In my local paper, The Sedalia Demorat in Sedalia, MO, an AP article ran on Christmas day titled “Toy trains can be an obsessive passion.” Below you will find a link to this article under its (apparently) original title, “Toy trains are for grown-ups, too.”
The title, apparently changed by my local paper, concerned me before I read the article. The article really made me mad. In my opinion, this article hurts our hobby in two ways. First, it portrays model railroaders as excentric, obsessive-compulsive nuts. I quote the article which says, “Some aficionados obsess over details, adding miniature human figures in period clothing or fully furnished houses, accurate down to toilets smaller than a pencil eraser. Many are such perfectionists that even a derailment is seen as a mark of dishonor . . .” While there is truth in this statement, in the context of the article it portrays model railroaders in a negative, obsessive light.
The second, and greater, concern for me, however, what the outright portrayal of model railroading as strictly a senior, rich-man’s hobby. The author only references high end brass stock and very large laouts. Again I quote the article which says, "With some layouts costing tens of thousands of dollars, a prerequisite for toy-train junkies is plenty of cash. . . “It’s a rich man’s toy,” said Elaine Silets, owner of Huff & Puff Industries, which designs and installs elaborate track layouts. Her Barrington-based company’s layouts start at $25,000 “and go skyward from there . . .” Fred Haverkamp, a 58-year-old owner of a Chicago metals factory . . . has spent more than $50,000 constructing a quarter-acre layout in his backyard, with 2,500 feet of track . . .&qu
That Huff and Puff Industries in the Chicago area cited in the article makes custom G-scale layouts. She was featured in one of the Track Ahead PBS episodes a couple of years ago.
Portraying all model railroaders as rich people who spend thousands of dollars is highly biased reporting, and the person who wrote the article doesn’t know or didn’t bother to check the accuracy of his or her information.
I doubt that one newspaper article is going to have that much impact on the hobby, though. It’s no different than someone writing an article touting a $500,000 custom built hot-rod as being a typical automobile that everyone should have.
It is not the responsibility of newspapers to get to the heart of the matter. Their job is to sell papers. If you can fire people up, you sell papers. I’m in the vitamin industry and all the time the press gets a hold of weird study, doesn’t need to be accurate, and they report it.
Then my customers bring me back my “unsafe” products for refunds.
Life’s too short to sweat this kind of stuff. Just flip the finger every time you see one of their newspaper boxes and drive on.
Wonder if the article writer had a chance to view the World’s Greatest Hobby promotional video? If so, it could be the reason for thinking the hobby is mostly for the well off. There are three segments in the video - one is a large Lionel layout that is owned and operated by a father and son team who are both dentists. The HO layout is a huge affair and obviously expensive too. Then there’s the garden railroad whose owners chose their property because the property would lend itself to landscaping for the layout. The finished layout features operating waterfalls, large trestles, etc., again obviously costing a great deal.
So the WGH promotes the hobby as being one where well off professionals and the likes can afford vast layouts. No mention of small layouts, 4 by 8’s, modules, etc., just the big ticket layouts. It surely will attract a lot this way!
I caught that article too in my Chicago Sun-Times. There it was titled, “Fulfilling a Fantasy: Grown men indulge in passion for high-end model trains.” The article didn’t keep me from beginning by picking up a $50 Bachmann starter set, and more after that.
It’s obvious to me that the reporter in question knows nothing about model railroading. A hobby costing tens of thousands of dollars? I only have about 3 to 4 thousand in mine, and that’s over a 12+ year period. If they’re going to run a story about model railroading, they should have someone who knows what they’re talking about do it, instead of this individual that wrote the article who is clearly talking from where the sun don’t shine.
They don’t see our hobby as we relate to it, but the article does shed some light on the costs of the hobby. It still is cheap when you compare it to new four wheel drive trucks or boating or both of these combined.
Many of us are too wrapped up in the hobby, but it keeps us off the streets.
Just ignore the article, most people probably never even read it!!! I did not see the CSI show that portrayed a criminal as a model railroader, but I would guess Hollyweed will continue to portray us as dangerous and out of control.
Be aware if the Government starts to hire Model Railroad Police to check our collections, that might be trouble. After all, we watch trains, photograph trains and transportation facilities and then model the industry.
Just keep it all in perspective guys. Ignorant people say ignorant things constantly about everything. Its happened before and it will happen again. Sticks and stones. Grain 'o salt. Etc.
