riogrande5761My older sisters two sons (18 and 21) are totally addicted, as are their friendsd and most other boys between the age of 12 and 30.
Try guys in their late 40's. I play Call of Duty Modern Warfare 2. It's very addictive. But the main reason I like the XBox 360 is that I have a Netflix account and I can watch hundreds of movies anytime I want for 9 bucks a month.
rrebell And on our youth "paraphrased", children today have bad manners, contempt for authority, very disrespectful and tyrannize their teachers; Socrates!
And on our youth "paraphrased", children today have bad manners, contempt for authority, very disrespectful and tyrannize their teachers; Socrates!
And where did you propose to go with this bleat?
Any argument carried far enough will end up in Semantics--Hartz's law of rhetoric Emerald. Leemer and Southern The route of the Sceptre Express Barry
I just started my blog site...more stuff to come...
http://modeltrainswithmusic.blogspot.ca/
Driline CNJ831 I'm afraid that it's always the folks who can't stand to face the reality of what the published figures imply who are the first to scream that statistics lie, or have no meaning. Face it, if anybody would honestly know the real numbers, it would have to be Kalmbach/Model Railroader. Why would they publish lies? CNJ831 I don't need numbers to show me the truth. I've got kids, and they have lots of friends. They all play video games. Not a one of them builds models or has anything to do with trains. Yes, I know there are teens and young adults out there in the model railroad genre, but they are few and far between. Just look at the demographics here. Mostly old farts and middle age has beens myself included
CNJ831 I'm afraid that it's always the folks who can't stand to face the reality of what the published figures imply who are the first to scream that statistics lie, or have no meaning. Face it, if anybody would honestly know the real numbers, it would have to be Kalmbach/Model Railroader. Why would they publish lies? CNJ831
I'm afraid that it's always the folks who can't stand to face the reality of what the published figures imply who are the first to scream that statistics lie, or have no meaning. Face it, if anybody would honestly know the real numbers, it would have to be Kalmbach/Model Railroader. Why would they publish lies?
CNJ831
I don't need numbers to show me the truth. I've got kids, and they have lots of friends. They all play video games. Not a one of them builds models or has anything to do with trains. Yes, I know there are teens and young adults out there in the model railroad genre, but they are few and far between. Just look at the demographics here. Mostly old farts and middle age has beens myself included
Nor do I..My son has very little interest,my youngest grandson none my oldest grandson is a model railroader...He's in the Air Force now and ships high end cars or locomotives home on a monthly bases.
BTW..I am 62 and I am well aware what a XBOX 360 is and know the games costs as much as a Athearn RTR locomotive at discount...One is instant gratification and the other takes time since one needs to build a layout or have one built..
Larry
Conductor.
Summerset Ry.
"Stay Alert, Don't get hurt Safety First!"
More than model railroading is struggling to attract kids/younger folks. There are just so many more options for kids to choose from these days.
That said, I loved Hi-way Hobby. I went there growing up in N.J., and made sure to try and stop in (and buy something) every time I returned to N.J from Oregon. It was a great store: it had some better years than others, but always had a great selection. I'll miss it. I remember Closter hobby: they had TWO slot car tracks as late as the early '80s as well as decent train stuff. That store closed many years ago.
Having worked retail for a while and knowing how hard it is to make a living, I buy everything I can from the LHS. Might cost a few bucks more, but it will be a far greater hassle if they were to go away down the road.
Where I was going is that the same story keeps coming up, always has, always will. I'm a gamer too but find that game is not up my alley, prefer close combat. I find a lot of the newer games go for speed instead of brains and I have played a lot of them. Like I tried to point out on statistics is that percentages can be easily manipulated, learned that from someone I knew who worked for politicos and that was one of his jobs. I won't mention our host and what gives (don't want this locked or deleted) as I am rather enjoying the conversation and I have been getting much more feedback than anytime I want to discus model railroading. Now don't take my word for it but look up the long term hard facts and you will find modelrailroadings demise has been predicted many times, and trust me there are more model builders out there than ever, they don't necessarily buy kits though and as for people don't want to build things, that may be true on the low end but the high end is another mater. Craftsman kits can sell for way over $500.00 and properly built for over $1,000 easy.
