Why is the hobby in trouble?


hobby shops

almost all of the model railroad stores in my area have closed. I have stumbled upon a wonderful shop in Mason, Ohio that seems to have the largest selection of trains that I have ever seen. There all out of the shipping boxes and able to be seen. In case anyone is looking for things this may be the place to look. Rocky at Dixie Union Station has found some hard to find things for me and shipped them out. www.dixieunionstation.com
 
The dying hobby?

Jack here from Star, Idaho. The way I look at it old railroaders never die they just get off track. I really think the economic times are keeping manufacturers from producing too much inventory and suppliers from ordering too much. we are just going through a valley and we will climb back to the summit in time. Besides, so what if the kids today do not have an interest in the hobby. I don't plan on growing too old to love the hobby and neither should you. Look at it this way it's your railroad. Build it like you want and keep in mind railroading is not going to die. If we provide the demand there will always be a supplier with the products we need. My out look on life is my glass is alway half full! Pull back on the throttle and take this train further down the line...
 
The dying hobby

Jack here from Star, Idaho. The way I look at it old railroaders never die they just get off track. I really think the economic times are keeping manufacturers from producing too much inventory and suppliers from ordering too much. we are just going through a valley and we will climb back to the summit in time. Besides, so what if the kids today do not have an interest in the hobby. I don't plan on growing too old to love the hobby and neither should you. Look at it this way it's your railroad. Build it like you want and keep in mind railroading is not going to die. If we provide the demand there will always be a supplier with the products we need. My out look on life is my glass is alway half full! Pull back on the throttle and take this train further down the line...
 
Being an old guy who is new to the hobby, I recently attended my first train show and was struck by this observation:

Train modelers are:

1. Old.

2. Blind.

The show was almost completely dominated by G scale train layouts and G scale train sellers.
 
At my local Walmart and K-Mart there is not a single model for sale of any description. Hot Wheels and their ilk. That's it. If Walmart or K-Mart could make money selling models they would. We live in a Hot Wheels, 'Snap Together' world now.
 
eTraxx said:
At my local Walmart and K-Mart there is not a single model for sale of any description. Hot Wheels and their ilk. That's it. If Walmart or K-Mart could make money selling models they would. We live in a Hot Wheels, 'Snap Together' world now.
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I can count on one hand the number of people up here that actually think that building something with their own hands actually means something. Everything now has to be RTR even the boxcars--oh, and better yet, they have to be specific to MY era--complete with the numbers on them so I do not need to decal them myself. :rolleyes::rolleyes:

We wanna play with our toys!!:D:D:D:p
 
The train club I hang out with has several members under the age of 30, including one who does excellent locomotive painting and another who scratchbuilds and kitbashes what he wants.

Some of you need to get out more and look around.

The hobby has always been expensive, and has always been dominated by people who already got the job, bought the house, had a couple kids and finally have a little extra money and time.
 
Graham Line said:
The hobby has always been expensive, and has always been dominated by people who already got the job, bought the house, had a couple kids and finally have a little extra money and time.
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OK. this needs to be tested. Do you have evidence of this domination by older mrr? Where is this evidence of this hobby trend?

Like other claims this one also can be challenged as well. The age brackets have steadily moved up over the past number of years--according to some on this forum--and those facts have been rather robust. Even MR magazines figures seem to describe a steady increase in age averages so----?

Now, having said that I do suspect that there is a large group of young people involved in the hobby. Not all on the internet and not all subscribing either. We do seem to see them at the train shows up here--and thats where I would be going too--considering the budget took a whack recently from having home repairs done:mad::mad:---
 
I agree with you Graham. I happen to luckily be one of those guys.

We should all look at the one possible upside to all this...quite possibly our collections have grown more valuable as the quantity of products has been reduced.

I think the hobby will be around for a long time to come. For me, the hobby has alot of nostalgia to it that can only be appreciated with the passage of time. Its a mix of happy childhood memories and special times spent with my brother and dad. Im raising my young kids with hopefully some of those same types of memories.

Outside of the occasional Christmas tree layout for some kids, it will remain an older person's hobby.
 
Looking at print magazine stats ignores a growing number of people who conduct their hobby over the Internet using the various boards like this one, specific hobby websites and online magazines like Model Railroad Hobbyist.

Specialist movements like Railroad Prototype Modelers, at least here on the West Coast, actually seem to be skewed a little toward a slightly younger membership than the mainstream Model Railroader/NMRA group.

I have observations, not statistics. The essential makeup of the three big clubs here in my metro area tells me the same thing -- some guys in their 20s, more in their 40s, and the "old heads" who have been at it for some time. Over the past three decades, there hasn't been a material shift in the balance of numbers among the groups.

The hobby is changing and maturing. I wouldn't say it's dying.
 
Let's look at the "recruitment" side of the hobby.

Let's hope that someday younger folks will become bored of "clicking" on vacuous games on their PCs that have fake farms and cartoon-penguins. Or, walking around with I-pod music stuck in their ears like passive zombies. It's like a form of post childhood thumb-sucking.

I started noticing this problem years ago. Riding on Amtrak trains through great scenic areas I'd see all the youngsters on the train glued to their little electronic games for hours at a time. All the while missing the experience of learning what was outside the window.

Kids in my era thought nothing of getting on their bikes, or hiking for miles, to find some way to get into trouble.:D Every boy I grew up with could take his bike apart and put it back together -- in working order. See that anymore?

