The hobby's doing fine, thanks for asking

Model Railroader General Discussion (Model Railroader)
1

The gloom-and-doom crowd, er, individual has been at it again.
Declines in MR readership and the aging of MR readers and
NMRA members are cited as the only available evidence on the state
of the hobby.

But here’s a thought. What if the hobby is only changing and
diversifying, not in decline? It’s true that the “US-born white male baby
boomer scratchbuilder” segment will eventually pass on. To those that
are in this segment, perhaps that means the hobby is in trouble,
since so many boomers view their generation as the center of the
universe.

I know I swore I never get sucked into this dreary discussion again, but I thought I would post some positive evidence since the old negative nellies have started their rap. Here’s one piece of evidence, among many, that suggests things
are not quite so bad.

Looking at the Index of Magazines found on this site, it’s easy to count how many different magazine titles are being published for each year. Though I am supposed to be working on a research paper (returning college student), I spent a few minutes tunring this year by year count into a graph.

This count includes general purpose model magazines (MR, RMC, et al), prototype magazines (Trains, CTC Board, et al), and scale-specific magazines. I did not include the recent proliferations of Historical Society and specialized SIG publications, because it would have made the numbers look amazingly skewed to the present and some of their circulations are small (though not all, of course).

Viewed in this way, the real low point of the hobby was the Sixties (only 4 titles in some years). The last few years are the highpoint in terms of number of titles (21) and diversity. Maybe some of the loss in MR circulation is from the competition from so many other magazines, including other Kalmbach titles that didn’t exist until

2

What we need, though, is total circulation of all these magazines. If MR’s circulation is falling, are we simply seeing a “balkanization” of the railroad magazine market? I’d say that the hobby is in great shape if the graph represents readers, but counting titles doesn’t really do that. The birth of the personal computer business and the advent of desktop publishing have made it far easier for a small-market magazine to be produced, but people only have so much time to read.

After thinking for a moment, I decided that the sharp slope starting in the 1970’s is the result of us boomers graduating from school and entering the job market, creating a huge demand for products of all kinds.

3

A discussion of circulation woudl be a good one, but I don’t have time to conduct one just now. It’s important to note that I also did not include any count at all of the hundreds of thousands of people now receiving their model railroad information over the Internet.

It’s key to separate the arguments. If print media is in decline, that is an noteworthy fact. But that does not at all reflect on whether or not the model railraod hobby is in decline.

Jon

4

That seems reasonable, Mr. B. I fit that assumption perfectly. So, while the trend is positive, it will not be until we see what this graph presents us in 2040 that we can establish if the trend is related to the boomers, and therefore temporary.

I would still like someone to counter my assertion that steamers will face a demise over then next two, maybe three generations, as those with no exposure to them become the preponderance of rail modelers. I support this contention because very few modelers in Europe model N. American roads, and vice versa*. That can only be due to salience related to experience and proximity… or outright familiarity. Accordingly, with fewer modelers being familiar with steam over time, fewer sales of steam models will finally result in their failure as a product. Sad, but I see no way around it.

-Crandell

*We have noted exceptions on this forum, thankfully, but I think the reasoning is basically sound.

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Wow, for a declining hobby, there sure is lots of new stuff available and coming out. IF the hobby was declining don’t you think new merchandise would cease, and prices really drop since there would be no demand for the products?

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I’m seeing a lot of steam on the market lately. As a leading-edge boomer (born in '47) I really didn’t have any real-life exposure to steam, but I really think they are neat, and will eventually put one on my 1960’s layout as an “excursion train” because I like them. Since I grew up on Long Island, New York, outside of New York City, my memory of trains is electric commuter lines and subways. Even so, I run diesel freights on the surface above my subway lines.

I agree with Ralph that the availability and variety of products argues for a healthy hobby. If we were still tied to the old requirement that an LHS had to be nearby to support a layout, then we might be in trouble, but the Internet has given anyone the ability to get anything, anywhere, so in many ways it’s never been easier to be a Model Railroader.

7

More good news: pricing.

While many lament the passing of the good old days when “Blue Boxes were a nickel and Bowsers four bits”, actual analysis of pricing does not bear this out.

A lot of this talk has been focused on beginners, who are being “priced out of the hobby”, many claim.

I bought a Sept, 1970 model railroader at the LHS recently for 50 cents. I compared a bunch of prices with their equivalents in the Sep 2005 MR. When adjusted for inflation, the prices are generally lower today. The US government says that $1 in 1970 is equivalent to $5.12 today.
http://data.bls.gov/cgi-bin/cpicalc.pl

Given that calculation, here’s what some things cost in 1970, what they should cost today, what they actually cost today, and the difference. In all cases, I am comparing advertised prices in the September MR magazines of 1970 and 2005.

Becasue some of the gloom-and-doomers reject the CPI as a government plot, I also compared the number of hours a youngster earning the federal minimum wage would work to earn each item. (Of course, not even fast food workers get only minimum wage any longer, but just to be fair). Minimum wage in 1970 was $1.45 per hour, today it’s $5.15 per hour.

