Enthusiasts struggle to keep model railway industry on track
theguardian.com
theguardian.com
I think younger generations are drawn to cheaper and easier to access forms of entertainment that provide similar intellectual experience. It's a shame for the hobby, but I find it a very reasonable thing to happen.
When I was little my brothers and I played a lot together with Lego.
Now we’re all over 40 and occasionally play on a heavily modded Minecraft server to scratch that itch.
In many ways it’s so much more practical, essentially unlimited building materials with no real cost, no issue with physical space in the house, we can do it casually in the evenings while doing voice calls on Discord, no unpacking or packing up needed before or after.
There are even great rail cart mods for those interested in track switching type activities.
We make a point of doing in person LANs about every quarter, also for old times sake.
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.
The original home of many people who became hackers (old use of the word) was the TMRC at MIT. Tech Model Railroad Club - https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tech_Model_Railroad_Club
As told in Steven Levy's Hackers book, there were two groups in the TMRC. There was the group that went on train rides and did meticulous models on top of the track... and there was the systems and powers group that worked with wires and automation (from the telephone company) under the track.
From the Wikipedia article...
> The club was composed of several groups, including those who were interested in building and painting replicas of certain trains with historical and emotional values, those that wanted to do scenery and buildings, those that wanted to run trains on schedules, and those composing the "Signals and Power Subcommittee" who created the circuits that made the trains run. This last group would be among the ones who popularized the term "hacker" among many other slang terms, and who eventually moved on to computers and programming.
> ...
> At the club itself, a semi-automatic control system based on telephone relays was installed by the mid-1950s. It was called the ARRC (Automatic Railroad Running Computer). It could run a train over the entire set of track, in both directions, without manual intervention, throwing switches and powering tracks ahead of the train. A mainframe program was used to compute the path, and all modifications to the layout had to be compatible with this ability.
Growing up, we had a 4'x8' sheet of plywood covered in the fake grass and then decked out with structures, trees, people, cars, and all sorts of stuff. It was a lot of fun setting it up, building the models, and deciding on a track layout. Took weeks building it. It took days to get bored with it. For some reason, we thought it a good idea to tack down the tracks for better stability, but it made it a nightmare to rearrange the tracks. However, it stayed like that for years and from time to time as I got older would fire it up and quickly bore of it again.
That's my experience as well. A guy I met in a store had inherited an absolutely massive Rokal set, a lesser known brand so there wasn't a lot of documentation about how it all worked. He asked me to get it all working. The whole installation on 8 full sized sheets of plywood had been cut up to move it into his basement, they'd cut a temporary hole in the floor to move the sheets in but all the wiring had been cut and there was zero documentation. It took many months to figure it all out and to get it connected to the point where it would all work reliably. But once that was done I think I looked at it for 30 minutes before moving on to something more interesting. I loved working on the set itself though, especially because I kept finding new details that had previously eluded me (such as working traffic lights!).
This is where sectional track is a godsend. Easy to rearrange before worrying about tacking it down. For example, Märklin C-track. Ballasted roadbed. Clicky connectors that stay connected. Metal bits for attaching power+control leads.
And for tacking it all down, Homasote makes it easy to detach+reattach and deadens sound.
The sensors and engine can be controlled via Bluetooth Low Energy: https://github.com/topics/poweredup
"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 enough space to set up a model railway long term"
It's kind of a shame too, it was the first time I think I've ever really appreciated the large scale model train installations. When I was younger I'd see them at random historical museums and mostly just think "yeah choo-choo sure does go in a circle haha". I think the San Diego museum did a good job of conveying that it isn't really just about the trains as much as it's about modeling the landscapes and towns the trains actually go through. Viewing it from the perspective of a massive scale diorama of some region really raised my overall appreciation for the whole endeavour.
I, in turn, moved on to smaller American (HO scale) and British (OO) trains, using the same room, but now find that the tables designed for big 1:22.5 trains have irregularities enough to make 1:87 trackwork unreliable. Will probably need to rework them.
