New beat to a probably old subject

Model Railroader General Discussion (Model Railroader)
1

Do you think MRR is less popular today because todays railroads are not as interesting as they used to be?

Now I still love to watch a train go by, but I cannot help but feel it’s not as special as it used to be. Only 2 real locomotive builders left, and each of them only offering 1 product line in regular or diet. GEVO and SD70MACe’s look so much alike I’m pressed to tell the difference in a causal look see. I don’t even want to talk about the green goats. The phugly things look like Goofy and a weiner dog had a love child.

Then there is the issue of only 6 class 1’s left. I know there are alot of shortlines, and a few regionals left, but I just dont feel they’re presence as much. This is probably why I favor the 60’s & 70’s setting. Because I believe that these are the time periods that represent the most variety and intersting things to look at and from railroad perspective times to live in. Now I do think GP/SD60s & B39-8s are cool, but I tend to shy away from them because of the time period. True it is my MRR and I can do whatever I want but a RS-3, AS616, SD60 lashup on a train would just not look right. .

Anyway, I’m sure this will get more interesting with discussion. So fire away :slight_smile:

BB

2

tormadel- I don’t necessarily think MRR is less popular, but a few years back I dropped my longtime (started by my mama when I was 12!)subscription to Trains due to the reasons you mentioned, and a few others.

It seemed every issue was about how UP was sueing someone, or buying someone, or how the RR’s were polluting this river or that town with their accidents. Granted, all of this reflects a very important sided of modern RRing, but it made for boring reading. The last few issues I received laid in their wrappers for months, or a year or two, before I read them.

MRR, on the other hand, can still hark back to the old days you speak of, and also show Solberg’s latest UP masterpiece. It is still a book of dreams, tho each issue doesn’t address everyone’s particular dream everytime.

I also noticed Kalmbach brought out Classic Trains and Toy Trains, both showing the “glory years” of modeling and prototype.

As for watching trains, I agree the schemes and engines are becoming more generic, but when 4 ES44s or SD80’s slam by with a freight at 60MPH, I still stand in awe. My first cab ride was with my grandpa on his NYC SW1 when I was 3, and that bug bit and bit hard!

Lets see what the others say.

3

Dont you think it’s funny that 50 years later Pennsy & N&W… and B&O + NYC DID end up happening. But it was the children that bought and divided up the parents?

Refering to how Pennsy once Owned the majority of N&W and NYC for a long time was considered the mate for B&O to combat eachother in competition.

4

This is only my opinion, and is as valid as any other, I’m sure-

I think you are right. Railroads are not as appealing to a broad spectrum of people because there are so many more experiences that are immediate, or in our face, to people nowadays. What holds more fascination, if I may be permitted this sobering and horrible juxtaposition for the purposes of illustration, the spate of school killings over the past few years or (name the)railroad…news of any kind? (again, if this is a very sensitive topic to any one reader here, I hope I may be granted a certain academic license to illustrate…and no other) Also, there is all the media in its various entertaining and informing guises…whether new digital HD TV and its news and schlock, magazines about the latest vapid carrying on by bombshell Tiffany, attrition of any soldiers in far-off places, a huge and welcome order for Boeing, auto plants closing down, the mortgage abomination, …what was that about the railroad again?

They are a known and older technology that has as much appeal and interest for the average household as the electricity that drives their attention seeking devices. Once it is withdrawn, of course, things change in a hurry. But most folks don’t care a whit where their peaches or hamburger comes from. It is only when it aint’ on the shelves that the eyebrows go up.

Psychologists use the term “salience” to describe this phenomenon. What appears to threaten us the most is what garners our attention. Trains work well in the distance, and that is what most people conclude about them. What else it there to say?

5

So all we need to do is tear up our highway system and trains will be interesting again? I know alot of people IRL who think that airlines are too expensive and tedious (thank you homeland security) And wish they could just catch a train to where they’re going. But who wants to drive for 2-3 hours and try to find a place to leave their car in a strange town while they are gone to make an Amtrack connection?

Off topic here, but I was reading not long ago in Trains how Amtrak is running at capacity and needs more money to do things like buy new passenger cars etc. What blows me away is if there is such demand for railservice, why are they having trouble finding money? “we have plenty of customers but not enough money.” Now I dont encourage rate hikes because I think that could only drive customers somewhere else, but how can a train be running full of passengers and NOT pay for itself?

6

So trains are like shuttle missions now? So “common place” that they are falling beneath the publics notice? At least shuttle missions still get 30sec mention on the news heh.

