There’s been all this talk and discussion about model railroad shops closing, the hobby is dying, the age of the typical model railroader is constantly increasing, etc. There’s been a push from the manufacturers and the NMRA to get people interested in model railroading; namely in the form of “The World’s Greatest Hobby” campaign.
It’s a nice campaign but I’m curious if the current model railroaders are passing the torch on to their own children. For me, as i was growing up, my father would take me to the two model railroad clubs he belonged to BUT it was rare to see any other children there, even the children of the owners of the clubs were rarely seen. Some of the other club members had children of their own, some were my age and some were older. This has made me think that while we enjoy model railroading, we are not passing or encouraging our own children to take up hobby.
I also see this a lot from some of the greats in our hobby. I don’t recall reading Tony Koester, Jim McClellend, or even editors of Model Railroader write about working on projects with their children. I love Tony but I never heard him say: “One night i was working on the AM or NKP with my son (or daughter) and blah, blah, blah…” Where are the kids?! I’m too young to have read the works of John Allen or John Armstrong, but I don’t know if they ever mentioned their children.
For me, in order for the hobby to survive, the hobby has to be passed on to the next generation and it starts with your own family. With that in mind, have your children caught and kept the model railroad bug? For those whose children have grown up (probably married with children), are they part of the hobby like you? For those whose children didn’t take up the hobby, what do you think the disconnect came from? I’d like to know what others think of this.
My daughter, (30), is, while my son, (25), currently isn’t. He does say he wants to build some stuff for me. Those two couldn’t be more apart in regards to the hobby.
Daughter, when she was 18 months old, would sit on a pillow on top of my layout and just watch the trains run. She started building Athearn BB kits at six. At eleven years she was beating everybody in the switching contest, and at 13, between softball practices, she was building award winning craftsman car kits.
Tried the same thing with son, but he really didn’t show any interest in the layout at all. However he recently said that he thinks he wants to get involved. That would be very nice!
Daughter now has a son, and as soon as he can sit still, (8 months old now), she says he’s gotta have a pillow like she did. I’ve already got the spot staked out!
Don’t know about John Armstrong, but John Allen never had kids, he was a life long bachelor. I never saw anything from Tony Koester, or Allan McClelland about their kids that I remember, but Bruce Chubb’s, (another “famous” modeler and author), entire family was involved, including his son in law.
My oldest son is now three, and he’s been into Model Railroading since before he could walk. He got his first G-scale train for his first Christmas, so he was about six months old, I reckon. He took to “Thomas & Friends” like a duck to water. He’s been running trains on our HO-scale layout since about the time he turned two. He’s very good with the throttle and is very gentle with the trains. My other son just turned one. He’s starting to show an interest in Thomas too, but its still too early to tell whether or not the railroading bug will bite him. But if it does, he’ll be welcome and we’ll all have fun together working on the layout and running trains. The one I’d really like to get interested is my wife. She does a good job pretending for the kids though on occasion, so maybe there’s some hope yet.
My children (ages 37, 35, and 30) are all “Christmas Railroaders”. Probably my fault, since military life with numerous moves, long deployments and long hours put railroading as a “One Day I’m Gonna” thing. Now that I have more time, I am more involved, but they are busy. But all is not lost as grandchildren are starting to be more involved.
Deep thoughts always get me in trouble on here, but here goes.
Out of six grown children (3 girls, 3 boys, 3 mine, 3 hers - previous marriages) only my son has shown SOME interest both as a child and now as an adult. And he must like trains, of two careers he has persued in his 25 years of life, one is he has his railroad engineers license (although he has left the railroad to be an EMT).
But at this point in his life, model trains are a low priority. Maybe when he is older, or maybe not.
I sure hope someones kids like trains and building things, but I’m not really holding out much hope it would be any of mine. None of them seem to have those kinds of interests, but who knows?
None of my kids are involved. I bought them some trains when they were young, even built my middle son an N scale layout in his bedroom. Result, all three are in their thirties and not interested. But I didn’t get the bug from my father either.
My brother does ship models and paints toy soldiers, neither of my nephews does either one.
But I think there is hope for the future. One of the things I did pass on to my children, is doing things around the house. My oldest two have their own houses and both of them do repairs and improvements. So at least they have the idea of building and repairing stuff - maybe at some future date model railroading will look attractive.
With the decline in hobby shops, I think it’s more important than ever that we have train shows like the WGH. but also layout displays in malls and other places. The kids today are more internet savvy and go there first, so I think there has to be strong presence online to attract newcomers.
With my Daughter being 37 now, I don’t think she will be getting into trains.
I think that is the key, if the kids see trains they will take more of a interest. All you have to do is come to K-10 Model Trains open house to see this!
My engineer hamming it up with the Big Boy
OK, doesn’t look happy, think it is steam engine envy my self.
Has you can see, we get plenty of kids at open house. If you want to see this hobby keep going, recruit!
Before we moved to western Colorado we lived in Dayton, Ohio. I attended at least 8 train show/swap meets a year. I always saw many dads with their youngsters. While I haven’t been very active since moving, I know of only a few kids that attend the local meetings and operating sessions. BTW, Allen McCelland’s children were involved with the V&O, especially Brad.
Hello my little girl is seven and she is in and out of trains.This weekend she wanted to get her Thomas track out so we did and she got her animals out and said it was the zoo. And she has her own loco she can run on my layout.here are some pic’s.