"The children now love luxury; they have bad manners, contempt for authority; they show disrespect for elders and love chatter in place of exercise. Children are now tyrants, not servants of their households. They no longer rise when elders enter the room. They contradict their parents, chatter before company, gobble up dainties at the table, cross their legs and tyrannize their teachers."
Socrates, 469 BC - 399 BCHow can you expect a generation like this to become serious model railroaders?
Sir Madog "The children now love luxury; they have bad manners, contempt for authority; they show disrespect for elders and love chatter in place of exercise. Children are now tyrants, not servants of their households. They no longer rise when elders enter the room. They contradict their parents, chatter before company, gobble up dainties at the table, cross their legs and tyrannize their teachers." Socrates, 469 BC - 399 BCHow can you expect a generation like this to become serious model railroaders?
Well! I never!!
Actually that is rather funny. My nephew is going to the University of Waterloo up here and he did the gaming thing. Must be the chips-----
Sir Madog"The children now love luxury; they have bad manners, contempt for authority; they show disrespect for elders and love chatter in place of exercise. Children are now tyrants, not servants of their households. They no longer rise when elders enter the room. They contradict their parents, chatter before company, gobble up dainties at the table, cross their legs and tyrannize their teachers."Socrates, 469 BC - 399 BCHow can you expect a generation like this to become serious model railroaders?
Well, Socrates himself is particularly missed...
Every generation thinks the next one is the ruination of society. It's nothing new. The hobby will survive.
Yes, I guess my generation is the current "ruination" :D
I just turned 30 years old in January. I like to think that I've been a model railroader officially since the age of 6 when I received a Bachmann HO "CN Hustler" set for Christmas. I've never built a full-on layout, and I prefer to exercise my model-building talents rather than operate, although lately the operations aspect has been appealing.
I prefer late first generation and early second generation diesel power, but I've recently had a "steam renaissance" and have just completed my very first Bowser kit, which will be the first of many, I plan.
As for the death of LHS's, is it any surprise? How many of us notice that the average LHS has a couple grouchy old men running the joint? I say, forget 'em. I'm a paying customer and worthy or some level of respect, not a snarl. If I can get a better overall service experience online from someone I've never met face to face, I'll do it. Same goes with prices - I vote with my wallet and buy stuff as cheap as I can.
So because I'm a cheap youngin' , do I represent the supposed killer of the hobby?
I do beleive you all know were I was coming from now! Hobbies, no mater how archaic are still flourishing long after you would have predicted their demise, things like candle making, knitting, needlework, quilting just to name ones from the 1800's. Model railroading has been around since trains came into existence and some of the niches in model railroading are gaining to a larger following than ever before. One example is civil war model railroading, I would have to say most hobby stores do not cater to that crowd nor dose most hobby mags, in fact I just did a quick search of MR's index and did not find a single entry!
There used to be at least five hobby shops in Tucson, Arizona that were primarily trains; today there's only one, inside an Ace Hardware store. The others closed over the years because the owners retired and no one wanted to invest in keeping them open.
There were two here in Sierra Vista; both now long gone because the owners couldn't afford the building rental and utilities without charging more than full retail price.
I went to one in Willcox, Arizona, 60 miles away who advertised trains and found only one Bachmann Christmas train set on the shelf that had almost 1/4 inch of dust on it because it had been on the shelf for several years. It was priced at double retail. When I asked the grouchy owner why there were no more trains in his store, he said it was because no one in Willcox was interested in them. Willcox is right on the Union Pacific Sunset Route and was originally founded by the Southern Pacific as a railroad town. There are probably several model railroaders in the Willcox area who do all of their shopping via Internet or the Ace Hardware store in Tucson that he doesn't know about because of his lack of stockage.
