NP2626 BRAKIE cacole This question has been asked previously and there seems to be no statistical data anywhere to back it up. I suspect that information is on a need to know bases and is hidden from the public..I have no doubt the manufacturers know and yes,I wish they would share the figures. I would doubt this data is secret, what wouldbe the point?
BRAKIE cacole This question has been asked previously and there seems to be no statistical data anywhere to back it up. I suspect that information is on a need to know bases and is hidden from the public..I have no doubt the manufacturers know and yes,I wish they would share the figures.
cacole This question has been asked previously and there seems to be no statistical data anywhere to back it up.
This question has been asked previously and there seems to be no statistical data anywhere to back it up.
I suspect that information is on a need to know bases and is hidden from the public..I have no doubt the manufacturers know and yes,I wish they would share the figures.
I would doubt this data is secret, what wouldbe the point?
Because if you know it and no one else knows it, you have an advantage. Simple business.
Who knows why such things happen in the manufacturing world?
Larry
Conductor.
Summerset Ry.
"Stay Alert, Don't get hurt Safety First!"
Many years ago - perhaps the mid 1960s -- MR published some data about the regional or state-by-state nature of their circulation, which if memory serves was approaching their all time high. I believe they were using subscriptions not newsstand sales as the factor. Not surprisingly large railroad centers also seemed to be large model railroad centers. (It was about that time that many businesses began to realize that the then-new zip codes would enable their data processing departments to generate that kind of market research data more easily than before.)
It showed, not surprisingly, the the hobby was somewhat midwestern/eastern in nature and that the deep south and great plains had fewer modelers (i.e. subscribers) than their populations would make you expect.
While I suspect that remains generally the case, there have been some changes since the 1960s that might change things. First, while air conditioning certainly existed in the 1960s it was not as universal as it is now. Thus an indoor hobby such as ours becomes more practical in more parts of the country for a wider economic spectrum of folks.
Another big change was that back in the 1960s, while there certainly were mail order sources, for the most part this was a hobby shop oriented activity and the great plains and other wide open spaces were improbable (not impossible) places for hobby activity. You needed a concentration of customers for the hobby shop to make a go of it. I realize that can be kind of a chicken or egg sort of thing.
The demographic changes to the US have been noted often in these forums but another less remarked change has been the growing popularity of previously highly unlikely places such as Arkansas and parts of Missouri for retirement centers. This might also relate to my first point about air conditioning. Veteran readers of MR might remember when Del Webb advertised his Sun City development in Arizona in the pages of MR, one of the very few non hobby advertisements I can recall. Webb was on to something!
It may well be that while our numbers and population density are lower, we are also more geographically diverse than we were. That is -- thinly spread over a wider area.
That might also explain the decreasing membership of the NMRA. You need a certain focus and proximity for the NMRA's basic Divisional form of organization to work well. The more thinly spread we become. the less the NMRA can do for us, or so it might seem, because it is Divisional activity that usually makes you want to join and renew.
Dave Nelson
NP 2626 "Northern Pacific, really terrific"
Northern Pacific Railway Historical Association: http://www.nprha.org/
The usual numbers we get from these discussions are 250,000 to 400,000 in the US. Sorry, I don't have references. In 2007, MR had a reported circulation of 160,000.
It takes an iron man to play with a toy iron horse.
Hobbies are not a census question.
Do the Model Railroad Manufacturers; or, any other entity have an opinion for how many Model Railroaders there are per capita; or, how many Model Railroad hobbyists there are in the U.S.A.? I would think that the population of Model RR in other countries might coincide fairly well with the amount in the U.S.A. and other countries.
Certainly, in U.S.A., the membership numbers in the NMRA are not indicative of the amount of Model Railroaders, there are. There are less than 20,000 members in the organization and certainly, there are many more Model Railroaders who choose not to be members of the NMRA.
Just curious, if you have a number you would like to pose, could you please state where the number came from?
Thanks in advance!