I’ve seen the MR article about what some people think about the future of model trains, but that’s only like 10 people. I want to know what other people think. It could be anything. Like I think someday, they will have mini diesel engines that will fit inside HO scale locomotives and have a real horns and air brakes.
Mini diesel engines seems like a stretch. The one constant in this hobby has been electricity and I think that’s what will always run our trains. DCC has opened up an entire new vista for operations and sound and that will only continue to get better. I think track occupancy detectors will become standard and sounds, signals, and lighting will be activated depending on what kind of train is what block. Instead of each locomotive carrying the sound system, it will all be done with speakers mounted under the roadbed. The move towards more high quality RTR engines, rolling stock, and structures will continue. I can see the time where entire layouts are purchased as one piece with everything already in place and delivered by FedEx. OTOH, there will still be a bunch of old guy at their workbenches trying to figure out where that last grab iron for that NKP boxcar just flew off to. [:)]
Decoders in each train car speaking to your PDA by wireless preciesly what is loaded (Or not loaded) and where it needs to go.
Instead of shuffling car cards one would tap a bunch of buttons and squint into a small screen.
Trains will have sort of mini GPS onboard and know pretty much where your track goes and where down to the milli-meter level. If you hooked a local engine to a train full of decoders talking to it it might be able to proceed to a town and switch it without human input.
You probably will be reduced to a role of MOW… fixing derailments and balky couplers asap.
People will log onto your home server and operate your railroad by Signalling via the Internet instead of actually trying to meet together one night a month.
Maybe a virtual railroad will be build that precisely replicate your layout down to the last tie and spike so that these operators from the other side of the globe will know where they have been and where they are going. Thier virtual trains will be updated by your layout’s sensors and loconet plus signals data from all the trains currently running.
We already have people commuting to a base in Nevada to fly combat missions via remote control of unmanned robot aircraft 24/7 around the globe in real time. So it should not be too difficult.
In fact, it might be easier for a real railroad to allow control of thier trains this way instead of trying to maintain actual humans on that engine obeying the hog law.
I’m looking forward to having digital couplers on everything some day. It will be fun to switch/shunt almost completely hands free!
The prototype technology being modeled will advance somewhat behind the prototype technology in the real world, just as it has always done. Fewer people will model steam, and those that do will model it as used on tourist lines or in excursion operation. There will always be a market for the very latest locos and rolling stock, and an even larger market for prototypes a decade or two old.
The reason is simple. Most folks model what they saw when they were at their most impressionable age. For folks currently drawing Social Security that’s the age of superpower steam, and the first diesel generation. People getting their portfolios into shape for retirement model the later transition era and road switchers begin to dominate. New empty-nesters go for Conrail and early Amtrak…
Of course there will always be exceptions. After all, ship modelers still build clippers and 74s, and none of them have been in service during the lifetime of the centenarians among us…
Anyone for an HO model of NYC 999 as-built, with the monster drivers, DCC, sound and smoke?
Chuck (modeling Central Japan in September, 1964)
Haul Away Joe and Blue Diamond run regularly on the internet in my home Tomikawa, some of us miss the sea. With the Jammers and the Clippers long gone.
I hope it doesn’t advance too much more. I get tired of things getting so expensive that I can’t afford them anymore.
Based on how the hobby has evolved over the last 25 years and thus based far more on fact than on fantasy, the next 25 will see the number of hobbyists shrink to only a small fraction of what it is today, perhaps even back to the levels where the hobby was in 1945. This will be as the result of a number of changing societal factors which are already clearly apparent.
The pricing of all hobby items will escalate to the point where only a relatively well off segment of the population can participate fully and have complete layouts. Technology will allow every item to be done as an extremely limited run…perhaps no more than 100 units at a time…yet still be profitable to the manufacturers because of the prices charged the buyer. Personal craftsmanship and advanced modeling skills will have dwindled to almost nil, their place taken by the store bought, highly advanced technology offered from the manufacturers.
Nearly all layouts will be assembled from commercially made, totally finished-out, modules that can go together in a number of possible arrangements. Personally building your own individual unique layout of any size from the benchwork up will be an looked upon as an anachonism. The trains, themselves, will be completely operated through a computer program, without any need for human operator intervention. You will plug-in a pre-written chip, or maybe occasionally punch in yourself, a set of routing instructions for the train, hit enter, and it will go dutifully through all its stops, setouts and pickups automatically as the “operator” simply stands by and watches.