She did the Thomas by her self. I am trying to get some stuff to my nephew’s but it’s not going to well but we will see. I also give my old mags to the art teacher at her school they make stuff out of them. And if they what them she lets them have it. I also leave them in waiting room’s who knows it might start someone in the hobby. Have a nice day Frank
My Daughter is almost 4 and always right in there when I’m working on the Railroad. Just today she helped on a cow pasture with the Ground Goop. Wasn’t to messy as long as I constantly reminded her to be careful…She loves watching the engines and knows the basics of the throttle…gets pretty excited when I bring out one of two of my sound engines…(so do I of course)
Have to download a pic of what we did today and post that Cow Pasture work we did today.
My three older kids are totally disinterested in my trains. My 4-year-old enjoys coupling whatever cars he can reach and pushing his “train” as far down the track as he can reach. He’s way too high-spirited to entrust with a throttle just yet, though.
My oldest son is not a model railroader, but does like riding real trains. He is 8, and with all the other forms of media and entertainment, I have little hope of him returning to the hobby he once held an interest in.
Where I live, at age 4 and 5 the boys hear “only babies play with trains” at both the gym (daycare while you workout) and at the public school. This is Susquenita School District, near Marysville, PA the “Home of the Rockville Bridge”. Unfortunately, while there are a few people who like trains, most share the other perspective. Sad given the proud history of this region, and being only a couple miles from Enola Yard, Harrisburg Yard, and Rutherford Yard. We live less than a mile from the famous “Middle Division” mainline.
There may be some hope for my youngest son, who is not yet 4…
The Mechanicsburg, PA, Model RR club–and possibly other model railroad clubs–are not helping the situation. Though they have public open houses, when I have inquired about joining and asked if my very well behaved son who respects others’ property could attend meetings, too, I was promptly told “NO CHILDREN UNDER 12”.
If you don’t get the kids interested prior to age 12, they ain’t comin’ back to the hobby later on.
The gruff treatment I received when I asked that question about membership has assured that I no longer attend their open houses.
My 14 year old Son had been very interested in trains until recently. Now it’s xbox 360 and gaming. He did some great scenery while interested. I’ll keep the layout going and doing it on my own. Maybe he’ll come back in a few years, but if he follows the footsteps it’l be about 20 years. Time will tell but it is what it is.
GEEZ you guys run good sized trains. I’ve GOT to get off my but and finish the Ringling Bros. train and get out there with it.
While I’m here, being 18, I don’t have any kids. Also would liek to see me get a stable wqorking position within the passenger, maybe get some basic furtherance of education on their nickel, I don’t plan on any for a bit. I can however, speak as the kid.
That might work with religion and politics but doesn’t seem to apply to model railroading.
Nope. Seven children, zero with model railroading fever. It is certainly not from lack of exposure. I had them in the Youth in Model Railroading program for about 3 years. My eldest son liked building the models but that was it. Then he migrated to building robo-tech miniatures instead. My 2nd daughter won the state science fair with a railroad related project. My youngest daughter likes building scenery but certainly not necessarily for the trains. My two youngest sons participate but certainly don’t have the bug.
I don’t think there is any disconnect. Sometimes people don’t like things because they don’t understand them or haven’t been exposed. But most of the time I think it is simply that some (most) people just don’t love trains. Just like I don’t like football, drag racing, ballet, accounting, or tomatoes they don’t love trains.
If you strike out with your kids, don’t forget grandkids! They might be a little easier to influence. [;)]
Son #1 is almost 4 and really likes playing trains with me or his grandpa (HO Scale); he loves hitting the horn and bell sounds on any of my sound units as we test things in the basement.
He is a very active child, so I am very aware to tell him to be gentle with trains, but I will admit to sacrificing an athearn box car or two to his hands.
re: Clubs that restrict kids (those less than some arbitrary age; <18) from joining and/or attending. Those folks may not realize it, but they are sowing the seeds of their own decline and doom.
This is a pretty interesting topic, and, I find it very interesting indeed that in one of the latest Golf magazines (not sure if Golf or Golf digest or what; I was waiting at the Chiropractor’s office) that they talked about trying to get kids from about 8 ish until 16ish into playing Golf; even kids that aren’t the adult golfers. Things that make you go hmmmm.
The saddest moment of my parenting life occurred when my oldest son was 5, and still into trains in all forms–not just Thomas: We were at the gym, had finished our workout, and were picking up both our sons from the daycare at the gym. A young mother said to her 4 year old son, who at the time was happily playing with some Thomas trains “You don’t want to play with Thomas–trains are for babies”.
I don’t hit ladies, but I wanted to punch the daylights out of that…woman…and flatten her to the ground. Instead, I just was polite and didn’t say anything–hoping–praying–in vain that somehow my son did not hear her.
Unfortunately, he did hear her. Less than two weeks later he stopped playing with all his trains and has not played with them since. He’s now almost 9, and says he likes riding real trains…but that’s it. He freely reports that he hears the same sentiment at school–starting in kindergarden (which he didn’t begin until age 6, after he already gave up trains).
Ironically, the gym in question is right across the street from Enola Yard, was named the Train Yard gym, and even still to this day has images of real trains plastered all over the walls. The motto being “Train hard at the Train Yard”.
