The future of the Hobby

[Rogue]

Whenever I visit my LHS I usually only see older citizens checking out the train stuff while younger folks tend to be more interested in R/C tanks & cars. When I visit train shows too, the majority of the layouts have older chaps manning the throttles.
I realise that the world has an ageing population and a quick read of these forums (and others) makes me wonder if it is the older guys that are keeping the hobby alive. I won't retire for another 23 years and I know that my kids have an interest (which will probably fade for a while when they discover girls) but I sometimes wonder what will things be like when I get there, I just hope there is still an interest in the hobby, one that all the video games in the world won't destroy!

Apologies for the ramble, I'm just in kind of a thoughtful mood today!

 

[Larry]

I think we live in a more fast paced world than when we(70 yrs old)were growing up.
Ditto on the kids in hobby shops & train shows. The only kids you see at either place are the real young ones that haven't had their hands on a video game yet or seen the oposite sex up close. It seems that when the economy goes down more guys & gals get into model railroading because they have more time on their hands & need the slow pace to get their mind in gear.
A lot of my friends(50 to 75 yrs old)are looking for the slow pace of MRR to get away from the rest of the world. These kids that see video games as their outlet for speed will slow down at about 40 yrs old & wonder where their life went. I've been into MRR since I was about 20 yrs. old & back then we had to build most of our engines & rolling stock by hand & there were very few structures. We didn't have video games or very much R/C equipment. My hobbies back then were trains & hotrods. I've built 2 custom layouts for 6 yr. olds & by the time they were 8 they were into video games & forgot about those expensive layouts their dad had built for them.

Larry

 

[AyTrane]

Same story here. I'm 23, and am definitely the youngest (not including kids with their parents) modeler when I go to train shows or hobby shops. I love the hobby, I have been doing it for 20 years. It's a tough hobby to do because everything is getting so expensive, but what isn't in this world.

 

[suprduc]

Being that I am 34 years old, I am on the younger side of the people that I see in the LHS here. There are a few others that I see there fairly regularly that are also around the same age as myself but not many. As stated, most of the modelers are probably in the 50-70 year old range which is to my advantage since they have quite a bit of experience in the hobby and can lend a hand. However, I did attend a train show yesterday that actually had quite a few younger people in attendance. I would guess that many of them were in the 23-30 age range and many with their father or grandfather I would guess. Although they are very much outnumbered, I hope that they are able to stick with it.

 

[nmaniac]

I'll start by saying I'm sorry if I offend you but it "is what it is" Unless we get the kids growing up today off there fat little butts and in the shop with dad learning the skills that are needed the hobby could be going by the way side in what say 10-15 yrs ??I think part of the problem is that most familys have two working parents so when the kids get home they sit in frame of the tube and play on there xbox,wi,playstaion thingy by the time the folks get home its off to boy scouts,girl scouts,bluebirds,baseball LOL or what have youto make up for the time with the kids.mom and dad need to spend time with them DOING THINGS like ripping a car engine apart

I go to about 15 shows a year and I see grandparents with the grandkids thats good and all but once they out grow thomas hello xbox,and just to set for record I have two boys grown now one 19 getting ready to jion the air force (spec ops) and one 23 asst mgr of a oil and car wash place and they worked we all did 4H ran cattle for yrs both played football and yes they played playstation and xbox but I controlled there time both boys did trains with me but let's face it once they hit high school and can drive and get girlfriends well no train layout can come close.I'll shut up and go build one of my little white metal kits,To the powers that B if you feel this is out of sorts delet

 

[Larry]

My dad, his dad, uncles & friends were all into Hotrods when we were growing up. My parents made me go outside & do something productive. I ran the streets a lot on the weekends & use to ride my bike about 10 miles 1 way to see my girlfriend(12 yrs old).
I never had trains when I was a kid & my dad would be out in the carport building his newest custom vehicle. I guess when you grow up in that field & work at a job at the young age of 11 yrs. you have a diff. outlook on the rest of your life. I didn't have any interest in trains till I went to work for a hobby distributor at the age of 20 or so.
So, for about 50 yrs on & off I've been inti Model railroading.
I use to have a sign in the back window of my pickup that said; "Get that kid off the couch & into Model railroading" w/my phone#. It was there for about 5 years & only had 1 call & the woman that called asked me "What is Model railroading?"

Larry

 

[abutt]

Most of my model railroad friends are my age...pushing 80. Been in the hobby most of my life. Like it's been said; we built our own cars, had a few Tycos to pull them around. Scratch built our structures and drooled over John Allen's pictures. Let's hope the youngsters we see in the hobby shops are the old guys of the future. After all, who are we going to leave our layouts to?

Allan

 

[nmaniac]

"I use to have a sign in the back window of my pickup that said; "Get that kid off the couch & into Model railroading" w/my phone#. It was there for about 5 years & only had 1 call & the woman that called asked me "What is Model railroading?"

