Anyone know besides Kalmbach’s or Carsten’s subscribtion lists which areas or states have the most activity in this hobby? And then…the least amount of participation?
HZ
If NMRA membership is any kind of indicator, the Mid-Eastern Region and the Northeastern Region have the highest membership numbers, and also represent generally smaller geographic areas than the other NMRA regions, indicating the greatest concentration of modelers.
http://www.nmra.org/national/organization/nmra_organization.html
Sheldon
There’s not necessarily the same correlation of NMRA members to actual model railroaders from region to region. There could be a 1 to 10 correlation between NMRA membership and hobby participation in one region and a 1 to 20 correlation in another. I would think circulation statistics from MR and RMC would give a bit of a more accurate picture of where model railroaders are.
Put more simply, the correlation coefficient between being NMRA membership and being a model railroader approaches 1. However, you can make no definitive statement relative to a model railroader being an NMRA member without further data. You can, nonetheless, say that the probability of a non model railroader being an NMRA member approaches 0.
How’s that for pedantry? [swg]
Andre
It depends on what counts as activity/participation. There are plenty of armchair model railroaders out there who receive MR and/or MRC, and many modelers with layouts who don’t subscribe to either.
I can give some statistics about model railroading in the Norfolk, VA area. There are around 140 NMRA members who live in the region, but only about 60 participate regularly with the local division. There are plenty of model railroad clubs: two N-trak clubs, one is starting to build a permanent layout; three HO scale clubs, one with a permanent layout and two module groups; an S scale module club; an O scale club with both modules and a permanent layout; and a G-scale group that sets up temporary layouts at many events. I know of about two dozen home layouts in the area, but there are more I’m sure.
I think that Walther’s or Train World may be the places to get a good idea of how model railroaders are distributed.
John
You forgot to consider very confused people who think they are joining the National Masters Racquetball Association.
Or, thanks to the new logo, the National Mammary Research Association!
Many modellers cannot be accounted for because they don’t belong to the NMRA.
Not everyone wants to be told what to do and how to do it - they may just want to enjoy the hobby.
I suspect that there will be a much higher correlation between population density in a given area and people who pursue a hobby of any kind, barring obvious limitations associated with geography. For example, trout fishing isn’t going to have a high membership on the Pacific coast where salt water fishing is much more ‘lucrative’. Oddly, the highest per-capita fishing population in all of Canada is in the one province that would not be the first pick of most people…Alberta.
Then, we get into the niggling arguments about what ‘modeling’ really means. Do we want to go there first…again?
I woud have to say the question is unanswerable. And if I am wrong, not by NMRA stats unless they closely parallel the same density parameters highly correlated to membership.
Crandell
Not sure but you could probably use a couple of those data points to make some reasonable projections/guesstimates. The real question I had was why are you asking? Curiousity?
We have 25 members in our local club and I’m the only one who has ever been in the NMRA, so I don’t think there’s any correlation between NMRA membership and the number of model railroaders.
Many questions pop up on these forums from people who obviously don’t subscribe to Model Railroader or Railroad Model Craftsman, so their subscription numbers also would be misleading.
???
Nothing about the NMRA tells anyone in this hobby “what to do” or “how to do it”.
The NMRA is the reason your Athearn cars will run on your Atlas track pulled by your Broadway locos through your Walthers turnouts.
AND, they are the reason your MRC power pack will power your Broadway loco - OR, if you use DCC - they are the reason your Broadway locos and your Atlas or Proto locos will run on your Digitrax system.
AND even though they never did sucessfully standardize couplers, they are the reason the couplers on your Athearn box car are the same height as those on your Kadee box car.
True, many modelers don’t belong to the NMRA, but ALL of you owe the founders and past members of the NMRA a debt of thanks because the work they did starting over 70 years ago to create standards that have made our hobby better.
But what do I know, i’ve just been building model trains for 40 years, ran a train department in a hobby shop, been a member of two known and published modeling clubs/groups and been an NMRA member since 1969.
Ask anyone on this forum, few people are more “outside the box” then me when it comes to modeling approach, that has nothing to do with the NMRA.