Don’t blame the reporter. She reported what she saw and heard. She saw brass locos and was TOLD it’s “a rich man’s hobby.” You can’t reasonably expect a reporter to think “Well, I don’t believe that’s true, I’ll ask someone else.” The article is factually accurate, and that’s the best you can expect from a reporter. It’s not their job to write promotional material for the hobby. If I build motorcycles and sell them at a reasonable price, and AP does a story about “American Chopper” and their $250,000 custom bikes, I haven’t been wronged because the story failed to mention that custom bikes are avilable for less. Same applies here. Consider this: if you don’t like the portrayal, remember that this is what a normal, non-model-railroader sees when they look at the hobby.
I hate to tell you this, Ron, but like it or not, the article’s content is relatively accurate. As a longtime hobbyist, I found very little about it that wasn’t based on fact. Most hobbyists are past middle age and the average age of the typical hobbyist has risen dramatically over the years. Probably the majority remember toy trains (Lionel/AF/Marx) from their youth and come back to model trains much later in life as a nostalgia thing. Most do spend a great deal of cash on their layouts and increasingly these individuals are retired/retiring business execs or professional men. The price of high-end plastic locomotives has skyrocketed in recent years, while the demand for extreme detail and accuracy is extraordinary. Likewise, visit group “ops” sessions often enough and you will indeed find some guys who will go ballistic if their train derails! And don’t overlook our own hobby publications. How often have you seen MR, RMC, RMJ, et al. run a feature story on a track-on-plywood or rudimentary, 4x8 or 5x10, layout? Even they don’t regard the hobby in that fashion any more! So, when you come down to it, where’s this newspaper story so far off the mark? [;)]
Even handed, unbiased, factual or complete reporting is rare these days. I have seen entire reports based on an off-hand out of context statement. It is common today for a reporter to phone up and ask a series of questions intending only to use the one question of twenty that puts your subject in a negative light. The object is not to inform or educate, the sole object is to sell papers so the more biased and sensational the report, the better in the eyes of the publisher. If in fact you are upset enough to do something, write a letter to your local editor perhaps to point out that just as everyone doesn’t drive a Rolls Royce, not all model railroaders have large sums to spend and that the hobby appeals to many from all walks of life, etc. The story (really not a report was it?) is like many others about hobbies designed to make the hobbiest look silly/greedy or whatever. Read an article on boating or collector cars and just substitute toy train for yacht or car and see if it isn’t the same. Remember in the words of Glenn Frye - “I just have to look good I don’t have to be fair”. J.R.
The hobby is full of rivet counters just look at any train forum where people foam and rant about if a model is accurate down to the rivets. Alot of guys use clubs and forums to foam about how much they ‘know’ too.
So the hobby is full of know it alls and foamers who are making up for other areas of their life missing (like a wife) and obsess on the rebuild date of SIECO boxcar model paintjob being off by a month.
Rivet counters actually make up a small percentage of the model railroaders today. How many closet railroaders do you think are out there? I know of many modelers who don’t go anywhere near the online forums.
What I find interesting is this sort of journalism is all too typical, and when they cover a subject I am familar with, the reporting is so slanted that it’s obvious they don’t care about the truth, just about telling a good editorial yarn to sell their story.
Then I wonder about all the reporting that’s done on topics I am not familiar with and wonder how slanted that reporting is … bottom line for me is any “for profit” business that pretends to be an unbiased source of news needs to be taken with a huge grain of salt in anything they report.
Yet this sort of “unbiased news reporting” is what the general public bases most of their opinions on. Sad … and scarey.
CNJ831: All “good”, and I emphasize “good” reporters, will dig into their subject title to gather information from all available sources…“if” they want to be unbiased and accurate. But, as you all have seen across this country, people CHEAT on exams in school, in college, they plagerize term papers, and even the magazine and news media people have been caught stealing other people’s work, or “doctoring” the information.
And as Chip said earlier, it is all to sell newpapers, magazines and books. They cheated in school, so they carry this flaw in character right into their working careers…please don’t tell me that you are surprised by this.
My advice, don’t give this any attention or limelight, it doesn’t deserve any, we all know better, lets move on.
I don’t think it is so much a “lie” or “biased reporting” as it is down right sloppy “journalism”. The author gives a fairly acccurate report, but that report only covers a very small portion of the hobby. One thing that is very telling is that the only book she references is Sam Posey’s Playing with Trains - not exactly an unbiased view of the hobby, even if she had read it.
I suggest anyone who is upset by this article write to the editor of the paper and/or the author of the article.
I was thinking the same thing on a recent trip to downtown to photograph buildings to make into backdrops. Someone might get very suspsicious seeing me taking pictures of some of the landmark structures. I could just hear myself screaming as they led me away in handcuffs, “I’M NOT A TERRORIST, I’M A MODEL RAILROADER!!!”.