The hobby itself has definitely changed though: Yes, today's modern models are higher quality than a lot of the old "Blue Box" Athearn kits, but they're also $50 instead of $7, and come ready-to-run, so the hobby aspect of building and customizing it is gone. Many models don't even come as an undecorated version anymore, if you wanted the classic "paint it for your own custom railway" narrative. You don't get the same "hours of fun per dollar" out of that side of the hobby anymore.
What's interesting is that there's definitely an opportunity for synergy with the rise of hobby electronics-- the trains have moved from "variable DC on the rails" to "AC with a command bus" and sometimes even Bluetooth, so there's a lot of interesting stuff you could do with computer or microcontroller interfacing. I bought a project for an automatic traffic-signal design using some 555 timers and capacitors, and thought "this is 10 lines of code on a $3 Arduino, for this generation of hobbyists."
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, or it's a billion miles from anywhere. I was sort of saddened to get a note from Hattons (an excellent UK retailer-- surprisingly cheap shipping to the US) that they have started to wind down operations in the last month.
Berlin has two or three big shops and some smaller ones.
Tokyo has tons of them. They're even in the big, new shopping malls, along with huge dioramas.
So much "millenials killing X" discourse is just "property prices killing X" in disguise.
If people really want to do something, they make space/time available for it, even if it involves clubs, etc.
The number of people who want to build models in general is down, I suspect, given that we have so many other things to do with "free time".
There's other space-saving solutions, like layouts that swing up against the wall (like a Murphy bed), or that can be pulled up against the ceiling. Some handiwork required.
He owned a sizable property in California which included a large home and some attached apartments. They ran a boarding-house for immigrants, and later, my widowed grandmother became a landlady.
I was raised with a fervent love for railroads of all types. I had little engineer togs as a toddler and a professional photoshoot to prove it. We rode around on a scale railroad in the park. But most of all, my grandfather's labor of love was building a model train set for me in an upstairs bedroom.
It was essentially a simple affair; grandpa had built a large plywood table topped with Astroturf. The rails themselves were in a large figure-eight, with not much landscaping or scenery around. We concentrated on the technical bits: a good AC/DC transformer with variable knob, some nice rolling stock with the traditional freight-train assortment of cars, and a locomotive that had that smokestack where you could insert a little tablet and it'd puff out "steam" while it ran.
My sister and I loved that whole setup, and it was like catnip to us in our youth, at least until the Atari 2600 took over. The railroad remained the centerpiece of that room and a focal point of our entertainment for years and years, even after grandpa passed away. It was really a cool thing for an authentic railroad guy to pass that on to his grandchildren.
There's a lot you can do at shared spaces, but cost/availability/inconvenience of those is just such a big barrier to entry for many younger people.
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 would rival the total number of visitors the rest of the year.
But LEGO trains are not model trains (my goodness), they're toy trains - a completely and unrespectable thing.
But today I see LEGO themselves referring to the track as "L-gauge": https://www.lego.com/en-us/product/the-orient-express-train-... - which started out as almost a joke and is now getting some pretty serious attention.
If model railroading as a whole wants to survive and thrive, they will need to embrace the "toy" train.
(Lots of these museums are really just "fronts" for the member's hobby, after all, and it gets them out of the house.)
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 of the box and play with a 100 different ways. You build a very static and detailed landscape, put your rails down, start the train up, and just sit back and look at it. Where’s the fun in that?
I just got a Lego train set for me and my kids and we’ve already built several different ways, crashed the train and rebuilt parts of multiple tiles, discovered you can program it with the new PoweredUp system, put mini figures on the roof of the cars, etc.
What people forget is that the new blood in the hobby comes from the young blood and trying to keep them out doesn't help.
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.
So one of his daughters was my friend and classmate, and when we were growing up, of course, her father was already collecting model trains, and he had so many that every shelf of their home was occupied with model trains of various types.
My friend didn't visit many other homes when she was young, but once she finally went over to a friend's house, and she looked around, bewildered, and asked, "Where are all the trains?"