In this respect I think the RR’s should go back to spending $$ on flashy paint s

7

Model railroading will probably remain popular because of the ‘nostalgia’ factor - and everyone has some train memories, even if only of having to wait at a grade crossing while a gazillion containers rolled past on flanged-wheel carriers…

As for Amtrak, NO passenger service has really paid for itself - ever! Back in the ‘glory days’ the two legged cargo was subsidized by the carloads of mail and express at the head end of the train. Commuter rail was always subsidized, either with freight revenues or tax money. Streetcars made their ‘break-even’ money selling advertising placards inside the cars…

The Honorable Mr Sununu, Senator from Vermont, recently made an attempt to remove Amtrak subsidies from any route that lost more than $200 per paying passenger - and that’s for pasengers paying full fares. It would have killed all the long-distance Amtrak trains.

Chuck

8

Amtrak needs 2 or 3 billion to simply repair the backlog of maintenance that has built up from years of government neglect, much less consider expanding or improving passenger service. The politicians cry the “Amtrak isn’t profitable” blues before giving just enough to keep their constituents’ trains running. But let any of the major airlines start to go under due to lack of profitability, and Uncle Sam is there with tens or hundreds of billions to prop them up. Perhaps if trains bought as much oil as the airlines, they would get more favorable treatment!

John

9

Personally, I think that you might be right in a way…MRR in itself might not have the appeal it did in the “simpler times”. With technology going by at break-neck speed, things like DCC would appeal to people more and thus, bring new people into the hobby faster than a power pack running trains in circles.

10

I’ve wondered for a long time if there wouldn’t be a market for a “Classic Model Railroader” magazine, kind of a cross between Classic Trains and Model Railroader. It would cover new products and show layouts of people modelling the same era as Classic Trains covers, 1970’s and earlier. It could maybe include every issue a “classic” article reprint from John Allen, John Armstrong, Linn Westcott, etc. MR could then be geared more towards ‘modern’ era railroad models.

11

The reason that trains filled to capacity don’t make money is because they are government run.

Most people got into MRR because of the train sets that were so popular at Christmas. When I was in school all we ever talked about when Christmas was getting close was setting up our trains & what new equipment we may be getting. We used to visit each others’ layouts at Christmas break…which, I guess, was the start of the open house tours. We put the trains on the back burner when we discovered cars & girls. Later when we settled down & had our own houses, we wanted our kids to have the same experience, but since they didn’t grow up with trains, many were not as interested as we were…so we went about to set up a permanent “Christmas Layout”. I guess if you don’t grow up with either model size or real trains there isn’t that much interest. I have 11 grandchildren & only 1 has a layout that goes up at Christmas (built by me). None of the others even show much interest in the trains I have. It is a dying hobby, you can tell by the “no hair” or “gray hair” at the train shop. Jerry

12

td:

I still like modern railroads, but I do think some interest has been lost. Of course, I also think the 1950s were humdrum compared to the 1920s, when the interurban lines were still going, the big steam was running and actually doing what it was made to do, not running around in dirty rust, hauling some local, and the steam roads hadn’t started running all those glorified streetcars in their frequently tasteless paint schemes.

I’m not entirely sure that prototype railroading is the only draw into modeling. I think it’s more common to develop an interest in model trains first, and then the interest in the prototype comes from that. The kids are running a steam fleet larger than the PRR had, and none of them has ever seen a real live engine in action. Besides, you don’t need to see a real steam engine at all to like steam. Has anybody ever seen a real dragon, superhero, or Constitution-class starship? I suppose we can say that these aren’t everyday, mundane things, but is the golden age of steam everyday and mundane? It’s gone forever, it’s become a legend, a sort of mythical, splendid beast. Did you know that a recent Transformers comic was set in the early 1900s, and centered around early railroading? How many fans of that series have seen a steam locomotive in action?

I think video games have more to do with any decline of interest, rather than the Class 1 oligopoly, or Guilford’s hideous Pan Am scheme. I firmly believe that if we led more people to realize that model railroading is a simulation game with desktop miniatures, not just orbiting, a lot more people would be interested.

13

Good Morning!

I’m 63, have 4 grown kids, and a plethora of grandkids. All of them like to see (and run) my large collection of postwar Lionel and HO trains / layout, but none are really all that interested in trains per se. Their friends are pretty much the same, as are most adults I know. The trains always get a “gee that’s nice”, but that’s about it.

There are a lot of reasons for this, but I believe the most significant factor is the difference between growing up in the 40s - early 60s, and growing up in the 80s - today.

I was born and raised in Chicago, and our toys were bikes, sleds, skates, toy trucks, soldiers, building sets, and trains. Sports were primarily baseball with some basketball, football and hockey thrown in. We had 4 tv stations, and the movie theatres were few that were nearby.

