Model RR club shutting down....maybe

[CNE Runner]

I find this thread interesting from a social-interactive standpoint. There seems to be a common theme of older individuals trying to keep 'the lights burning' in model railroading. Are we becoming irrelevant?

I can remember both my junior high, and high school, having an active model railroad club. I also remember many of my friends having some sort of train layout (before we discovered girls and cars...not necessarily in that order). How many public schools today can boast a model railroad club...let alone a layout? How many of our younger citizens are even interested in the hobby?

While working in the mental hygiene field, I frequently worked with pre teens and teenagers. I probably had 25 or 30 clients (in this age range) and only one was remotely interested in model railroading. One has to wonder if the hobby 'fits' today's environment. Most of us, that dabble in model railroading, are passionate in this pursuit...I am not so sure that view is shared by a very large segment of society.

Are we going to go the way of cursive writing?

Ray

[jonathan]

Ray,

You really coaxed me to reflect on my own experiences in MR, and if it might relate to others.  I think we devoted modelers/fans, became that way at an early age.  Probably like golf, football, art, science... you either caught the bug or you didn't.  Does it stick?  I've mentioned before I had to wait 40 years to have the time, money and space to build a layout--hopefully not the last layout I build.  It was an old man, who showed me his layout, that turned me on.  Well, everyone is old when your seven (my son's age btw).

I can't imagine a school having an MR club.  That would have been really great growing up.    Must have been a decade or two before my time.  At the LHS's, the train guys are all my age or older.  The young kids seem to like the helicopters and parking lot race cars.

Don't think I haven't noticed the teens-30-year-olds on this forum.  That is a good sign I think.  Remember youngsters, the only stupid question is the one that doesn't get asked.

Final thought.  We are also a very transient society.  I moved every few years my entire life, unitil I finally retired from my first career.  That may also explain why we are a bunch of old f--ts who play with trains.  We always had the will, just needed the opportunity.

There you go--you made me soliloquize.

Jonathan

[Woody Elmore]

For me, the interest in trains came as a child. I'd see all the different freight cars - containing slogans and interesting heralds. Cabooses were also very interesting to look at. Add to that a godfather who had boxes of Kodachrome slides featuring GG-1s and other interesting PRR locomotives.

Of course Lionel trains were like today's computer games; every kid wanted a set. In New York City Macy's always had a huge Lionel display, plus there was also a Lionel Corp. layout to visit as well. You could also go to the Gilbert Hall of Science and watch the American Flyer trains travel around a large U shaped dogbone layout. Their layout was always scenicked more realistically than the Lionel exhibit but the trains were, in my opinion, much more toylike than Lionel.

What do you see today when a train goes by? A snakelike train of nondescript hoppers or freight cars that have been painted over a few times due to corporate takeovers. Plus all the engines look alike. I find I have no interest in modern railroading.

I belonged to a club. we were forced from two locations by landlords who thought we were eccentric and rich. However, the one big problem for us was always getting insurance so that we were covered if a visitor tripped or some how got hurt.

Every club has a dynamic. There are several groups at play - the workers, the guys who just like to operate, the group who complain about the workers and those who plainly do nothing but complain about everything and are late with dues.

I hope the Boeing club can continue to thrive. Getting young blood is a problem.

[Yankeeflyer]

Jim Hi
This is off topic, but my wife and I really enjoyed an overnight stay in Kalowna on our way from Vancouver to Banff and back. We loved the Vineyards and a stay at a neat little B&B over looking the lake. What shocked me was the Arizona like look to that part of BC. I guess the mountains block the rain clouds.
Lee
From St. Louis Mo.

[ta152h0]

As time is consumed, the club is getting closer to the ultimate question that needs to be addressed.Who owns the club's assets and how far are the  aging founding members willing to travel ?  Just maybe a new face (or faces ) will surface willing to run the club elsewhere with both DC and DCC operations andencourage some levity.( crashing trains into builings modeling brake failures and such )

[lirrman]

Reply to Woody Elmore:  I was particularly taken by the third paragraph in your post.  Yes, modern railroading does not have the variety of mixed freight or power found in years gone by.  That, however, is the beauty of model railroading.  You can pick an era and model it with all the variety you now miss in today's modern railroads.  Models are available in all scales for all eras.  Get back in the game.

Regarding the demise of model railroading among the young.  When I go to train shows I tend to agree.  Older "grampas" like me are there with their very young grandsons but I see very few teens and 20 somethings.  Yet, when I read the posts on this Bachmann site, especially the ones on DCC, I'm convinced there are many young people involved in the hobby because they seem to be the only ones that fully understand all the DVV stuff. I sure don't.  I'm further convinced that the young are involved when I try to understand some of the "texting" abbreviations that are used.  I'm not down on DCC.  I think its fascinating and the way to go when you are starting out, have a small layout or only a few locomotives.  It's just not for someone like me who has been collecting locomotives and using cab control (successfully, I might add) for over 50 years.  I grew up in NYC and visited the Lionel showroom, Gilbert Hall of Science and Madison Hardware.  Lionel & American Flyer were the high tech "toys" of their time.  The kids I hung with all debated the pros & cons of Lionel & Flyer the same way they compare iPods and computers (and DCC systems?) today. I truly believe that DCC and all the high tech that goes with it saved model railroading by keeping the young involved.  Just keep manufacturing the locomotives in DCC AND DC so we are all happy.  It's a hobby for life.