I want to put my 2 cents worth in here. First I have that video and have watched it several times. The video visits three layouts. Yes, the video high lights three extreem high end layouts, but being a model railroader and knowing fellow modelers in this hobby, we know how much it costs. Now anyone not in the hobby that sees this video would probabley get the same impression this reporter did. True, the Lionel layout was own by a dentist and his son, age about 12 or so. Another dentist in Seattle,I think, had the LGB layout in his back yard garden. Now for what it’s worth, the video was interesting but at the same time I got the feeling of these owners were showing off their money more then the promotion of the hobby. I have no problem with people that have the funds to do as they wish, They are intitled to spend there money as they wish and I would not belittle them for that. My problem is with the video it’s being broadcast on TV and being portrayed as the way or hobby is or has to be. I once belonged to an R/C flying club, and there were mebers there that had the money to buy all the latest high end radios and radial engines and such wish was fine, but would shun the new young people that brought there low end trainers with 4 channel radios out that they could barely afford. Ok, I’m through ranting. Ken
I didn’t see anything in the article I would take exception with. It’s true that they put the emphasis on the mega-layouts costing tens of thousands of dollars, but is that any different from the hobby magazines or shows like DIY’s Working on the Railroad. When was the last time you saw a feature on the average Joe’s layout. When did MR magazine feature a 4x8 that wasn’t one of their project railroads. It’s the big layouts that draws people’s interest and that is true both inside and outside the hobby.
Ron,Welcome to the way the real world views our hobby…After WE ARE old geezers playing with expensive toy choo-choos in order to relive our childhood dreams…I think NOT! [:(!]
I fully agree that type of bias reporting is no good and burns me up!! [:(!] Of course there is fuel added to the fire with book titled “Playing With Toy Trains” for all the world to see in book stores…Mr.Posey could have chosen a much better title.
Jeffery,I would say “closet” model railroaders are in the thousands…I have often wondered how many 4 x 8 foot layouts are out there that NOBODY knows about? How many folk buying a locomotive for his son or grandson is in truth buying it for his self?
Like you I know several modelers that has computers won’t join any forum or any on line group for several reasons to include the silly questions that is repeated 2-3 times a month that has a ready answer found on line in the pages of MR,RMC or a check on a manufacturers web site…
Must be a different video than I have! The two dentists are both adults, father and son. I don’t think the outdoor layout is also owned by a dentist, at least I don’t think they mention his profession. As I recall, it shows a man and his wife and two children using the LGB sized garden layout. I have the video, haven’t seen it on broadcast TV.
So what? John Allen was a frequent fixture in the MR press back when my hair actually had color in it and none of my contemporaries had yet been afflicted with male pattern baldness. Allen inherited some money and invested it sufficiently astutely to be able to live off his investments for the rest of his life. Not only that, but he could spend virtually all his time working on his layout and his last layout was quite large by the standards of the day. Then there was Bill McClanahan, who was quite well off and had a large layout. I remember a spread on a fellow around 1958 or so (unfortunately can’t remember his last name - Wally something or other) all of whose locomotives were brass which was rather unusual for the time. IIRC his layout was rather large. The same year there was an article on a guy who had built a very large N&W 00 gage layout that could take 50 car coal trains. John Armstrong was no slouch in the large layout area either. For that matter, neither was Frank Ellison. Paul Larson’s Mineral Point & Northern was rather spacious, although it did run with a rather limited motive power roster. Then there’s Whit Towers, who had a rather large layout and appeared fairly frequently in the modeling press.
All these guys were pretty well off by the standards of the day and were quite frequently featured. And just as often, someone would whine about large layouts being overexposed. What they forgot (or, more likely, never knew) is that the people being featured were actually writing the articles. Being the better known modelers of the time, if any general interest publication wrote about the hobby, it was these guys who would be featured, not the guy with the small switching layout. It’s not that small switching layouts are not interesting, but they’re only interesting to those who can already be counted as members of the hobby.
The popular press features extremes, especially when it comes to hobbies like model railroading and R/C aircraft. They have to in
My initial reaction was something like Brakie’s - the article resembles the model railroading and modelers I have known about as closely as the image in a fun house mirror. Then reality set in…
- Am I elderly? The Social Security Administration and the folks who give ‘Senior Citizen’ discounts seem to think so.
- Do I have an empty nest? My senior (by one hour) granddaughter is about five months away from her first (and, hopefully, only) marriage!
- Am I driven by nostalgia? Yes, but not for my childhood Lionel set. (I’m modeling Central Japan in 1964, not ‘Da Bronx’ in 1938.)
- Have I spent a lot of money on the hobby, and how much do I have invested now? Over half a century a few dollars here and a couple of thousand yen there has come to quite a sum - and most of my old models now sell for WAY more than I paid back when. I could easily make a case for the entire business being worth more than my annual income.