Tis a very sad day larry when they have no clue what its all about eh?

 

[nmaniac]

Most of my model railroad friends are my age...pushing 80. Been in the hobby most of my life. Like it's been said; we built our own cars, had a few Tycos to pull them around. Scratch built our structures and drooled over John Allen's pictures. Let's hope the youngsters we see in the hobby shops are the old guys of the future. After all, who are we going to leave our layouts to?

Allan

Funny thing you said that Allen,I have talked it all over with my family as when the time comes I go to that big N scale layout in the sky.Both boys and the other half have made list of what they want most being all the custom paint jobs,I only hope that I have enough time to bring it all to a swap meet and get rid of it,sad thing is most of the collections I deal with are modelers that have passed on and there family want nothing to do with it

 

[Lateral-G]

This subject (the hobby is DYING!) seems to come up every few months. 30 years ago people were making the same laments about getting younger folks into the hobby. It's still going strong. I do RC, trains, rocketry and plastic models. EVERY one of those hobbies has the same comments made about how are we going to get younger folks interested. All of them are going as strong as ever and even growing.

I wouldn't worry. People will still be playing with model trains 100 years from now.

-G-

 

[bnsf971]

This is a reason I'm stockpiling all the equipment I can, down to spare DCC decoders (while saving the original PC boards), a spare command station, spare trucks, couplers, motors, even track and turnouts.
I don't want to have to stop model railroading in 20 years when I have a broken rail, and the entire model railroad industry has gone out of business.

 

[Selector]

The hobby is subject to many outer forces. Technology, its various guises, the appeal those guises have to those with money to spend in it, and other types of impact on daily lives.

I feel that as long as there are railroads, whatever form they take, there will be a small niche of people who take a keen interest in it...not unlike the present. The sport fishing industry must wonder if it will survive at times, but last I read it was worth $1B annually.

How about stamp collecting...you think we have worries?

-Crandell

 

[macjet]

Unless we get the kids growing up today off there fat little butts and in the shop with dad learning the skills that are needed the hobby could be going by the way side in what say 10-15 yrs ??

MRR'ing isn't going to fix anyone's obesity problem. I see plenty of adults in this hobby that need to drop anywhere from 100-200lbs. If junior is a porker then sign him up for soccer. Moving him from one sedentary activity to another isn't going to help.

MRR'ing isn't going to die. I was into it as a kid and then lost complete interest about the time I discovered football and girls. Now that my education is finished and I'm in a descent place in life I have a little time to do this but not the kind of time that a retiree does. In another twenty years when the nest is empty I'll be able to devote more time to the hobby but until then this hobby is way down the priority list behind my family, career, and friends. I'm sure the reason it seems that only "old" guys are into this is due to the time constraints and commitments of the hobby.

I wouldn't worry too much. I see a lot of "New Here, Need Some Help" threads popping up on this board all the time.

My $.02

 

[TaeOH]

I am 43 and just joined the hobby. Video Games has been my hobby for the past 30 or more years. I am getting into it because my 4 year old daughter really like trains and so I got one. Well, so I caught the bug and have the time, money and space to do a small railroad. Because my daughter is so young, I stopped playing a lot of video games that I used to because I don't want her to be exposed to the violence. I still play games, just not as much anymore and model railroading is something I can enjoy and don't have to worry about a negative influence on my daughter.

Very few younger folks have a home AND the money at the same time to support this hobby. I think those living in apartments would have to be pretty dedicated to attempt this hobby. I was very transient in my 20's, video game consoles are very portable, train layouts not as much.

Seems to me the natural progression of this hobby is Father and son(or daughter in my case) do it together because the Father loves it. The son leaves it for a while, but gets back into when he is older with the resources to enjoy it again.

I suspect I will be in this hobby the rest of my life. I am just hoping my daughter has some fun doing some scenery for me when she gets a little older.

 

[D&J RailRoad]

I would think the question behind this is: do we want someone to continue our interest in the hobby for our sake and legacy or do we want it to be available to others years down the road. We can't expect someone to carry on our interests whether they like it or not. The hobby has to be of interest to the person involved, as a natural attraction.
When I move on to my eternal reward, I don't expect anyone to run my layout. For all I care, my wife can sell it all on e-bay or just haul it to the land fill. If my grandsons aren't interested in model railroading, so be it. I'm not going to hope that they continue to run trains just because I did. I don't play golf like my dad did, because I'm just not interested in it nor can I get below 100 on an average day.

 

[NYW&B]

A look at a few facts might be in order, rather than simply speculating.

There is absolutely no question that the average age of hobbyists today is MUCH older than in the past. Model Railroader magazine kept statistics regarding its readership over many decades and it is very telling on this question. From 1944 until 1974, the average model railroader's age was a rock steady 34 (in 1950 only 5% of hobbyists were reported as over 50!). After 1974 the average age steadily increases year by year, with the projected average age today being close to 60.