The thing is, I don't expect I'll necessarily have this kind of space forever (and almost certainly not this particular one), so it's hard to justify things like cutting a hole in the side of the house to crane in an industrial lathe. I'm planning on getting more hobbyist-scale stuff (though still space-consuming) with a goal of using it to build my own, smaller, portable workshop (a small lathe, provisions for using it for milling, a selection of cutting tools and the necessary meta-tools to maintain them, a pack-up forge/foundry).
The ultimate dream is something the size of approximately a (possibly large) suitcase or footlocker that can be used to recreate itself (think RepRap but a whole, miniature machine shop), so that I can 1) continue in my hobby even if I have to move into an apartment, and 2) share this with other people by helping them bootstrap something similar. The David A. Gingery book series ("Build Your Own Machine Shop From Scrap") is my inspiration here, though so much of the series would be a lot easier if you could start with some existing machine tools instead of having to do literally all of it from scratch).
I started in an apartment with the small Shurline lathe and mill and they were quite fun and capable for their size.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=PNje4KTLZT4
It is 1:450 scale and half the size of the Z scale.
When describing starter sets, the track area is dimensioned in mm. https://www.tgauge.us/product/452/20/lner-125-hst-train-set
> The 120mm loop included in this starter set will cover an area of 253mm x 372mm (10" x 14 3/4").
https://twitter.com/Noahpinion/status/1690894492688437248
Young people own homes at higher rates than they did in the 90s:
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.
I think the real problem is that y'all got houses to put a train set in for like $3.50 and the only people I know with houses are the ones who's parents put the money down and cosigned the loan. The models fit on a shelf in a tiny apartment with a roommate.
Maybe vote to approve some apartment blocks and public transit next time around?
Since I moved out of my moms place I could not bring my 3d printers, cnc machine or electronics equipment. I simply cant fit it in this tiny apartment with my wife.
I have lost these hobbies over the past two years to software entirely. Not necessarily a bad thing.
I guess my point is, you can lose your slower hobbies without even realizing, just due to circumstance. It's not necessarily the younger generation's "fault". It is often just the emergent consequence of the situation.
I suggest any boomers with this attitude check out what the kids are doing with Gunpla and Warhammer. It's a space issue, not a "stimulus" or "physical dexterity" one.
That being said, the same place I buy my monster and spaceship painting equipment from seems to still do a decent trade in benders and slips.
And size is still an issue, the smallest ship I could build is about the size of the largest "miniature" I have.
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?
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 controlling the trains) seems to be pretty much stuck with poorly-designed protocols from the 80s.
I like trains. I like DIY electronics. I like 3D printing. But given the barrier to entry, I'll just stick with OpenTTD or some kind of Euro Train Simulator game.
My friends are into Warhammer and DIY racing drones. If those hobbies have no trouble attracting younger people, the problem here really isn't young people's interest.
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...
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.
Membership average age is like 50-60ish. We do have about 10-15% of members like me under 50. Some even in their 20s. Doesn't seem quite like its in too much trouble around here. The pool is shirking with apartment living becoming more normal though in the area. But maybe because this is a club with its own layouts that members can use is one way for the hobby to survive & thrive.
There are 5 layouts, 2 in N scale. 3 in HO. 3 of the layouts are able to be broken down and put on a trailer and taken to an exhibition.
I do think that home built & run layouts are probably on the decline with cost of living & housing so high compared to years past. But I think club layouts that members can use is a way to help keep the hobby relevant.
There are cool projects like https://dcc-ex.com/index.html and arduino based control for layout automation bits. That historically cost a lot.
My observations of the US is that mostly ready to run models are sold now, haven't seen too many kit makers around for US stuff. Still kit makers for Australian & NZ stuff. With some decent ready to run Australian prototype available now.
The next house will have a train room or area of the garage available. This is definetly a middle class hobby. Its not cheap.