When LBF was still in business, their web site listed a hobby shop in Tucson as being one of their dealers. I wanted some LBF metal wheelsets, but when I entered the store the owner, who looked to be in his 80's, said he had never heard of LBF and didn't sell trains. I don't know if that shop is still open today, but doubt that it is.
Ever since the 1970´s, the death of our hobby has been predicted to happen within short time - yet it is alive, maybe not kicking. It is finally up to us to keep it alive, and also keep the LHS alive. We need these dingy looking shops, stacked to the brim with the odds and ends of materials we need, run by grouchy old men, who are enthusiastic enough to make a marginal living out of their business, but are a fountain of knowledge. Where else would we get that foot length of brass tubing, the A4 sized 1/16" styrene sheet, the block of balsa wood? Yup, we could order most of it on-line, but do we always want to buy 10 times of what we actually need?
The demise of the LHS won´t kill the hobby, but will make it more difficult and more expensive in the long run.
As the hobby gets older it gets more diluted over the years and will continue to do so, I am a steam guy so all the products for a modern train do not interest me at all, I run smaller steam and do not own any larger stuff, have a friend who is just the opposite, add the diesel guy and we have already fragmented the hobby into 3's, add narrow gauge to all and we have 6, add the most common scales and we have 30. The point being that no hobby shop can cater to such a diverse crowd.
rrebell The point being that no hobby shop can cater to such a diverse crowd.
And yet many did. The point being that the diversity was not so radical as what you are making it out to be. We here in London are home to two very well stocked hobby stores in Doug's Trains and Broughdale Hobbies. Both cater to a diverse audience. There are many other ones around as well
BTW--that diversity is not as diverse as all that ---70% HO, 25$ N----etc----
Just the people I deal with are Z, N, HOn30, HOn3, S, On30, On3, O, G and toy train. Hobby shops only cater (usually) with N, HO, On30 and G if that many. I have only seen HOn3 at a few hobby shops, mostly in the form of some expensive brass engine. You mean I can walk into your hobby shop and get z wood, corner wood, scribed wood, clapboard siding, scribed styrene, those are just a few of the things on my need list as I am out or nearly out, the glue I need your store probably has but maybe not.
blownout cylinder rrebell The point being that no hobby shop can cater to such a diverse crowd. And yet many did. The point being that the diversity was not so radical as what you are making it out to be. We here in London are home to two very well stocked hobby stores in Doug's Trains and Broughdale Hobbies. Both cater to a diverse audience. There are many other ones around as well BTW--that diversity is not as diverse as all that ---70% HO, 25$ N----etc----
Barry is quite correct in that final statement regarding the breakdown of hobbyists by scale. Essentially, the hobby is composed of HO and N standard gauge. The other larger and smaller scales, plus their narrow gauged counterparts, aren't really of much significance in any overall survey of the hobby...it's only that their practitioners think they are!
Regarding full service hobby shops, for about 20 years we had Valley Model Trains as a walk-in train store in my area and it did indeed carry all the necessary products for all the existing gauges. The same was true of Hobbies For Men and several train stores in NYC years ago, where even products that were 20 years OOP were available on the vast array of the store's shelves. Those were exciting shops to visit, but they have virtually no counterparts today.
Where did you get those figures and how old are they?
rrebell Where did you get those figures and how old are they?
Those one's were done by Kalmbach a few years ago--more like 3 years ago. Oh. And the standard argument against them is that they are partial to HO anyways. And the statistics lie and on and on
Look. Again. The statistics are as they are. You cannot change the data just because you find it creates issues for your system---
If you will overlook the idea that this may be considered advertising, it looks like this thread could use an injection of positivity.
Including mine, there are 4 local hobby shops in the central Arkansas area and to my knowledge none of us are planning on closing. For all the gloom and doom at times, I think it would be helpful - especially for new folks - if they could also hear that not all is negative.
