An informal survey

[jrbernier]

• Age: 61
• Years in Hobby - 49(in scale model railroading)
• HO(did mess with some N)
• DCC since 1994
• Layout - Proto/freelance Milw Road(this is my 4th layout)

Jim

[dehusman]

54, 44 years modeling, DCC.

[nik .n]

14, 5, DC (At the moment), layout is eventually going to be a protolance.

[ATLANTIC CENTRAL]

OK, I'll play.

I'm 53 and I will count my years in the hobby from when my Father gave me full artistic control of the layout he built for me. That was age 12. From there I modified track arrangements, built car, loco and structure kits, learned wiring and hand laid track, etc. So that is 41 years.

That layout was two 5x9 platforms and featured lighted structures, extensive plaster mountain scenery, multi elevation track plan, hidden staging, and multi train operation.

At age 14 I started working in a local hobby shop, did train repairs there, traveled out of state with the owners to help build a commercial diorama in HO scale then moved on to manage the train department of another hobby shop as a young adult.

At age 15 I became a member of the published and somewhat known Severna Park Model Railroad Club, where the old masters there taught me more about hand laid track and scratch built scenery. While i'm no longer a member there, from what I understand at least one on my scenery/structure projects is still on the layout to this day.

Personally, I have always modeled in HO, except for setting up a Lionel layout for my son at age 3-4, but my store experiance gave me strong background in the other scales as well.

I now model the time just before my birth, the early/mid 50's, in the part of the country I have always lived - the Mid Atlantic. My current layout space is a heated and cooled finished 24 x 40 room above my garage. My layout is currently being redesigned and reconstructed to better suit my goals, on major one is to allow it to be moved in the future, as we will likely retire elsewhere and I have no desire to EVER start over again - done that too many times already in this hobby.

I currently belong to an informal "Round Robin" group and find that suits my "social side" in the hobby just fine. No more formal clubs, dues, or "club activities" for me. When the round robin does "extra stuff", sometimes I'm in, sometimes not.

I have helped other members of the group with track plans, wiring and control systems, benchwork construction and we have regular operating sessions at various members layouts one a week. I enjoy most all types of prototype operating schemes/systems.

I use wireless DC at home, I consider signals important for modeling Class I railroads, I protolance (ATLANTIC CENTRAL) with prototype interchanges (B&O, C&O, WM). I like long trains, lots of action, and "big picture" approach rather than the close up "be the engineer" approach. I prefer to be the Dispatcher or Yard Master while others run the trains (or they run themselves). My layout, when rebuilt, will allow for good "display" mode operation as well as prototype operation with the guys.

OK, this is way too long now,

Sheldon

[Flashwave]

Let me give you several ranges ofg info:

Myself, I'm 18 (for another three weeks) First train was at 2 or so, carried around a little Bach 4-4-0 until gravity and the grass got hold of it. dropped that at 6 for wooden Thomas, until 14 when the HO went back up over top of Thomas. HO now, protolancing, no layout. Will be DCC

At the Trainclub Membership is ~25. Of that, there's also 5 kids attached, ages rangining from 12+

At ITM (1:1 scale) there's three kids 10 &12 regular, another three that can only make it out during the Summer and little at that 12-14, and 4 regular 14-16yr olds. Besides me, there's also 4 other high-teens.  Probabyl out of an active membership of 30 

[MisterBeasley]

63, HO, DCC, Protolance, but...

How do we count years in the hobby?  Is it the 58 years since I first found Lionels under the Christmas tree?  The 51 or so years since I bought my first HO set?  Or the 7 years since I pulled those same HOs out of the attic and began my current layout?

[Anonymous]

I am not sure whether this informal survey will give us a true picture of the situation, as there may be loads of people out there, who do not participate in this forum, but are still model railroaders.

But anyway - here I go:

Aged 54, a model railroader since 47 years, with a track record of Z, N, HO, HOe, HOn3, G and even live steam. Call that a broad interest

Currently in the planning stage of a HOn3 protolance layout, starting out as DC-controlled, but later on "back" to DCC.

[ruderunner]

It seems to be a common complaint that there's less "new blood" entering this hobby than years ago.  I won't even try to deny that since there are lot's more hobbies to get involved in nowadays.  But I don't think it's all doom and gloom as some folks think.  And since I've not seen anyone put up any actual numbers to confirm the situation, I figured maybe a quick survey to feel the pulse of the hobby is in order.  I'll keep it breif:

Age of modeler, years in hobby (armchair hobbying counts), scale, DC or DCC, prototype-freelance-protolance

I think that covers the big splits, one could ask lots more questions and micro manage this but that may be too much to handle without having professional surveyers doing it.

So I'll start:  age 36, approx 30 yrs, HO, DCC (recent convert), protolance