A few of these points deserve clarification. Many of today’s products are significantly improved over their 70s counterparts. It’s interesting to note that an MR subscription has gone up more than would be predicted by inflation, but the cost per page for an individual copy has gone up less steeply … and that’s for four-color vs. B&W plus spot color.

Maybe most interesting is to compare the price of a 1970 Bowser loco kit with the super detail vs. a modern BLI. The modern BLI costs more certainly, but not nearly as much more as one might suspect! Only 8% more than 1970 dollars for a vastly superior product.

But how about our minimu

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I don’t feel, and have not stated, that the hobby “is declining.” I do think that it must change, and may expire over the next two to three generations (that means we won’t have tangible evidence for about 20 years). Aspects of it will dimini***o the point where it is no longer sustainable from a marketing and manufacturing point of view…certainly on the scale we enjoy today. Steamers come to mind, and I have said my piece in that respect.

-Crandell

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Well, Jon, I very much hope that you do a better job of covering the actual material when doing the research for the paper you claim to be working on than you have regarding the comments in your first paragraph. If you had bothered to read my earlier posts at all, you would have seen that I addressed far more than just MR Circulation, modeler’s age, and the NMRA membership. The only evidence? Talk about skimming the material! Why not take the time to go back and do your research in the proper fashion and then address the issues in question?

The graph? I have to agree with Mr. B, it demonstrates nothing without longterm circulation figures, an area I looked into myself and found generally dismal, declining, numbers across the board. The only publications gaining at all were limited production specialty magazines, with circulations hardly worth considerring.

CNJ831

10

Ahh, CNJ, you do care, you really, really care. thanks! Group hug …

Jon

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Why are you using list prices for 1970, and discounted prices for 2005. The list price for an Athearn RTR GP35 is $89.95. A Bowser 2-6-4 $106 now? Where is it who has it for that price I want one.???

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Did i say list prices? My mistake. Both set of numbers are advertised prices. I’ll go back and correct my post if I mis-typed.

Note that I am talking about the kit loco plus the detailing kit when I mention the prices,not the RTR Bowser. The Bowser kit is available a few places, but I don’t remember whose ad I pulled it from. I’ll try to look back when I have more time.

Jon

Edit: I don’t see where I said list prices – maybe I’m blind. For both 1970 and 2005, these are advertised prices by dealers, not manufacturer’s list prices.

Edit again: The Bowser K4 Pacific 4-6-2 kit is listed online at Standard Hobby Supply today at a lower price than I showed in my analysis – although they’re out of stock until 5-13.

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On the “is the hobby dying?” thread, the point was made that the trend to RTR over hand building everything probably means a layout gets to a finished state quicker, so there should be fewer plywood pacifics out there.

This means there may be more layouts reaching a higher state of completion than in the past, which should fuel still more hobby purchases.

So the statistic that may affect the health of the hobby most of all is not modeler headcount but layout count.

From the commercial point of view, fewer modelers but more operational layouts could be what will keep the hobby healthy, and could help explain the seemingly robust market we’re seeing these days, even though modeler headcount seems to be on the way down. Lots of RTR could mean fewer armchair modelers, and more layouts per capita. [swg]

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I honestaly have to say i dont think any of these numbers really show anything. Most people int he hobby are older have steady jobs or are retired and have money they dont mind spending on the hobby, and in many cases they dont mind spending LOTS of money on the hobby. I beleive this leads to misleading sales figures as to how much is being sold, what needs to be seen is how many individuals are buying.
My bigger concern for the hobby is the lack of younger people involved. I do not know how it was back in the '60s of '70s but now a days there are very few kids involved at all. At the local train club back home there are a couple kids, but they are all have parents who are very involved in the club. At trains shows I’ll see a few younger kids with parents, a few teenagers, but pritty much the rest is middelaged to older guys. Of all of my siblings freinds I only know one kid that has any interest in model trains. Back when I was in elimentry school even (early 90s) I knew at least several people that either had layouts or model trains. Nowadays in college I have yet to find more than one or two people that have any interst in trains.
I guess what I’m getting at is that to me at least it seems like the younger generation has next to no interest in model railroading or trains as a whole. Most seem to jsut like to play computer or what ever it is they do. I really think this hobby along with many others will in the future suffer from a lack of new people comming into it.
just my thoughs
~matt

15

CNJ, you were upset that I suggested your “dozen points of darkness” reasons for predicting the end of the hobby were focused primarily on aging of MR readers and NMRA members and declining magazine circulation.

While I was never able to find the full dozen points of darkness together, I did find this list of your “seven deadly signs of impending hobby disaster” from June of 2005.

OK, let’s look at your sad seven …

I disagree that this represents doom for the hobby on two points. First, your analysis is flawed. This is not a scientific survey, instead it is voluntary. Retired readers probably have more time to take surveys than working family men (and women), skewing the results older for all dates. And there is absolutely no evidence that the age of MR readers would continue t

16

Yes, Jon, I do indeed care…(big hug for you)…about where the hobby is going and why. This is what spurred my research into the subject some years ago.

