Family and I went to a train show in Ft. Worth today, brother and his family went with us also. My brother bought a transformer for one of our two lionel train sets and I bought one for myself. He is thinking of putting a lionel train that runs on a small shelf throughout the house and his wife is all for it. She had a train as a little girl during Christmas and my brother has renewed his interest in the hobby.
I bought my little boy the Lionel Thomas train set it was a steal! It was actually cheaper than the other wooden thomas stuff around the show. He is so happy and excited and is doing really well putting the trains on the track and running them.
So for all of you doubters out there who say the hobby is dying go to a train show and see all the kids buying thomas and moving up to the other stuff.
There’s also the parents buying the kid the thomas set for . Which in turn gets them to move on to better things, till about when they hit 16. But they’ve got the bug, they’ll be back… [;)]
Not to turn this into another “Oh no! The hobby is going down the tubes” type post, but I think the biggest “problem” right now is just the average age of people - kind of the same reason cabbage patch dolls, or Disney movies, or other things come and go - the market grows and fades with people’s ages. Right now, everyone who grew up with the Lionel under the tree, or had a “Father & Son” layout in the ‘60s will have kids in about their mid-to-late 20s (give or take). As people have stated, this is generically a hobby for someone to (re)start in their 30s-40s… so maybe this “buy a kid a thomas set” is just this generation of fathers’ way of getting their sons(and daughters from what i have heard here) into the hobby they enjoyed with their father. OR its their way of sneaking more trains in under the CFOs nose… [}:)]
I was at my LHS today and it was PACKED. Wall-to-wall people shopping for trains, and it sounded like most were first-time buyers. There was a line to check out! I know the holidays are coming, but it was still an encouraging sight.
gg1-joe had a thread during the week about opening up a Lionel shop of his own. It came up that Lionel will be marketing through Target stores this season. While this may hurt some LHS sales, I’m hoping that it will draw more kids in and eventually be very good for the hobby. After all, those kids aren’t going to want another train set for the holidays next year, but many may want a locomotive or one of Lionel’s many operating accessories. That’s where the LHS can make some new customers.
As I said in the other thread, I’m also hoping that parents are starting to look for ways to get the kids away from the TV, computer and game console. Model Railroading and other “real” hobbies might be an attractive alternative for kids who have burned out on Nintendo while still in grade school. As a recovered Flight Simaholic, I’m much happier to be addicted to trains instead.
I’m with you on that one Mr B. That is one reason why American kids are getting so darn fat and Diabetes is on a straight graph line UP tracking with weight gain. BTW, I take it you will be at the Great Train Show next weekend? Lisa is going to be ther with her family, I will be there on Saturday morning unless we get a foot of snow ( hardly likely).
I don’t think Lionel marketing through Target will hurt the LHS sales at all. Let’s go back a few years, say the 40’s or so. The “big three”, Sears, Monkey Wards, and JC Penny all had at least four or five pages of their catalogs dedicated to Lionel, American Flyer, and Marx electric trains. Also, Western Auto, which was more of a hardware store back then along with other local hardware stores all carried electric trains and some even were service centers. One must keep in mind though, that these were maketed as toys, which in reality they were. They were also puchased for the most part, by parents with no modeling interests, for kids. Thats where some of us older modelers got our start, which led to trips to the hobby shop for more realistic HO and O scale. Also, I think what made those trains so popular back then was that they were simple to set up and operate along with being hefty and could pretty much take the wear and tear of being played with, and look at how still are around today. And they were pretty much “plug and play”. Now, on the other ha
Before beating the drums I suggest taking a closer look at the hobby in general…As far as Thomas “Shining Time Station” was canceled due to lack of interest on our PBS station.Of course reruns and a 6:30am air time may have helped kill the show.
As far as elbow room in hobby shops how was it during the year on Saturdays? Remember we are entering cold weather and ALL hobbies see a upswing in activity…Of course the influx of customers one has to divide the buyers from the lookers as well including the “first timers” that are “Thinking about a hobby”…
Also how many was looking for non train items such as model paint,glue etc?
Sorry,but,my past part time jobs in hobby shops tells me there is a influx of customers during the cold months and around Christmas.Just because a customer buys a train set is no assurance they are budding modelers or the set will be used much beyond Christmas.
That show (at the Shriners’ Center in Wilmington, MA, for the uninitiated) is one of my favorites. Not sure which day I’ll go yet - I usually have to negotiate the time frame. I try to go around lunchtime and buy one of their sausage subs - good quality, good price and the Shriners put the money to a good cause. At times it’s elbow-to-elbow in there, and most people seem to be leaving with at least something in a plastic bag. If nothing else, they’re at least leaving with smiles on their faces.
