I, also, belong to the NMRA. Since 1972.
Paul
What should this have to do with the question? Or is it some reaction against the big interest in model railroading we obviously see here in the old world…
Generally we don´t hide our model railroad interest here as opposed to what I´ve seen in the states.
And maybe just that is enough to erradicate the “geek-stamp” that seems to be a big no-go in the US!?!
Even at my wife´s work there is model railroads as one of the priests is modelling in H0, and has some of his collection at work. It has lead to that people talks about them and the interest spreads.
Bit of an overreaction there, Graffen. He was being facetious. He could have just as easily chosen Monaco or San Marino for his “joke” since they have populations similar in size to Liechtenstein.
Andre
I don´t call it an overreaction, I reacted to the way that post ridiculed the question and the way we tried to discuss it!
If I had made the same kind of post, but made it against the US, this thread would have been locked by now…
I think your question should be,Where in the world is model railways the most popular.
the proper term is RAILWAYS.
RAYMOND T
You are absolutely correct. I apologize profusely. And to make it up to you, I’m going to have Swedish Meatballs for dinner. Fair enough??
John
All okay! [:D]
And I can vouch for the amount of modellers in my region, as we have five model shops in a 30 mile radius from where I live of wich the closest is only 10 miles away. there is only a population of 120 000 in the region wich gives us roughly 24 000 people per shop.
I have talked to some friends of mine regarding this question, and the consensus was that it is probably not as many % modellers today as it was 30-40 years ago, BUT as the population increases the amount of modelers will roughly stay the same…
My Model Airplane club is a good example of that, it has had 35 members since it was started in the early 80´s.
I would go with Great Britain (who I suspect have the highest percentage of railfans (“train spotters”)) and Germany/Austria. Look at the manufacturers there - Preiser, Marklin, LGB etc.
Yes they are. The American “hamburger” name comes from the “Hamburg sandwich”.
Whew! I was beginning to suspect that maybe Sweden and Liechtenstein had some sort of Mutual Aid Treaty or something…
John
I’m really curious. How did it ridicule the original question? The question is basically unanswerable to begin with. The PDF you linked to referred only to Germany and came nowhere near providing an answer to the question even assuming the data are accurate. If someone were to ask me where the hobby is most popular, I would have answered that it was probably a pretty close match between the UK and Germany in terms of participation per 100,000 population but that would have only been based on personal observation as I have attended events in several countries.
JWhitten’s reply only attempted to to inject some humor into the discussion and I am totally at a loss as to how anyone could look at it as an attack on Liechtenstein in particular or Europe in general. Liechtenstein has one of the highest per capita GDP’s in the world: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_countries_by_GDP_(nominal)_per_capita If the Liechtensteiners aren’t avid model railway buffs, they should be. They certainly can afford it.
I was going to close with some observation on the big model railroad in the Vatican basement, but thought better of it. Some would accuse me of promoting religion and others would accuse me of ridiculing religion. You just can’t win no matter what you do.
Andre
Proper acording to who? Based on the corporate names of the companies in that business, All three terms are correct - Rail Road, Railroad and Railway.
And a few from the past used no such indentifier:
The Reading Company
The Sourthern Pacific Lines
But what do I know, I’ve just been studying this stuff for 40 years.
Sheldon
Isn’t that a bit ethnocentric? I can think think of several other terms off the top of my head:
Ferrocarril, chemin de fer, eisenbahn, ferrovia, spoorweg, järnvägar, железная дорога ( zheleznaya doroga ).
Andre
Hi Marlon,
Don’t put too much faith in Wikipedia, Universities here in Australia scorn the use Wikipedia as a reference. It isn’t viewed as a source of reliable information.
But on such a question where can you get reliable information?
If you were to do surveys they would have to be very specific questions and then the survey transferred to other areas and normalised to determine if the data from the area the survey was taken was a true reflection of the total population as apposed to just that area.
It is amazing how the data can be changed by just chaging the ways the questions are asked and the number of posible responses you give a person.
For example if you give people the option of five responses a,b,c,d or e most will take the c option.
Sorry to ramble on, just finished a course on research and there is much speculation about survey data and its validity.
Imagine JFK having given his famous speech in Hamburg instead of Berlin… [:-^]
Back to some of the figures. The link Graffen provided shows data from the BDEF, which is something like the German equivalent of the NMRA. Their data is based on membership figures and is regarded as quite accurate within the industry.
Model railroading in Europe is not a niche hobby for some “geeks” who have to hide their interest from the public. Social acceptance is much higher, as is the public awareness of this hobby. Would there be TV shows dealing with trains and model railroads if there were no public interest?
Per capita, in descending order probably: -
-
UK
-
Germany
-
Japan
-
U.S.A/Canada
Although two and three could switch as they are train mad in Japan.
While also true in the US, the counter arguemnt often comes up that Wiki articles likely enough to attract enough attention to be purposefullly unreliable, also attract enough attention to be refiltered. Also, something like that is likely to be checked by MRR itself. If you had a Wiki page of ou, wouldn’t you make sure non-factual info was corrected?
NMRA: Nope. Considerin it, but nope. ot right now.
As has been said, polls are onl as reliabl;e as the peop-le who answer them, and the writers. However, one can also operate that a similar poll should garnish similar information.If a poll in America and one in Germany still misses 80% of the population, but of the 20% polled, the answers are higher for one than the other, then ou still have a level scientific comparison.
I wasn’t really basing any accurate numbers when I cited Wikipedia. I know their sources for information are gospel, but in the old days (yes, I’m old), publications would list their circulation numbers in the their staff listings.
Circulation figures for virtually all magazines are still published annually. In the case of Model Railroader magazine it is in every January issue. For RMC it is in either the January, or February, issue.
As a matter of fact, for the end of 2010 the total monthly circulation numbers for MR were 139,921.
CNJ831
Closer to the truth than you think. A “Berliner” is one name for a popular German pastry. The consensus is that everyone understood what Kennedy was saying, and nobody really mistook his words for “I am a jelly doughnut”.
No intention to hi-jack this thread, but to make things worse, we eat Frankfurters, Wieners, Krakauers, Berliners, Hamburgers, Nürnbergers and even “Amerikaner” (Americans) - that´s also a pastry. What a country of cannibals and model railroaders (or should I say railway modellers).
Yeah, but over here we have the NMRA, the National Model Rifle Association…
John