I have wanted to work with my hands again. Sitting at a computer all day or parts of the evening playing video games is only so fun. Would rather build something physical.
There's a crazy national involvement and it's pretty common to see two dozen guys watching the cars drift around the circut on Thursdays-Sunday nights.
The cars are crazy with LiPO amperages and full suspensions, active cooling, and programmable throttle profiles.
I guess the point is: It's social, and in-person, and has a lot of similarities to something model trains in a communal location would provide.
Every member of a club would only have to bring a small section but you could still do really big layouts
Everyone who prefers a virtual alternative in form of a video game is nuts! I cannot even see much similarity between the two, unless creating and automating tracks is really what you find interesting about the hobby (as lnrd hypothesizes). To me, that is the least interesting thing about it. It's not about creating a run of tracks, it's about creating a corner of the world. The scenery, the (long) building process, the hidden gems and stories... For many, it's also about being in a club, the community... you know, like, in the old sense of the word, not the internet sense of the word.
The article makes a good point that we should actually be living in a golden age of model building. Twenty, thirty years ago, it was much harder to come by supplies while in the globalized world we live in today, everything is just an online order away. But of course that also makes it much harder for your local shop to survive.
Also: youtube channel tip: https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCjRkUtHQ774mTg1vrQ6uA5A
Modelleisenbahnfans in Deutschland steckten nach seinen Angaben im vergangenen Jahr angesichts gestiegener Lebenshaltungskosten weniger Geld in ihr Hobby. Deshalb habe sich der Umsatz etwas schwächer entwickelt als erhofft. Er habe aber gut ein Drittel über dem des Vor-Corona-Jahres 2019 gelegen. Und weil sich der Spielwarenmarkt einschließlich Modellbahnen 2023 eher rückläufig entwickelten, habe Piko Marktanteile gewinnen können.
roghly translated:
because of rising living costs model railway fans spent less money on their hobby in the last year. therefore revenue increased slower than expected, but it was still one third over 2019. and because the whole toy industry including model railways shrank somewhat in 2023, piko was able to gain marketshare.
One winter we mixed it with Lego from the Harry Potter series and pretended the train was the one going to Hogwarts.
Toys that still work 40 years later are amazing.
Younger parents who didn't play with model trains are also in awe. For those who have enough room it's really a nice thing to do to play together with your kid(s).
It s not crazy pricey either if you don't go wild.
Years ago I read that Märklin held the record for an engine running continuously out-of-the-box. Like, it ran for two weeks solid before it finally melted down.
https://www.nbcbayarea.com/news/local/historic-bay-area-mode...
There's another one in the hills above Palo Alto that's open to the public once a year. Now I can't find it online. Anyone? It's not Roaring Camp.
This was a real train on private land, with a machine shop and a crew of volunteers. It had a loop of several miles.
I've ridden on the Roaring Camp Railroad, but not the Portola Valley one.
A big part of it is funded by doing interactive Polar Express recreation trip/shows complete with singing, dancing, hot cocoa, cookies and a visit by Santa. They do two trips every day and three on weekends from before Thanksgiving to Christmas, each with several hundred passengers. It's a great experience that's pure magic for kids. The whole thing is done with top-notch production value and officially licensed by Disney. Tickets aren't cheap but well-worth the price and always sold-out with long waiting lists. When our kid was that age, getting tickets was challenging enough that we just got a yearly family membership to the museum to ensure priority selection and it became a tradition our kid still talks about every holiday. If you have (or know) kids of that age, check if there's similar holiday train excursions in your area.
We also have several smaller train clubs in the surrounding suburbs and rural areas including a couple who own and run full-sized trains on a few miles of closed track they maintain. There are also several large area parks which host clubs that run smaller "kiddie-style" trains on loops of around a half-mile. These are generally run by volunteers and free/donation. So at least in our area, I'm happy to report that train hobbies seem to be doing pretty well, although I don't know about the home-based scale train end of things.
