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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

#101

Post by kleiba »

jjoonathan wrote: post #48
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.

Housing costs have been growing at 2x wages for 50 years. If space was a constraint then, imagine how it is now. How many times did boomers look at the two buttons before them, "make housing affordable" and "make housing a good investment," and which button did they press every singe time?

The claim in your first sentence seems intuitive. Yet, I have found conflicting data about it in the past. Do you have specific sources you're referring to by chance?

Re: Enthusiasts struggle to keep model railway industry on track

#102

Post by h2odragon »

Keeping track and wheels clean enough to transmit power to rolling stock sucks. what we need is "self powered":

https://hackaday.com/2022/09/21/3d-print-yourself-a-tiny-ste...

Now we've got plenty of battery to make that viable; and the radio technology to control the engines remotely cheap. once the industry works that change out and grovelling over you contact path is eliminated; they'll have a boom.

People will want to buy bare chassis units and 3d print their own model shells to put on them. A couple of industry standards about sizes and battery connectors and they could get somewhere, kick off a hobbyist reseller market, like people painting figurines for tabletop games.

More likely "private equity" will buy up the existing market it; milk it til it dies; then sell the shell to some litigious patent shark vulture outfit. "The community" will have to invent new standards on its own; which i believe may be underway.

Re: Enthusiasts struggle to keep model railway industry on track

#103

Post by neuronexmachina »

stevage wrote: post #95
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…

Yes, and if you're really into the physical aspect, there are all kinds of robotics kits and lego and such that can give you that.

There's also Lego trains: https://www.lego.com/en-us/product/express-passenger-train-6...

The sensors and engine can be controlled via Bluetooth Low Energy: https://github.com/topics/poweredup

Re: Enthusiasts struggle to keep model railway industry on track

#104

Post by bongodongobob »

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.

As an outsider, I'm pretty sure almost everyone has always considered model trains boring. That's always been the joke. This isn't anything new. You can't blame social media for this.

Re: Enthusiasts struggle to keep model railway industry on track

#105

Post by xattt »

krupan wrote: post #54
bombcar wrote: post #35

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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 woul…

“ But LEGO trains are not model trains (my goodness), they're toy trains - a completely and unrespectable thing.” I love this condescending sounding distinction, it’s actually very accurate! When I was 12 or 13 I had an uncle that was into model railroading and I thought it looked so fun and cool! Then I started looking into it more and it’s not really (at least to me at that age) because it’s not a toy you take out…

Not only can you change the track around easily, my kids have proven again and again that the track is not necessary and that the train can keep going (and going and going…) without the track.

Re: Enthusiasts struggle to keep model railway industry on track

#106

Post by AnonymousPlanet »

kiwih wrote: post #92
crote wrote: post #53

As a younger person who in theory is interested in model railways, the sad truth is that the drawbacks simply outweigh the benefits. Model trains are physically large, so building a layout in my apartment is pretty much impossible. They are extremely expensive, and if you want to get something which can do more than literally run around in a circle you're looking at a $X000 setup cost. The "sexy" part (digitally cont…

I've recently been designing a custom implementation of a DCC controller for a new model railroad I'm setting up - what don't you like about the protocol? I find the protocol fascinating in that the data signal is combined with the power, so you just run everything over the two tracks. Further, a transmitter is just a simple H-bridge that costs pennies...

It gets hacky when you want to read out CVs, since the DCC protocol is one way only. You need a good current sensor since most decoders encode the values into the current flow using the motor. It's a cute hack and somehow akin to morseing out with power LEDs.

Re: Enthusiasts struggle to keep model railway industry on track

#107

Post by vwcx »

morelisp wrote: post #65
lupusreal wrote: post #56

Earlier quoted context omitted.

At the same time modeling of "real things", except maybe RC airplanes, seems to be in a decline. For instance there don't seem to be many people into building models of ships/etc. The fantasy stuff goes a lot stronger. Kind of makes me wonder if declining social conditions have young people running to escapist fantasy stuff. Or maybe it's because the fantasy stuff is more profitable for corps thanks to trademark/copy…

I think it's hard to wrap all those hobbies up into one "reason" for the shift. One though is that kids probably see a lot less ships (in real life and film/TV) than they did 20, let alone 50, years ago. Kids will react to what they're told are cool and young adults will continue the hobby they had as kids. That being said, the same place I buy my monster and spaceship painting equipment from seems to still do a dece…

You make good points about the routine shifts in influence and interest over the generations. Running with the "RC airplane" example, it's probably true that the traditional internal combustion hobby isn't picking up tons of new youth. But look at how well drones still sell for Christmas these days.

Re: Enthusiasts struggle to keep model railway industry on track

#108

Post by rrr_oh_man »

justsomehnguy wrote: post #73
lupusreal wrote: post #49

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Honorable mention for OpenTTD

I was going to mention it too. Though after billions of billions made in TT/OpenTTD and whatever imaginable railroad systems it lost most of it's magic for me. Every once in a while I install it, browse and add some mods (FISH of course) and... after I'm on +300% profit each year it starts to get boring.

Workers & Resources, bro

Re: Enthusiasts struggle to keep model railway industry on track

#109

Post by shiroiuma »

hakfoo wrote: post #8
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…

My father was an enthusiast. When we moved into their current house (1988), the builder had the option of a three-car garage or enclosing the third-car section, and that was intended as a railway room. He favoured the large German "LGB" trains, in part bought because they were among the more durable products on the market, so it would be child-resistant for the kids to use. He built the framework and a track plan but…

>Shops are closing-- I make it a point to try to find a model-railway shop and pick up something exotic when I go on holiday, but even pretty big cities don't have one

Tokyo has tons of them. They're even in the big, new shopping malls, along with huge dioramas.

Re: Enthusiasts struggle to keep model railway industry on track

#110

Post by m4rtink »

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…

Maybe its region specific ? There is a brand 270 sqare meter new train layout based on Vienna in Prater, Vienna: https://www.praterwien.com/en/attractions/details/kingdom-of...

And its just a branch of another big layout in Prague: https://www.kralovstvi-zeleznic.cz/en/

Also I know a few people who are into model train and I would not call them old. Also they use quite modern tech (resin 3D priters and fully automated train control).

As for the space issue, they even sorta sved that as well via modular layouts - you build a certain part of a layout that conforms to an interface spec (rail placement at edges, electrical connections) and then you can join other enthusiasts at events where they build massive layouts from these modules in a rented hall somewhere for a couple days.

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