaging 59 years (and essentially what MR's many years of published figures implied for current scale modelers). The implication here is that the "model train" hobby is composed today largely of post-middle age men and very few youths.
I don't need any crystal ball to tell that the content of this news release indicates nothing that can be regarded as particularly promising, let alone reflecting some great boom in the hobby's popularity. Quite honestly, I find it unfortunate and disappointing that you would attempt to mislead readers here that somehow it did.
Sheesh...a number of hard core modellers could have passed on, the hobby could have had a resurgence or it could have vanished forever...all within the time it has taken to build up this agonizingly long and pointless thread.
Don't you folks have anything better to talk about