Being that I'm most likely one of the young ones here. I'll give my two cents. Something even my wife has pointed out to me. The hobby itself is expensive! I fall victim to the price of the hobby. You can't get a cheap train set anymore. Even the one with a simple 36" circle of track is $100. That's without any bells and whistles. A locomotive maybe 3 cars and a power pack that ain't worth anything. eBay you might get lucky but you have to stay on it all the freaking time! Even then cheap stuff is outdated and will need work to get it somewhat to a decent standard. Without any knowhow you won't know what to do with the older stuff. And I agree that there ain't interaction with trains anymore. I find my interest was peaked by interacting with trains at a young age. It worked as I was hooked. I did the same with my daughter. Who cried when she saw I had taken my layout down. So she is hooked. If you never had interaction with trains you aren't going to be interested in the hobby. My brother has even stated he don't see the excitement of watching a train go in circles. It's me re than that. But he makes a point. He didn't have the interaction with trains like I did. So there lies the difference. My wife is the same way. She was never put into a position to interact with trains. I'm a firm believer that to keep the hobby alive starting with the young ones. Peak their interest and they will most likely keep that interest. Not saying that it's a fool proof way as it may not work in every case. I just know in my cars it works. My daughter loves running trains like I do.
Justin
Justin, I do understand your position and what you mean about costs. However, to put a bit of perspective on the matter, how much does the latest middle-of-the-road (not the most expensive version currently available) smart phone cost on an average plan, not the platinum data plan? Most plans offer last year's top-of-the-line phone plus the minimum $40/month data plan for an outright phone purchase of between $200-500, depending on the phone offered and how desirable it still is once the newest one is up for sale. When all added up, your new last-year's smart phone and its data package, the smallest bundle the company sells, runs about $1000 the first year, and $480 the second year. The first year you have to pay for the plan, it's monthly data costs, and the phone. The second year, only the data plan monthly subscription. I mention this because virtually all of us have something like that phone plan...the minimum plus either a pay-as you-go, or an unlocked phone, and over the two years you have it until your contract is up and you elect to replace that horribly outdated phone, you are paying for about six locomotives and train sets. Plus a new DCC system. The expense you don't think twice about is the phone. ( I don't mean YOU you, but 'we', as typical phone users). And granted, it's far more important to all of us. But the paltry $100, what I spend for my internet and phone, minus cable, at home each month is something that we carp about for what is only a hobby. We'll have that $100 locomotive long after we've moved on to Phone 2020 and 2022. But we'll have spent well over $3000 on the phones and their yearly plans.
To an extent, I agree that exposing younger people to model trains early is important. However, if you were to poll all 100k kids exposed to their uncle or their older brother's, or their dad's or grandpa's toy trains when they were still able to sit on those larger laps between last year and this, and handle a throttle, and then poll them 30 years later, they'd tell you that it's all just a dream...maybe when they retire. Very few kids who played with their dad's trains go on to play with them themselves in later years. Maybe two or three in ten, but possibly less. Eventually, yes, but long after their kid's tuition and first home down-payments have been met as help. But, like me, I went on to telescopes, photography, classic music CD's, racing bicycles, and only latterly back to trains when I retired. By then I was able to afford the type of locomotives and rolling stock that my retirement allowed, and those run me an average of $299 for each of my BLI steamers. Walthers heavyweight passenger cars run about $40 heavily discounted these days. I need at least six of each for each passenger locomotive, meaning I currently have about $1500 into passenger cars alone. I never paid MSRP, either, always discounted by at least 30%.
So, what am I getting at? Discretionary income, whether for that latest all-singing, all-dancing blue sapphire smart phone, or it's distant much poorer unlocked cousin, and the plans that enable them to work, even pay-as-you-go, or for those crappy train sets, are only permitted by the value that we assign to them RELATIVE TO ALL OTHER EXPENSES. And that's all these expenses really are...they're meant to be after all much more serious and recurring obligations. So, nobody owes us anything, least of all help in getting into our preferred hobbies by undercutting their own business and taking a beating so that we can run trains. Nobody lasts any length of time selling at cost unless they have very deep pockets and can find other ways to keep them full. In our hobby, most suppliers, and their importers, need to make money for investors or for a living for themselves.
Is the hobby expensive? To a young couple who are early in their relationship and having to count pennies, yewbetcha. Been there, done that. It wasn't until I was swimming in a lot more discretionary income that the goodies began to come. And when you think about it, it's this older dollar that has kept the steam locomotive so popular, still, in the hobby. Us old codgers are making a very healthy market for them. When your time comes, and we're all pushing up garlic and tomatoes, you'll want those prized diesels from yesteryear, and you'll drive your market as we did. Meanwhile, there'll be those who lust after train sets because that's about all they can leverage away from the dutiful and fretful wife who wonders how she's going to get the dress for your Christmas party at work.