One thing about them though is they continue to innovate with new ways to put effects into their locomotives. Other companies have contributed as well, like MTH, ESU LocSound, SoundTrax, Broadway Limited, and others.
Model trains have a pretty loyal following, but the industry continues to narrow year after year.
IMHO all of these companies, but particularly Lionel and MTH missed out big time in the “maker movement” due to their closed, proprietary command and control systems. The patents have expired though, and many people have started to reverse engineer everything about them.
I think they also have completely failed on the marketing aspects of their businesses. Model trains have so many educational opportunities, and pitting this against video games could be a big win for them IMHO. The great thing for programmers and engineering types is it’s low threat to us since there is still a lot of software and hardware that could be built around model train products in the form of control and automation, and maybe even gamification of the operations of a model railroad.
But all of this is coming from a long time model train (and real train) enthusiast who is software engineer by day, so I’m biased.
tiny racks filled with tiny Cisco routers. with tiny cables management and tiny blinking LEDs everywhere.
You can even add buttons to simulate solar storms on your tiny microwave antena model which would change how the blinking lights work on the tiny routers.
And if you want to splurge like some train modelers do with fake grass and such you can maybe even go for the middle manager model as if it's walking around the server room as he tries to avoid the CEO that day.
But every other toy industry has taken on mass production and most toys can now be produced mostly by machine for cents.
Yet still model trains are beyond the budget of most 8 year olds.
And while we're at it, lets add moving block signalling, app-control, departure boards and other 20th century features...
Toy trains are available and cheap(ish) - but they are often not really the same as models.
https://www.lego.com/en-us/product/freight-train-60336 is a toy train that's $200 for a "full kit"
But I haven't seen an HO-scale toy train in ages, sometimes around Christmas you see the "larger toy train around the train" style thing for $50-150.
Taking the train (also applies to the plane), is much less an 'experience' that it was 50 years ago, and so the prestige around these objects also diminish, effectively reducing their value as toys too.
Decades(!) ago I read an essay wondering: What's the deal with model railroading ? What's the attraction ? Why are people compelled to build these little worlds and be their masters ?
But then, heh, along came Sid Meyer's Civilization and scads of other world-building video games.
So who's feeling compulsion nowadays ? Sitting on your duff in front of a video game for hours on end could seem somewhat inferior to actually using your hands to make and do things.
I think a key to keeping the hobby alive might be to play up the modelling aspects. How often does one get to build a mountain ? Or a multimodal transportation system ?
My drive for moving abroad was to have the space to make my own model train set. I got lucky and we made it to the States when I turned 18. But I still need to earn, get a house, before I can build my layout. Hope it sticks around until then.
My heart aches, I have such a passion for model trains. I’ve taken a few friends to shops and they always found it interesting. But no one buys anything. I don’t think kids will ever get into this, I blame the babyfication of Thomas and Friends more than anything else.
Model Railroader magazine used to put that on their cover, perhaps in hopes of convincing people.
They've been acquired by Kalmbach Media, which also owns "Trains", "Garden Railways", etc., along with "Astronomy" and "Discover".
At full scale, the Pacific Locomotive Association, which runs the Niles Canyon Railway, seems to be hanging on. Those operations are high-maintenance and require many hours of volunteer labor.
The large layouts are less often built, due mostly to the amount of maintenance needed.
Most young enthusiasts don’t show up at the traditional clubs or shows, there are quite a few nice private forums out there for younger work.
Not if my 4yo has anything to say about it. Upgrade path from Brio (wooden) to electric trains.
A train is very predictable - the sound, the motion, the path... for the same reason that children like having the same book read to them again and again, the train fills that role too.
I've long forgotten about model railroads and these days I live in small city apartments and move every few years, so even if I'd managed to retain the interest I have no practical way to build or store my own models, and generally prefer to spend money on experiences instead of things. I'm basically the problem millennial this whole thread is about.
Easily highlights the issues in messages here, takes room, time and money to do this.
A different aspect is the shunting layout, this guy's channel is amazing. https://www.youtube.com/@boomerdioramas