Sheldon
A few more thoughts:
First, even though I am a long time member of the NMRA, I have never been to a convention, entered a model in an NMRA contest, took part in the achievement program or served on a committee.
Why not? I really not that much of a “social modeler”, nor do I want to be. That does not mean I don’t respect the efforts of those who do and appreciate how they have improved the hobby.
The NMRA publications alone have been a valuable resource in my 40 plus years of modeling.
As for those of you who suggest NMRA membership has little corralation to how many modelers there are, true we have no way to know.
BUT there is no reason to suspect that in one part of the country the ratio of NMRA members to total modelers is dramaticly different than some other part of the country. I suspect that every part of the country, and at least in Canada as well, that similar percentages of modelers see value in the NMRA.
But, this question is equal to the “how big is the market” question - no one knows, and since Athearn, Walthers, Atlas, Bachmann, MTH, Broadway, Lionel, etc,etc,etc,… are not about to reveil their sales numbers, and the circulation of the publications is no more reliable than the NMRA membership numbers, the question is unanswerable.
BUT, if we take some info from this thread, (25 member club - 1 NMRA member) and extrapolate that based on NMRA memberships - that gives us about 475,000 modelers, with over 10% of them being in the Mid Atlantic region of the US, and another 10% being in the New England region of the US.
Sheldon
There’s plenty of us here in the Florida-Georgia-Alabama area. [;)]
A good number model Southern, L&N, ACL, SAL, Central of Georgia, Clinchfield, FEC, SCL, CSX, and roads that connect(ed) to the southeast. We’re here!
I’m sorry, but that comment does not set well with me. I have been in the NMRA for more years than many of you have been alive. Not once have I “been told what to do and how to do it” and I enjoy the hobby verrrrry much. I am thankful for the standards the NMRA have brought about so I don’t have to worry about buying new products that may or may not work because of poor standards.
I do enjoy the hobby very much and mainly because the NMRA did cause those standards to happen.
I also do garden railroad, and talk about chaos in the lack of standards in those gauges.
Bob
Ohio has always been a hot bed for model railroaders.In a 30 mile radius of Bucyrus there are 7 clubs,A live steam group,1 private G Scale club.
FWIW I keep hearing of a round robin S Scale group but,can’t get it confirmed.
Well…there’s me, Larry (Brakie), Frank (0-6-0), Ed (gmpullman), Dan (dansapo), Mike (rs2mike), Steve (leadpirate), Wayne (35tac), Todd (tshryock) - just to name a few. Yep, I think Larry’s right. Ohio’s the place. [Y][:P]
Tom
Isn’t the general population density of the US higher in those exact areas as well? Therefore statistically you would expect NMRA membership to be higher in those regions simply because there is more potential population to draw from in the first place.
And as mentioned, there are enough that don’t feel the need to be a member of the [American] national organization.
Not sure there is any real way to tell. The idea of using magazine subscriptions sounds good, but I don’t subscribe to either MR or RMC at this time but still consider myself a modeler.
Here in Omaha, we have many fine layouts and more in planning and Kansas City hosts several nationally known layouts. But just counting layouts doesn’t work either as I had many MRR friends in Wichita yet there seemed to be relatively few layouts.
Ricky
Hi everyone,
I would suggest looking at LHS’s or number of LHS’s in an area might serve as a means to determine where activity is or at least where it may be concentrated. Here in Southern Wisconsin we have one good LHS in Madison and at least 2 in Milwaukee (which does not count the Walthers show room). Additionally, I can think of a number in and around the Chicagoland area all of which have been in business for 5 years or longer.
I will admit this may not be the best way to determine activity (this may be a result of population density) in the hobby but a LHS that is doing enough business to stay solvent must have a large customer base. Some may be NMRA members but I would guess that most are not, probably casually involved in the hobby (like me). Also, it should be noted that the LHS’s that I am thinking of also carry plastic model kits/miniatures but not RC. Or more bluntly, their business is largely model railroading.
Just a suggestion,
Sean
My “guess” would be that if you examined the West Coast, the East Coast, and the St. Louis to Chicago corridor it would probably to out to be about the same amount as the rest of the country “combined” if for no other reason than population density, not to say they aren’t “dense” in other areas as well but these are the “densest” areas…
Mark
WGAS