- Do I care what some technologically challenged ‘journalist’ writes about my hobby, based on a microscopic statistical sample way over on the 3-sigma limit? Not no, but !!! no!
Anyone who expects fairness and accuracy from the popular media would be more successful looking for aerodynamic stabilizers on elephants, or feathers on fish.
Chuck (modeling Central Japan in September, 1964)
Besides, more’n likely articles like that are probably written by wet behind the ears chronologically challenged (i.e. what my grandpa called young whippersnappers) and newly minted journalism grads.
Auld pharts rule. Don’t trust anyone under 50. [;)]
Andre
As in any social system or network, each of us is its best ambassador. While it is true that the Great Unwashed (sorry…) will pay a great deal of credence to what they see and read, I can only account for my own portrayal of our hobby.
It is all that we can ask of each other, and otherwise we must write rebuttals to the various editors. Don’t hold your breath over long for it to appear in print.
Lets hear it for stabilisers on elephants (oliphants?) J.R.
Do the newspapers that ran this article has a “Letters to the Editor” column? If so, write a small response to the article politely saying that you disagree with the view shown, and that model railroading is not only for rich people. There are plently of ways that one can build an impressive layout with little money…It supports creativity and inginuity and encourages one to think in different ways to get around the at times high-prices of this hobby.
I try not to worry about half-baked portrayals of the hobby in the press or other media. I am too busy compulsively trying to stuff many of Buffalo, NY’s roughest neighborhoods into a 10 by 12 foot room on a small budget in my semi-retirement.
Rich
P.S. About forty years ago, the “FBI” TV program had an episode about the son of a model railroader who took out his rage on real railroads with sabotage. I guess the old man was too busy keeping the brass rail clean to pay enough attention to junior, so the kid popped his cork. We should have watched Ed Sullivan.
This article is a puff piece whose purpose is to amaze the readers. “Get a load of what some old geezers are doing with their money. Can you believe it!” This guy’s next piece is probably about some soul who trains leopards to dance in pink tutu’s.
The only real downside with the over emhpasis on money, is that it might discourage someone from getting into the hobby because he thinks he needs thousands just to get started.
You can write a letter to the editor, but all you will do is convince him that you’ve got a screw loose. He will, however, be pleased that this article is stirring up controversy and will look for more stuff from the author.
Enjoy
Paul
Bob, your probabley right. I may have a different video and may have spoken out if turn. My appologies to all. Ken
I suggest you buy the paper’s editor a copy of Model Railroader and send along a cover sheet explaining your reaction to the article. Suggest that his paper drop AP and subscribe to another news organization, since AP staff is clearly uneducated, not very professional, prone to bigoted assumptions, and puts out shoddy ‘news’ stories. (I recommend FOX News.)
If enough local newspapers quit paying AP, AP will start to wonder how to improve their work enough to draw customers - and their money - back.
Don’t you mean FAUX News?
But then, why? FAUX both specializes in and defines uneducated, unprofessional, bigoted and shoddy “reporting”. After all, the parent of FAUX was going to publish OJ’s book “If I Did It”. FAUX employees Geraldo Rivera, who was yanked out of Iraq during the war for revealing the positions of the troops he was with. Why would any organization in its right mind employ Geraldo for anything?
Andre
Aren’t you over-reacting a bit? Let’s give the newspaper’s readers a little more credit, shall we? I don’t believe the average reader, who doesn’t currently collect toy trains, is going to read that article and come away thinking they must have $25,000 to get started in the hobby. Come on! Every reader will understand the article was merely describing folks who have carried their hobby to the extreme.
Some of the other responses to your posting have lambasted the reporter and newspaper for focusing only on mega layouts, and failing to mention the fact that most toy train hobbyists have far more modest setups. Once again, I’m sure the public gets it. Are these same posters upset when Lionel constructs a mega display in New York City to draw attention to their product (Classic Toy Trains, Dec 2006)? Rather than hurting the hobby, Lionel realizes that exposing the public to big, flashy, over the top, train layouts, actually serves to create interest in the hobby.
The fact that something exists does not make it the norm. The article represented a small group of model railroaders accurately, yes. But the article presented itself to represent model railroading in general, which it did not. I’m sorry, but I do not believe that most model railroaders spend $25,000+ on their layouts nor do I believe most are obsessive any more than those who are passionate about other hobbies. I really think the article would discourage those who might be interesten in our hobby due to the $$$ amounts quoted and the way modelers are portrayed.
Ron
HEY , all of you—get back to work on those railroads!
Too much bad mo-jo being focused on this squirrel.[|(]
I would have like to have seen pictures of the layouts as part of the newspaper article…