I just read an article by someone who was getting crap for their choice of rolling stock, locomotive, structures, etc for their model railroad. I also read an article that exclaims the younger crowd is shying away from the rails and the hobby is dying. I have some thoughts on this.
If you want to really enjoy this hobby, tell the folks that want to point out your modeling flaws to catch the next train out of Dodge. It’s YOUR railroad. I had a similar problem when I got into the hobby and that was my final solution. I have since become fully immersed, found favor among the community, and started my own model railroad vlog on YouTube. Rail-on people!
I bought my first train set a couple years ago for under $200. I have since added too many dollars to count, but a person CAN get into this hobby relatively inexpensively so long as Mr. Rivetcounter doesn’t give them a load of crap for playing with “toy trains”. My point is, this hobby can be expensive but it does not HAVE to be. The BEST part of model railroading is running the trains!
I also read that there are some that would love to jump in but they do not have the space. Friends, that is what N and Z scale are for. Seriously, you can pack a whole lot into a SHELF if you use your imagination. My N scale layout started out 12" deep and was 50" above the floor and ran 20’ total along two walls of a bedroom. Tons of hours of modeling and operations. Seriously, do not let your perceived limited space constraints keep you away from the best hobby ever created. Rail-on!
I live in SoCal and I really wanted to hang out with a model railroad club and do some OPS. I met with a number of clubs at shows and even went to a club meeting. Here’s my problem, who the hell wants to only run OPS at a train show? That’s not OPS, it’s trains running round and round - which I do on my own layout. I am working on putting together an operational N scale club in SoCal. It will take some time to get o
While I haven’t been put down for my choices of railroad and rolling stock, I feel as though elitism in any community (not just in Model Railroading) is one of the driving factors for why people don’t like to join them. I don’t understand why people feel as though because they have that one, ultra rare brass boxcar; they can just step all over anyone who doesn’t have it. Or just beacuse someone has a fleet of stock Athearn Bluebox or Bachman engines that they are ‘inadequate’.
Also, I read somewhere that a person was getting a hard time at school because of their hobby some years ago. That may be another reason why. Students are jerks, and they’ll put anyone down if they have an interest that they deem as ‘different’ or ‘odd’.
Although, I can’t say anything on that, because my model railroading hobby earned me a nickame (Trainman) and a few more friends at school…
Too many sometimes seem to lose sight of the fact that above all, a hobby should be fun. Luckily, everyone defines fun differently - if they didn’t, every time I went to do something fun, it would be too crowded because everyone else in the world also thinks the same thing is fun.
Even those doing futuristic lunar or martian trains - unless you just stepped out of a police call box with a handful of photos showing what the train on mars in 2745 looks like, you have no idea either.
I am retired, and frequently people will ask me “What do you do with your time?” I tell them that I am an avid golfer, amateur photographer and work on my model railroad. All of a sudden, they want to know about my railroad and start asking questions about it. The first theing that someone wants to see when they come over to my house is the train room.
Weeeeeeeell, this is current information, and I have experienced some of the - shall we say - harsh? feedback, even on this forum, aparently the horse is not as dead as one would think.
On the other hand, I suppose if someone posted here that they wanted to get into the hobby but they didn’t know what scale to choose, we could also tell them that the horse was so dead it is petrified - or the creases were permanent.
It’s okay not to post if nothing positive can be communicated. I won’t mind
I think the snootiness of some people both in clubs and online communities is a bit of a problem, when I went to my second club for the first time everyone talked to me and was very friendly, the second time the put a throttle in my hands an gave me a manifest and I was sold I joined the club the following week. Point is “prototype” modeling is wonderful BUT if you have an imagination and want to “proto-freelance” you can, if you a have an “overactive” imagination you can “freelance”, the point is this is ONE hobby albeit a multifaceted one we’re all in the same boat! Now some guys suffer from paralysis of analysis and just because someone doesn’t have a layout of meet someone’s imagined quota for railroad projects doesn’t make them less of a model railroader.
The point is do what’s good for you or you’re not good for anybody!
And if a someone doesn’t like it that’s their problem!
Different strokes for different folks though? I love reading the books by Tony Koester were he delves deeply into the dare I say thesis behind prototype adherance. I see it as the long term goal for my hobby.
But… I also am willing to admit I am a beginner. I know it would be unfair to judge my current skills versus the rivet counting I want to do someday. So for now I am happy with slowly plugging away on my small switching layout when time/interest/money permits. However I have high respect for the slavish adherents of prototype, since I think their layouts raise the bar from just a toy train set up to a form of dare I say historical fiction or documentation?
Fortunately though, I have not got guff from any of the local modelers over my layout’s lack of completion. They seem content to see it as a beginer’s set up, and I am happy to let them know that their near proffesional work is an inspiration to me.
But… I also love some of the goofy stuff in the hobby world too. My other hobby is Lego collecting were frankly I don’t care as much about prototype. If I can stack a bunch of Star Wars and Superhero figures together in some wacky diorama display I am content. Sadly, the Lego fan community in some ways has become toxicly obsessed with detail. I can only take so much complaint’s about Grand Admiral Thrawn’s minifigure rank emblem being wrong before I just shut off from the community as a whole. And I have shut off from a lot of the Lego community recently… because it seems people forget its just a children’s toy and we are a bunch of adults still playing with it! I collect Lego still (my avatar should make that aparent), but its more and more of a lone wolf hobby for me away from the online community.
I have seen some of those same petty arguments I saw with Lego fans also affecting model railroaders. In a way perhaps I have said some of those petty comments on prototype myself (my opinions of the DRGW in Colorado as a
I can firmly document this phenomenon back into the 1940s, and I bet it started earlier. Just log on to the MR digital archive and browse the letter columns from the 40s and 50s.
“All this has happened before. And, it will all happen again.” J. M. Barrie, Peter Pan
For the part of the OP about the hobby dying, it’s not so much as tenderized horse meat as it is horse meat slurry by this point. (rather than complain about endless repetitions of the same topic, maybe I can just disgust it into ending [(-D] [(-D] )
On another forum, I read a rant from a vloger about how Google and YouTube has changed the pricing structure and the “per click” format has changed.
He was complaining about how this was going to have such a negative affect on the hobby, and how are vlogers like him suppose to keep the hobby alive, and, of course make extra money.
