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Enthusiasts struggle to keep model railway industry on track

theguardian.com

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Re: Enthusiasts struggle to keep model railway industry on track

#31

Post by rithikjainNd01 »

Im so sad about this. I am 24, and have loved Model Trains my whole life. I grew up in India, where there was no model railroading scene (I picked it up as a toddler in the UK).

My drive for moving abroad was to have the space to make my own model train set. I got lucky and we made it to the States when I turned 18. But I still need to earn, get a house, before I can build my layout. Hope it sticks around until then.

My heart aches, I have such a passion for model trains. I’ve taken a few friends to shops and they always found it interesting. But no one buys anything. I don’t think kids will ever get into this, I blame the babyfication of Thomas and Friends more than anything else.

Re: Enthusiasts struggle to keep model railway industry on track

#32

Post by wegfawefgawefg »

PeterStuer wrote: post #9

Even 40 years ago many opted for N scale because of space constraints. Clubs were almost always HO scale focused, since they had cheap or free accomodation often in semi abandoned rail hangars etc. As for age, it is not just the cost, but also the alienation of the young from messy analog physical dexterity, long low stimulus attention and slow progress in favor of high stimulus instant digital gratification.

I wish I could disagree with you.

Since I moved out of my moms place I could not bring my 3d printers, cnc machine or electronics equipment. I simply cant fit it in this tiny apartment with my wife.

I have lost these hobbies over the past two years to software entirely. Not necessarily a bad thing.

I guess my point is, you can lose your slower hobbies without even realizing, just due to circumstance. It's not necessarily the younger generation's "fault". It is often just the emergent consequence of the situation.

Re: Enthusiasts struggle to keep model railway industry on track

#33

Post by morelisp »

PeterStuer wrote: post #9

Even 40 years ago many opted for N scale because of space constraints. Clubs were almost always HO scale focused, since they had cheap or free accomodation often in semi abandoned rail hangars etc. As for age, it is not just the cost, but also the alienation of the young from messy analog physical dexterity, long low stimulus attention and slow progress in favor of high stimulus instant digital gratification.

> the alienation of the young from messy analog physical dexterity, long low stimulus attention and slow progress

I suggest any boomers with this attitude check out what the kids are doing with Gunpla and Warhammer. It's a space issue, not a "stimulus" or "physical dexterity" one.

Re: Enthusiasts struggle to keep model railway industry on track

#34

Post by throwaway421967 »

dbish wrote: post #16
euroderf wrote: post #11

> folk are always concerned it’ll die out. Not if my 4yo has anything to say about it. Upgrade path from Brio (wooden) to electric trains.

Kids are funny. I’ve seen multiple go through being completely obsessed up to about 5 to losing interest and never looking at a model train again. I think there’s something about that young age that makes them particularly interested, but the likelihood of a long time mode train enthusiast seems to be quite low.

kind of reminds me of "Strong Ideas, Held Lightly"

Re: Enthusiasts struggle to keep model railway industry on track

#35

Post by bombcar »

polka_haunts_us wrote: post #4

Funny to see this now. A couple days ago I was on vacation in San Diego and visited the San Diego Model Railroad Museum in Balboa Park and a lot of the traffic flowing through my head about it are all points addressed in the above article: "Almost everyone working here is quite old" "The amount of space this takes up is incredible, I wonder how people get into this hobby, I've never lived anywhere where I'd have enou…

The only time that museum was filled with kids was the yearly "LEGO Train" exhibit, which I partook of once or twice.

And the people I was with (setting up the exhibit) were mostly younger (at the time) ranging from the 10 or so year old kids of the people leading it to mid 20s - not counting the leaders who were middle aged.

Everyone loved it and the number of visitors in that two week period or whatever it was would rival the total number of visitors the rest of the year.

But LEGO trains are not model trains (my goodness), they're toy trains - a completely and unrespectable thing.

But today I see LEGO themselves referring to the track as "L-gauge": https://www.lego.com/en-us/product/the-orient-express-train-... - which started out as almost a joke and is now getting some pretty serious attention.

If model railroading as a whole wants to survive and thrive, they will need to embrace the "toy" train.

(Lots of these museums are really just "fronts" for the member's hobby, after all, and it gets them out of the house.)

Re: Enthusiasts struggle to keep model railway industry on track

#36

Post by altairprime »

shagie wrote: post #20
bb123 wrote: post #17

Model trains require a large amount of dedicated indoor space. With millennials and zoomers frozen out of the housing market I expect a large proportion of them simply don't have the room.

They mentioned the 'T' scale which I recently came across. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=PNje4KTLZT4 It is 1:450 scale and half the size of the Z scale. https://www.tgauge.us When describing starter sets, the track area is dimensioned in mm. https://www.tgauge.us/product/452/20/lner-125-hst-train-set > The 120mm loop included in this starter set will cover an area of 253mm x 372mm (10" x 14 3/4").

I don’t have a tabletop to spare in my apartment. We use a folding table for board games so that we can put it away afterwards. Space is at a premium and simulator games take up even less space.

Re: Enthusiasts struggle to keep model railway industry on track

#37

Post by jonathanlydall »

lnrd wrote: post #24

I think what drew people to model trains was the ability to create and automate your tracks. It's an interesting and fun thing to do, basically designing a system and going trough all the small things needed to make it work. I can see how today this itch can be scratched by many different videogames (Factorio, just to give one example), while decades ago it was either model train or nothing much else. I think younger…

My thoughts too.

When I was little my brothers and I played a lot together with Lego.

Now we’re all over 40 and occasionally play on a heavily modded Minecraft server to scratch that itch.

In many ways it’s so much more practical, essentially unlimited building materials with no real cost, no issue with physical space in the house, we can do it casually in the evenings while doing voice calls on Discord, no unpacking or packing up needed before or after.

There are even great rail cart mods for those interested in track switching type activities.

We make a point of doing in person LANs about every quarter, also for old times sake.

Re: Enthusiasts struggle to keep model railway industry on track

#38

Post by ghaff »

polka_haunts_us wrote: post #4

Funny to see this now. A couple days ago I was on vacation in San Diego and visited the San Diego Model Railroad Museum in Balboa Park and a lot of the traffic flowing through my head about it are all points addressed in the above article: "Almost everyone working here is quite old" "The amount of space this takes up is incredible, I wonder how people get into this hobby, I've never lived anywhere where I'd have enou…

It's not just the space although you either have to belong to a club of some sort or have a house with a fair bit of extra room. But stamp and coin collecting is pretty much out of fashion as well.

Re: Enthusiasts struggle to keep model railway industry on track

#39

Post by jprete »

lnrd wrote: post #24

I think what drew people to model trains was the ability to create and automate your tracks. It's an interesting and fun thing to do, basically designing a system and going trough all the small things needed to make it work. I can see how today this itch can be scratched by many different videogames (Factorio, just to give one example), while decades ago it was either model train or nothing much else. I think younger…

I think this is the best explanation. I myself spent enormous time on Factorio "model trains" and it was even better because my train decisions were always motivated by an external requirement in the game. Model trains by themselves feel a little more sterile in comparison because they're disconnected from the rest of the world.

Re: Enthusiasts struggle to keep model railway industry on track

#40

Post by krupan »

eternityforest wrote: post #6

With the rise of 3D printing and wireless tech, what if we had a modular system of terrain pieces(Like Gridfinity), that could be set up temporarily at events? Every member of a club would only have to bring a small section but you could still do really big layouts

Modular is how they’ve been doing it forever, just that a single module is roughly a 6 foot long table (my uncle did this, not me, so I don’t know the exact dimensions)
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