I agree! We have more models and accessories available than ever before in the history of Model Railroading. The new product lines in the last five years have been amazing. Sound and DCC has attracted many to the hobby and will continue to do so.
The only down side I can think of is how do I purchase all of the new models.
However, I like the idea now of “mass marketing” Lionels, and I’ll bet that if the new companies that have started making the S Scale stuff went the same route, there would be a huge influx of new modelers - if only for the Christmas season (until they grow up into other scales). I mean, provided these new Lionels and AF replacements are as heavy as the old stuff - they’ll be just as “bulletproof” as the vintage ones. Sure dropping it 4’ to the floor would probably destroy anything, but I think that the kids won’t be able to ruin a Lionel or AF set by knocking it off the track a few times this season (or next season, or the season after, and so on)
The hobby and crafting industry (of which MRR is a segment) is very, very concerned about the lack of young blood taking up hobbies. My wife is in the quilting/fine needle arts business and gets many of the trade journals. My brother is a marketing guy in the paper craft/ scrap booking industry. A significant theme in the trade journals and at the national trade conventions is the relative lack of interest in the teen to 30 year age groups. The needle arts field in particular is projecting a drop off in the number of sewing stores and quilt shops as the market consolidates and shrinks. My brother’s company spends a considerable amount of its development resources in trying to come up with ideas to appeal to kids and young adults. So, not wishing to be a doom-and-gloom merchant, but I think it is worth noting that the hobby industry as a whole sees this as a significant challenge.
Thats what happened with me. My dad was into trains when I was a kid and that got me interested but once I hit that magical age of 16 my interests changed. I would much rather spend my hard earned money on my car, gas for cruzin around with my friends, girls and drive in movies then I would buying the next latest and greatest diesel locomotive. I was 38 when I became interested to the point of actually deciding to try and build a layout. Todays kids are the same way I think, once they are exposed to model railroading they will be back later on in life.
There was an interesting article on the BBC here a few days ago with reference to Christmas spending. It was mostly refering to the decline of record (CD’s) sales and record shops closing, these shops now have to compete for our disposable income against the likes of game consoles hand held consoles, mobile phones (I know my sons new phone just cost $240) and videos/DVD’s. Alot of these items weren’t around when I grew up, but modelling still had to compete with other hobbies that were and still are around. I had my spending money and it was a split between Modelling, Music and going out at the weekend. It’s a fact our income is spread alot further these days I gave up 2 other hobbies to concentrate on my modelling and thankfully my son and eldest daughter are also interested. Thankfully over here in the UK is still a very popular hobby and the remaining hobby shops also now have to compete with the likes of the big mail order and internet based companies, my LHS which is 10 miles up the road gives me internet prices in his shop when I drop in.
Thats going to be hard Jeffrey but your right, the hobby market would boom for sure. I remember as a kid wanting either trains or model car and truck kits for Christmas and birthdays. Today kids want the newest video game out. The thing is its hard to match the satisfaction kids get from video games. I have a Playstation 2 and a bunch of car and sports games. You can’t beat playing Gran Tourismo 4 or Nascar 2006 for heart pounding entertainment. Doing 200 MPH at Talledega with a bunch of cars around you or driving a Dodge Viper sideways in the corners in GT4 is hard to beat. I wonder if the technology that is available now was available back when I was a kid if I would have become a hermit like todays kids and not leave the house. We had a Colecovision when I was a kid but the graphics weren’t great. It was OK for rainy days.
Dave we had a small problem whist I was serving in the RAF, some of the newer recruits because of single man accomodation and computer games alot of social interaction disappeared and the sense of been a part of a team started to suffer, thankfully the problem was addressed and was getting better before I retired.
Dave,I fully agree…I don’t know of any railroading that would come close to NASCAR racing at full speed with guys like Gordon,J.Johnson,Stewart,the Busch brothers Kasey Kahne and the other top drivers nipping at your heels streaking for the finish line or the heart breaking wreck that totals your car.Yeah,how to get kids and adults away from that action? Todays video games have so much to offer even TrainSim and Trainz is hard to beat.
DCC,Sound perfect models,super nice layouts RTR cars and engines,prebuilt structures are still hard press to draw in new modelers…You gotta have that interest in trains and if you don’t have that then this hobby won’t interest you.
Sorry guys but,in todays world our hobby doesn’t have much to offer in the way of action.