The winters were fun to a point, but many days you were stuck inside, and the trains were a welcome relief. Real trains were interesting, probably because most all freights were “mixed”, cars and there was the occasional brightly painted PS1 boxcars. The C&NW and IC still had steam thru the mid '50s, and we loved looking at the new sleek diesels. Most important, there was the caboose at the end of the train, and the folks inside would never fail to wave. Also, a lot of folks still traveled by train, and our parents all had train stories to tell.

Today, every kid has a blur of electronic stuff to play with. Most of my grandkids of grade school age have their own computers. School is much more intense with lots of homework, and they are bombarded with stuff competing for their free time. Today’s trains - which I still love to watch - are often unit trains with little variation in cars (to a kid anyway). Many of the locos look alike, and of course there is a little box and blinking light at the end. And sadly, I have yet t

14

I’m not convinced that model railroading is less popular. There have been several threads hashing this out using anecdotal evidence and facts which can’t be correlated to the number of hobbyists. But no one really knows.

But I do believe that today’s trains are less interesting. Many are unit trains of trailers, containers, coal, etc. For me, that’s just not as interesting as a mixed train. With fewer, but larger railroads the paint schemes don’t have as much variety. Also, many places have an old rail siding but receive and ship by truck so there are fewer places where we see a railroad car or two.

Enjoy

Paul

15

“I’m not convinced that model railroading is less popular. There have been several threads hashing this out using anecdotal evidence and facts which can’t be correlated to the number of hobbyists. But no one really knows.”

I agree entirely with that. I do think that garden railroading is syphoning off quite a few new modelers that would have gone into the smaller scales 25 years ago. A friend’s husband decided recently to get into trains for all of the usual reasons and called me to show me what he had bought. It was a real nice Bachmann Big Hauler. I think the hobby is stronger than the usual doom and gloom types on the internet like to complain about.

I also agree that modern railroading isn’t as interesting as it was 40 years ago. For all of the reasons previously stated. Whenever I go by the local rail yard, all I ever see is a few UP modern diesels (don’t ask me to tell what they were!) sitting there. No action. On the other hand, I was down at the RR Museum in Carson City with some friends last weekend. They were running a steam engine and getting some nice crowds riding it around in a small circle. Blowing a steam whistle just seems to attract a crowd.

My idea of railroading is a UP City Streamliner or a GP9 or anything run by steam. - Nevin

16

Watching trains is not the same as it used to be for us old-timers. I hear people note that trains are less exciting than they once were, for all the same reasons previously noted here.

Don’t have any scientific evidence to back this up, but I think I am safe in making this claim:

My model train shop is about 100 feet from a busy UP mainline. When there are young folks in the store (less than 10 years old) you best not be in the path to the door when a train is coming lest you be run over, because every single one of them is running to the door to watch that train go by!

While you may also note something like “well of course those kids rush to watch the train, afterall they are in a train store” … I still see the rabid passion for trains in their eyes that I once had in mine.

17

Yeah I do remember reading that passenger service wasnt ever profitable. Seems strange somehow you would think it would be. But I guess I don’t want to see the horrendeous expenses involved in that traffic.

18

Yeah my employees started out thinking I was weird for liking and talking about trains. But the more they see of it the more they like. And I think it is because they think of the boring 2x8 circle layout. They see me reading V&O story and see that it can be much more interesting. But I also believe there has always been a fear of the learning curve. Anything THAT neat must be hard and take alot of talent. Now myself, I have a few good friends here now and while they’re not railroaders, I do have a girl with artistic talent for things like backdrops and scenery. A good woodworking friend who will help on benchwork. A Uncle with good knowledge of electrical stuff so he can help wire it. And another guy who knows home improvement can help me get the room ready. Spreading out and asking for help from people with the skills I don’t have and can teach/help make it alot easier.

And I agree DCC is awesome. Now i just need to read up on it. :slight_smile: I know the concept just not the execution.

19

Thats another vote for your MRR must actually DO something not just run trains that

20

Yeah how many places have you seen with a rail sideing up to a blank wall. Or even if the door on the building is still there the street has been paved over the sideing or something like that?

Friends also speculate that THAT decline is because of the taxes imposed on any business stock. They don’t want large shipments like those by rail because once they receive that shipment they have to start paying taxes on it so therefore they want everyday shipments of JUST enough that they need. In a way that seems wastefull to me. That it would be more intelligent/effecient to get fewer but larger deliveries. Why should you be penalized for having stock on hand? Isn’t it the highest of irritations to go for something and “OH” we’re out, come back tommarrow.