So maybe the problem isn't with our hobby after all. Maybe it's a societal shift.
 
all i can answer to this is "O tempora! o mores" in slightly sarcastic tone of voice.
times change, but they always change - the phrase is over 2000 years old by now.

the hobby is fine and will be fine years from now (even if ammount of participants gets reduced several times). through the centuries people always modeled everything: architecture, ships (and vehcles in general) and they will continue on one level or another.
 
Well,I take myself for example...I've been into Model RR-ing since '88....yes...I was only 8yrs old at the time,but my parents got me my first set....Marklin..still got the entire set today..times have moved on & so have I to other makes,but never lost interest in Model RR-ing in all the years...I'm 28 now & my layout is starting to grow rapidly....

As for the hobby over here in South Africa...I'm the only 'youngster' I know of that is into it in our entire province (county)....alot of older folks is into it,but their children ain't interested......maybe that'll change with time...

I think the reason why our hobby is so 'small' over here,is that everything needs to be imported & shipping costs are very expensive....The Hobby shops over here has the same problem..so in the end it's the buyer that has to cough up alot for items......

I'll forever be a Model RR'er.... "Let the good times roll" ;)
 
Graham Line said:
The hobby has always been expensive, and has always been dominated by people who already got the job, bought the house, had a couple kids and finally have a little extra money and time.
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Spot on, Graham.

I exactly fit your "old guy" profile. Own my own business... built my own house... and do what I dang well please. :)
 
There is maybe about 50 members in our club. Out of all those members, I can count on one hand those that are 40 and younger. Actually, im the oldest under 40 member. Im 37 and there are 2 teens and one in his 20s and another in his early 30s. The rest are over 50. I have been to several shows and swaps this year and some of you are right. There really isnt a lot of younger folks into this hobby.

But I wouldnt go as far as saying that means our hobby is in trouble though.
 
I wouldn't say it's dying. Sure, it's taking a hit from video games and such, but when the current generation comes down with carpal tunnel syndrome, we'll go back to trains. :D

Charles, tbh I've noticed the same thing. I was raised without videogames (unless you count Windows Pinball), and I'm always surprised how long my friends can spend staring into a three inch screen doing essentially nothing. And I'm not gonna lie, gunning down zombies is fun for a while. But will we all be gunning down zombies when we're sixty? I doubt it. Though I do think it sucks that most people my age don't know a crescent wrench from a skill saw, some do, and get very much into it. My cousin for example builds his own BMX bikes. And some people take apart computer code in the same way their parents/grandparents did bicycles.

Besides, I honestly wish I'd waited a decade or two to get into the hobby. I got into it at the age of eight, with few resources, and messed up a lot of nice stuff. Then I got in way over my head, and it's mostly sat around since (except for one burst of activity recently where I ripped it all out, built a few structures, and made a track plan.) Hobbies are great when you have the time. As a college student, and even in high school, homework and other stuff doesn't always leave time. I just like building stuff, and as a result I have way too many hobbies. Model trains, model cars, fishing, sculpture, messing around with mechanical stuff, working on my vintage station wagon... then factor in Youtube etc. It's fun and all but it's the sort of thing you only really have time for when you're young, when you're old (no offense meant obviously) or if you find a job where you get paid to do it.

The Internet's kind of a blessing and a curse. Because of it, we (well my generation anyway) have less time to do other stuff, but also because of it, we can go on forums like this one and meet other people with the same interests. If it wasn't for model train/car forums, I might have given up long ago.

Dying? No. Just, ah, reorganizing.
 
Graham Line said:
Looking at print magazine stats ignores a growing number of people who conduct their hobby over the Internet using the various boards like this one, specific hobby websites and online magazines like Model Railroad Hobbyist.

Specialist movements like Railroad Prototype Modelers, at least here on the West Coast, actually seem to be skewed a little toward a slightly younger membership than the mainstream Model Railroader/NMRA group.

I have observations, not statistics. The essential makeup of the three big clubs here in my metro area tells me the same thing -- some guys in their 20s, more in their 40s, and the "old heads" who have been at it for some time. Over the past three decades, there hasn't been a material shift in the balance of numbers among the groups.

The hobby is changing and maturing. I wouldn't say it's dying.
Click to expand...

Personal observations are somewhat of a canard, since they are likely to only reflect a highly local situation and are likely to be skewed by the observer's personal take on the matter, even if he isn't conscious of it.

There is very little actual basis for claiming that folks are switching from magazines to the Internet in practicing their hobby. In fact, the lure of Internet forums seems to have been fading considerably for several years now. Case in point is the MR forum, largest of the MRRing forums by a whole order of magnitude. Initiated around 2001, by 2004-05 MR's forum had accumulated well over 200,000 registered members. However, MR re-organized its site about 2005, requiring particpants to re-register and it has taken the last 5 years to recover to fewer than 65,000 members! Likewise, we have seen many of the smaller forums languish, or disappear altogether, in that same interval. My impression is that for a time the Internet was a novelty and drew a great many folks to it. Seeing how little most forums actually offered, a high percentage of hobbyists have withdrawn (or moved on) over time.

This doesn't even begin to address who among forum participants are also magazine readers. When that question does arise, responses tend to suggest around 75% are still reading hardcopy. So, the overwhelming influence of the Internet in our hobby seems to become largely a fiction.

NYW&B
 
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