For what it's worth, if you want numbers and stats, I can tell you that for my store, 2008 was a better year than 2007. And 2009 was better than 2008. You can make statistics tell you anything, I understand... but I would like to think that those figures show that perhaps not all LHSs are becoming extinct and neither is this hobby.
It really bugs me when people call out other hobbies, specifically video games, as some sort of threat. Geez do you people literally have one track minds? People can have more than one interest. And anyone that plays a whole lot of video games will tell you they are far from instant gratification. I could probably assemble and paint a DPM kit in the entire time it took me to go on a raid in World of Warcraft. And I'd get nothing in the end from my raid because I didnt happen to win any of the in-game items. Then I have to wait a week to do it again. That's just one specific situation. It took me months to get good at NCAA Football and I'm still terrible at Halo 3 and that's been out for years.
blownout cylinder rrebell Where did you get those figures and how old are they? Those one's were done by Kalmbach a few years ago--more like 3 years ago. Oh. And the standard argument against them is that they are partial to HO anyways. And the statistics lie and on and on Look. Again. The statistics are as they are. You cannot change the data just because you find it creates issues for your system---
One Track MindIf you will overlook the idea that this may be considered advertising, it looks like this thread could use an injection of positivity.
I am glad that you injected some positive comments into this discussion and I am happy that you and your fellow LHS's are doing well. Anyone who can report increased sales during one of the worst recessions in history is definitely doing something right. Living where I do in Michigan in the heart of the domestic auto industry and to see what has happened in this area, it's easy to become a little jaded in some of these discussions. When the jobs dried up here and the bankruptcies happened this entire area was thrown into a tailspin resulting in many small businesses being closed and people picking up and leaving the area by the hundreds. This made it doubly difficult on those businesses that remained and weathered the storm and it seemed like it was almost 'survival of the fittest.' But lately I am sensing a new sense optimism and, if it is true, maybe this is one the last posts we will read about the demise of another LHS.
There's never time to do it right, but always time to do it over.....
As far as scale usage N is the most popular in Japan and OO in England, TT in Russia.
rrebell As far as scale usage N is the most popular in Japan and OO in England, TT in Russia.
And where did your data come from?
blownout cylinderrrebell As far as scale usage N is the most popular in Japan and OO in England, TT in Russia. And where did your data come from?
This guy down the street.
NittanyLionIt took me months to get good at NCAA Football and I'm still terrible at Halo 3 and that's been out for years.
I'm callin you out. C.O.D. Modern warfare 2. Tonight 6pm. I'm Impex. See you there....
Here is a picture of youngish looking 60 year old budding model railroader no 2, concentrated while backing a train into the River Avenue yard to pick up some freight cars. His comment on the hobby? "Don't disturb me, I am busy!".
And yeah - I know - not evidence of anything in particular, except that it shows that kids who like computer and video games also can like model railroading. It is not necessarily an either/or thing - it can also be an both/and thing.
We'll see if they stay with the hobby or not. My oldest boy has little interest in running trains right now - but building things seemed to capture his imagination. My youngest has little interest in building stuff, but enjoys running trains. Works for me.
Grin, Stein
blownout cylinder rrebell As far as scale usage N is the most popular in Japan and OO in England, TT in Russia. And where did your data come from?
On the subject of the LHS, businesses come and go. I am very sure that new hobby shops will be opening as others close down. There's one hobby store left in Bloomington/Normal that deals with trains (Hobby Lobby won't be selling trains anymore, I guess), and business seems to be picking up a little more there.
On the subject of gaming vs model railroading, I do both. In my house, there's a classic Nintendo, a Sega Genesis, a Nintendo 64, a Gamecube, and a Wii (had a Playstation once, but sold it pretty quickly). All are currently hooked up to a 32" TV with a pretty nice sterio system below it. I've spent days playing games on those things, alone or with friends. And yet, I still have time to do some pretty big projects with my trains.
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Always played the Nintendo and Intellivision myself.