Let me enlighten you regarding the matter of pricing evolution in the hobby and that pulling figures on a specific item from one era and then putting them up againt today’s figures can be very foolish and the conclusions drawn little more than nonsense if you lack the background of how things went during the intervening years.

It can be demonstrated very convincingly that hobby pricing has never been anything like linear over the years and that invoking the CPI or any other table to make comparisons only leads to erroneous conclusions because of all the ups and downs. In fact, for many items, things became relatively cheaper for years and years…largely because the number of hobbyists was growing. A nice example of this is the great Mantua Pacific, likely the most popular 4-6-2 among hobbyists for decades. At the time of its introduction it had a street price of $25 (as a kit). Nearly thirty years later the street price was…$25 ! Athearn freight cars could be had for $1.50 in 1953. I have an issue of MR from 1980 listing them at $0.98 ! It seems you got more for your money in the early to mid 1980’s than at any time in the hobby’s history.

If you had perused a large cross section of published retail prices over decades, you’d have discovered that HO pricing rose very slowly or almost not at all from the 1950’s until around the latter half of the 1980’s, at least for a great many items. Thereafter, there is a general, steadily increasing rise in pricing, particularly on locomotives and the introduction of RTR rolling stock. This rise, particular with regard to highend products, has been far out of proportion to anything that has come before. The corresponding steady decrease in production runs sustains these prices but is likely to hurt the hobby in the long run.

In short, Jon, it takes a lot more than just

17

The hobby has never been better. New items almost monthly and so many products but so little time.

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“Taken together, there may be more printed material today than at any point in the hobby … certainly much more than in the golden age of the 50s and 60s”

true, but the population has, what, doubled? tripled? quadrupled?

Anyway, from the whole discussion I still havent found how the problem should be defined, let alone solved.

“Decline of the hobby” does make sense if understood as ‘individualisation’, with Robert Putnam’s “Bowling Alone” about the demise of American civic society in the back of my head. He does make a very strong case that social capital has been evaporating ever since the pre-boomer generation started to pass away and this includes anything happening in club-setting. Broadly speaking. But model rr in club setting does not equal ‘the hobby’, (which it doesnt) what exactly should be the problem?

Strictly speaking I think the only units we need to know is the development over time of the turnaround of retailers - and / or manufacturers and then link that figure to population growth and the size of this niche industry as percentage of the leisure industry as a whole.

And it would make complete sense to me to assume a decline of this niche in % of leisure money spent, b/c of all the new competition from computer games, mobile phones, skate boards, music, clothes, holidays, etc. Unless someone shows me equally expensive AND important ways to spend leisure money that have disappeared alltogether since, say, the '30’s? I think it’s common sense to assume that per capita less is being spent on model rr’s.

But luckily, while it may or may not be less, it still, apparently, is more than enough! Or are we still desperately trying to upgrade 1970’s Athearns? No I’m buying one Kadee boxcar for the price of a weeks groceries! And that’s only a boxcar! A LHS owner told me that he sold 5 Marklin Big Boys last Holiday season. So while he is still comfortably in business, the number of LHS’s or probably even the total value of t

19

No, Jon, not in the least upset, only pointing out that for a research writing college boy, supposedly posting a claim that everything was fine and you can demonstrate it, you clearly didn’t even consult my original text the first time 'round! And…like so many others to date, save for the leisure-time figures, you respond with nothing but opinion. I’ve heard, “Well, I disagree…I can’t accept…You must be mistaken,” so many times its absurd. But just the same, never does anyone offer any valid countering stats. Only excuses. Isn’t that just amazing!

Likewise, your sad, juvenile, attempt at mocking what I posted originally is so typical of the sort of naive posters here that cry, "Everything’s fine…everything’s fine…please let it be fine! " Do come back when you’ve done a bit of actual research on the subject and have something of value to offer, won’t you?

CNJ831

20

Interesting discussion … there are some principles in this sort of topic that I have learned to keep in mind.

  1. Since none of us truly knows for sure all the facts, we need to not be too dogmatic in our conclusions. Surveys, especially non-scientific ones, only suggest possibilities and are not in themselves conclusive.

  2. Even when presented with a mountain of facts all leaning a certain direction, without having all the indisputable facts at hand (and we agree from point 1 that none of us is all-knowing on this issue), this means we could infer incorrect meaning from those facts.

On point 2, have you ever watched a murder mystery and all through the show, the facts were stacking up to show for certain the butler did it? Then in the last 5 minutes of the show, you find out some missing facts that causes the interpretation of the mountain of facts to completely flip around – the butler did not do it after all!

Same thing here. We don’t have all the facts, never had, and never will. Even the most scientific of the statistics presented here could be missing some vital information that would drastically alter our conclusions. Be careful labeling your conclusions “the truth” and calling everyone else “blind”.

Facts can suggest trends, and lots of facts all leaning a certain direction suggest a strong trend, but there 's always the possibility that some fact none of us knows about or have considered would completely change our conclusions. I would not lose any sleep over it, but it does call for a dose of humility, unless you happen to be all-knowing. [swg]

Eagerly consider contrary information, for within may be the seed of what’s really going on. Remember the butler didnt do it after all … [;)]