“Model railroaders”, themselves, essentially will have become computer/electrical technophiles, no longer skilled hobbyists in the way we understand the term today, basically using someone else’s (the manufacturers’ or some custom builders’) layout and equipment, much as is done with virtual layouts on-line today. Virtual layou
In response to CNJ831, I believe that within 25 years, there will be a surge in the hobby, as people my age (people in their mid teens) will come back into the hobby after college and marriage. I foresee myself participating in the hobby for the rest of my life, and I’m sure there are other teens with me. For example…I was in a hobby store the other day (about 2 hours from my house) and met a 17 year old, who was an employee! Obviously there are younger modelers out there.
Also, I’m surprised nobody has mentioned the fact of increased technology. I’m sure as the hobby becomes for digital, and as RRs come into the public spotlight again (Amtrak ridership is up, NS has commericals on everyday, GE has locomotive commericals on everyday, and government grants are being passed out left and right), it may create an whole new batch of modelers, who are drawn to the digital and computer aspect of the hobby.
Also, I can’t say that people purchasing commerically available modules is a bad thing. Remember that many manufacturers produce these, and if their module sales are up, it increases their bottom line, so that they can increase production in their other lines.
Just my 2 cents
Are we talking the price is no object instant gratification side or the traditional side of the hobby? Prices will escalate as oil becomes scarcer and plastic costs rise unless another material is found. The ultimate will be a virtual reality system with a small camera in the engine and a set of goggles to run the train from a virtual control stand. Decoders will be made for specific functions in modular form and prices will drop to the $2-3 range for each function.
I think it can be summed up with one term: better technology.
The advances of the past 30 years have been incredible.
DCC is huge - now we can control the locos instead of just controlling the power to the tracks. Styrene injection molding is so much crisper. Technology has also allowed many small manufacturers to exist; there is so much more to choose from today.
I think the biggest advances will be in electronics. There will be more animation as in roundhouse doors that open and so forth; ultra-easy to use and install signal systems; building illumination. Maybe even automobiles that drive around on their own.
Controllers that are implanted in your brain, so you can control your entire layout by force of will.
The logical pinnacle of RTR evolution - layouts that spontaneously build and operate themselves when you open the box.
Four-figure price tags on average-to-good quality locomotives, so loaded with features that an engineering degree is required to operate them properly.
Layouts that need to be plugged into the wall to run considered to be quaint relics.
Of course, we were also predicting atomic-powered automobiles in the '50’s…
I ran into an artical in an older book ( printed in the eartly 70’s or so ), where the author made a fairly good argument, for doubling the voltage ( and dropping the amps by half ), that the trains run at.
Since then keep seeing I seeing it show up from time to time and it’s still a fairly good argument, but time will tell.
I think It will be radio control even in the “N” scale.Think about It??no wires under the lay out,no block controls,ECT,ECT.radio is getting smaller everyday!It is allredy used in “G” scale,and some “O” scale,“HO” is close allso at the present.
JIM
This is what I’m waiting for. I’ve thought about it a lot in fact. With decoders in each car and a solinoid switch that works each coupler it could be done. Unfornutaely, I don’t think DCC can handle that many decoders at a time on a layout particularly the larger layouts with hundreds of cars to program.
Some company will make a track cleaner that only needs to be applied once a year. I can only hope!
My DCS 200 can handle 100-120 seperate decoders at once.
Average train length 15 cars, not a problem.
I think uncouplers already are coming onto the market, they use modified switch machines and are quite expensive. Frankly Im sticking to Kadee which I hope is still around 50 years from now.
I would like to see something like DCC. But you carry a handheld unit like DCC and it sends the signal to the engine. The engine will carry a reciever that takes the signals from the handheld. That way no programming would be done and no electricity would be going through the rails. And every month you would have to give the engine a quick recharge 1hr charge.
I believe more model railroaders will continue to patronize special interest groups and other media that cater to their particular interests rather than rely solely on general interest publications. Although HO probably will remain the scale of choice with the majority of modelers, more people will model in the minority scales and gauges (look what’s happening with O scale and Large Scale thanks to Bachmann, the internet, and other companies). With the exception of the largest LHSs (eg. Caboose Hobbies, Trainworld) more LHSs will fold and online shopping will increase.
I open the box on my new piece of N scale rolling stock and notice, the couplers are… RAPIDOS!! groan…