I have three days to throw together a half-hour Powerpoint presentation on Model Railroading. I want to include a slide that ranks the common scales in popularity, and gives some rough numbers as to how many persons (or what percentage of the hobby community) participate in said scale. I am thinking I have seen such statistics before but do not remember when or where. Anybody have any ideas where I might come up with such data?
Contact the National Model Railroad Association. You will find them on the WEB at http://www.nmra.org/
PM me for a current survey on the hobby…there’s a bunch of stuff you might be able to use…
Stebby, this is very interesting. Who are you giving the presentation to?
Is it possible for you to share this presentation with the Forum? If not are there parts ( Like statistics) that you could share?
Good luck with your presentation.
Peter Smith, Memphis
Okay – here’s one:
According to a fun and informal poll on our site, given the choice between one or the other, people who participate in polls prefer steam engines over diesel engines. And almost as many poll-participating people who prefer diesels prefer beer over both. [;-)]
It’s for work, actually. The employe morale group in my company has come up with a concept they call “Lunch and Learn”. Once a week individual employees are invited to give a half-hour presentation on some interest or hobby during the lunch break. Attendance is optional, of course. So far subjects have ranged from cooking, to jewelry-making, to ballroom dancing. I think the best attended one so far was the presentation by two of our tech-guys entitled “Make Your Own TiVivo”.
Thanks for the suggestion, their website was one of the first places I went. Not able to find what I wanted though.
Stebby- Based on surveys conducted by Model Railroader over many years and published periodically in their magazine, HO hobbyists comprise about 70% of all model railroaders and have for about the past 30 years. N accounts for around 20-25% (also a very stabile figure), with the remainder divided among the lesser scales but with significant cross-over among hobbyists. Obviously, these numbers do not include those interested on O and S tinplate or Hi-Rail, which has been considered a separate area of interest for many years.
CNJ831
Stebby: One point to include in your statistics, and I don’t know if it should or should not be included in the hobby or not, is “collecting”. From some of the amounts of “collectibles” that forum members say they have I would think it is substantial enough to make mention whether included or excluded as a statistic. I don’t know if they are included in any study of the hobby.
Don’t recall seeing one of those surveys in a few years; last one I remember had the proportions at about 73/21/6. Sale - by percentage - of N Scale unique products appears to have increased in the last few years but whether this infers an increase in the number of N Scale modelers or not will have to wait for another survey.