What this indicates is that around the early 1960's, with the advent of slot cars, youth's interest in model trains abruptly waned. The year 1955 was the most profitable year Lionel every saw, yet about half a dozen years later the company was essentially in bankruptcy due to lack of sales.

The kids that had grown up with tinplate trains up through the 40's and 50s continued to enter the scale hobby as adults in large numbers until the mid 1970's. But there was no generation of tinplaters thereafter to draw from. Beyond the early 70's, most of the hobby's new blood came increasingly from those who were kids up through the early 1960's but didn't come back to the hobby until middle age, or older. Even today, most newbies are guys that had Lionel or Flyer trains as kids 4 and 5 decades ago.

The number of young people (under 25) in the hobby today is small, while senior citizens dominate model railroading. Absolutely nothing will change this demographic in the future. As the seniors die off over the next decade or two, the hobby will shrink with increasing speed. Certainly, there will continue to be a small number of new, young modelers as years go on but it will become increasingly difficult to make the hobby viable.

We are today seeing most model railroad items escalating rapidly in price as the market shrinks and the number of actual locomotive manufactures dwindles. The decreasing size of runs, the brief interval during which any given loco can be found, the unavailability at any given time of perhaps 1/3 of the items listed in Walthers catalog, all point toward a steadily declining customer base. I'm afraid that, perhaps as soon as 2025, just as was the case with brass over the past decade, model railroading will be of general interest and affordable to only a very small, well to do segment of society.

NYW&B

 

[UP2CSX]

As has been said, this topic seems to come up about once every three months. There's no question that people who are actually buying model railroad equipment and suppiles are an aging population. Model railroading takes time, money, and space, things that are in short suplly for most folks under 50. There are kids to raise, a career to keep going, and, especially now, the need to consisder spending priorities. I think there's a general perception that young people have no interest in model trains. I have had several classes of first and third graders over to to see my layout and all of them were fascinated by it, especially the locomotives that make noise and my animated billboards. I think some of those kids will become interested in model railroading when they have the time, money, and space to build a layout. The hobby will not die off. It has ebbed and flowed over the past 75 years and will continue to do so in the future. How big or important it will be is neither within my ability to predict nor do I really care. I will soon shuffle off this mortal coil and others coming behind me will grapple with these issues. I'm just happy to have been given the means, strength, and time to have one more shot at doing something I like before I make the trip across the river.

 

[Crawfy]

Hi first post

Well im not convinced about the hobby dying out, there seems to a great majority of modelers across the globe. I dunno what the story was 60 years ago, how many manufactures, train shows, availability of products there were, but reading past articles dating back 20~ years there has been large advancements in the hobby. DCC for one, has been a huge progress, along with an ever increasing line of products available. It seem there is still a big enough (and growing) market for the products, so there are still a great many people out there enjoying model trains.

I'm 19 and have loved trains for along as i can remember, being introduced to model trains by my older cousin 10 years ago, i haven't looked back. Since then another younger cousin caught the bug off me and we've shared the hobby somewhat between us, helping each other with each others projects.

Go to a train show and yes, the majority of modelers are of the older generation, and I don't see that changing. But how many here have been introduced to the hobby at a later stage in there life (common excuse is kids), because apart from a few youngsters, it is taken more seriously by older, wiser people . When my generation is of that age, there will be just as many model railroaders as there is now, probably more. Just at the moment most of us younger blokes are too caught up in our partying, girl-hunting, rev-head, million mile-n-hour lifestyles to worry about the complexity of scale railroading operations.

But when im done going to the pub, partying, toying with lots of horsepower or blasting my way through WWII on my computer, i'll settle down and run my trains, cause that what i love doing!

Just my AUS$0.02
(bout US$0.013 now )

 

[abutt]

Welcome aboard Crawfy. Have many friends in Oz, mostly in the Perth area. None of them model rr's, but all good folks. Well done on your first post.
Allan

 

[lmackattack]

I think that this hobby is just like any other. I collect full scale cars, trucks, and enjoy model trains and RC cars. I have always loved mechanics type of hobbys. As a kid I would buy what I could afford at that time. Simple layouts were all I could afford but dreams of a layout found in Model RR mags were always thought of. I never got out of Model trains but once I left high school girls and cars and friends became more important. this is when my trains sat in boxes for a while. it was the same with my cars. first I had a $500 beater now I slowly upgraded to a nice semi restored 65 Cadillac. Now that I have my own house and a steady Girlfriend a few trucks and cars that allow me to get out of the bacement railroading is all good. I think that this is one of those hobbys that need alot of time and patience.. something teenagers dont have alot of. i also think my Generation has lost the ability to use there hands. they want out of the box items. cant say that a layout is built that way. the hobby is trial and error with building a layout. you can read all the books on how to put track or grass down but its that first time that you try you will have a better understanding. I just think alot of people think its really difficult to learn new tricks to get the results they want. I do hope that the hobby grows as there are lots of ideas and models that we have yet to see.

Trent