[HN Gopher] Enthusiasts struggle to keep model railway industry ...
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Enthusiasts struggle to keep model railway industry on track
Author : austinallegro
Score : 90 points
Date : 2024-01-14 22:23 UTC (2 days ago)
(HTM) web link (www.theguardian.com)
(TXT) w3m dump (www.theguardian.com)
| NoZebra120vClip wrote:
| So we have a family friend who owns a model train shop, a very
| popular and notable one. He took it over from the original owner,
| and this fellow also has a private museum attached, where he
| exhibits vintage vehicles, typewriters, and other stuff:
| https://www.jacooleymuseum.com/
|
| So one of his daughters was my friend and classmate, and when we
| were growing up, of course, her father was already collecting
| model trains, and he had so many that every shelf of their home
| was occupied with model trains of various types.
|
| My friend didn't visit many other homes when she was young, but
| once she finally went over to a friend's house, and she looked
| around, bewildered, and asked, "Where are all the trains?"
| mattl wrote:
| Sad to see but my overlapping hobby (miniature wargaming) has
| some cross over and model train stuff is so expensive even
| compared to miniature wargaming which isn't very cheap itself.
| neuronflux wrote:
| Over COVID I couldn't wargame with friends in person, so I
| started an N scale railroad to fill the hobby void as they
| share a lot. Also it was fun doing all the automation etc as
| mentioned in other comments there. I've sold the railroad off
| since as I started wargaming again though.
| polka_haunts_us wrote:
| Funny to see this now. A couple days ago I was on vacation in San
| Diego and visited the San Diego Model Railroad Museum in Balboa
| Park and a lot of the traffic flowing through my head about it
| are all points addressed in the above article:
|
| "Almost everyone working here is quite old"
|
| "The amount of space this takes up is incredible, I wonder how
| people get into this hobby, I've never lived anywhere where I'd
| have enough space to set up a model railway long term"
|
| It's kind of a shame too, it was the first time I think I've ever
| really appreciated the large scale model train installations.
| When I was younger I'd see them at random historical museums and
| mostly just think "yeah choo-choo sure does go in a circle haha".
| I think the San Diego museum did a good job of conveying that it
| isn't really just about the trains as much as it's about modeling
| the landscapes and towns the trains actually go through. Viewing
| it from the perspective of a massive scale diorama of some region
| really raised my overall appreciation for the whole endeavour.
| hakfoo wrote:
| My father was an enthusiast. When we moved into their current
| house (1988), the builder had the option of a three-car garage
| or enclosing the third-car section, and that was intended as a
| railway room. He favoured the large German "LGB" trains, in
| part bought because they were among the more durable products
| on the market, so it would be child-resistant for the kids to
| use. He built the framework and a track plan but never really
| had the time he wanted to work on it.
|
| I, in turn, moved on to smaller American (HO scale) and British
| (OO) trains, using the same room, but now find that the tables
| designed for big 1:22.5 trains have irregularities enough to
| make 1:87 trackwork unreliable. Will probably need to rework
| them.
|
| The hobby itself has definitely changed though: Yes, today's
| modern models are higher quality than a lot of the old "Blue
| Box" Athearn kits, but they're also $50 instead of $7, and come
| ready-to-run, so the hobby aspect of building and customizing
| it is gone. Many models don't even come as an undecorated
| version anymore, if you wanted the classic "paint it for your
| own custom railway" narrative. You don't get the same "hours of
| fun per dollar" out of that side of the hobby anymore.
|
| What's interesting is that there's definitely an opportunity
| for synergy with the rise of hobby electronics-- the trains
| have moved from "variable DC on the rails" to "AC with a
| command bus" and sometimes even Bluetooth, so there's a lot of
| interesting stuff you could do with computer or microcontroller
| interfacing. I bought a project for an automatic traffic-signal
| design using some 555 timers and capacitors, and thought "this
| is 10 lines of code on a $3 Arduino, for this generation of
| hobbyists."
|
| Shops are closing-- I make it a point to try to find a model-
| railway shop and pick up something exotic when I go on holiday,
| but even pretty big cities don't have one, or it's a billion
| miles from anywhere. I was sort of saddened to get a note from
| Hattons (an excellent UK retailer-- surprisingly cheap shipping
| to the US) that they have started to wind down operations in
| the last month.
| euroderf wrote:
| > Shops are closing-- I make it a point to try to find a
| model-railway shop and pick up something exotic when I go on
| holiday, but even pretty big cities don't have one, or it's a
| billion miles from anywhere.
|
| Berlin has two or three big shops and some smaller ones.
| pjc50 wrote:
| > "The amount of space this takes up is incredible, I wonder
| how people get into this hobby, I've never lived anywhere where
| I'd have enough space to set up a model railway long term"
|
| So much "millenials killing X" discourse is just "property
| prices killing X" in disguise.
| bombcar wrote:
| I'm not sure how much of it is space, as I remember even
| 20-30 years ago the model railroad magazines always had a
| "how to fit a layout in the space you have" - up to and
| including elaborate folding layouts that would fit in
| something not much bigger than a briefcase.
|
| If people really _want_ to do something, they make space
| /time available for it, even if it involves clubs, etc.
|
| The number of people who want to build models in general is
| down, I suspect, given that we have so many other things to
| do with "free time".
| NoZebra120vClip wrote:
| My maternal grandfather was a pipe fitter on the railroad,
| before becoming a defense contractor, and also before
| contracting mesothelioma and dying when I was 6.
|
| He owned a sizable property in California which included a
| large home and some attached apartments. They ran a boarding-
| house for immigrants, and later, my widowed grandmother
| became a landlady.
|
| I was raised with a fervent love for railroads of all types.
| I had little engineer togs as a toddler and a professional
| photoshoot to prove it. We rode around on a scale railroad in
| the park. But most of all, my grandfather's labor of love was
| building a model train set for me in an upstairs bedroom.
|
| It was essentially a simple affair; grandpa had built a large
| plywood table topped with Astroturf. The rails themselves
| were in a large figure-eight, with not much landscaping or
| scenery around. We concentrated on the technical bits: a good
| AC/DC transformer with variable knob, some nice rolling stock
| with the traditional freight-train assortment of cars, and a
| locomotive that had that smokestack where you could insert a
| little tablet and it'd puff out "steam" while it ran.
|
| My sister and I loved that whole setup, and it was like
| catnip to us in our youth, at least until the Atari 2600 took
| over. The railroad remained the centerpiece of that room and
| a focal point of our entertainment for years and years, even
| after grandpa passed away. It was really a cool thing for an
| authentic railroad guy to pass that on to his grandchildren.
| nlnn wrote:
| I've wondered this about a lot of hobbies, e.g. drumming,
| pottery, woodworking, anything that needs space or sound
| insulation.
|
| There's a lot you can do at shared spaces, but
| cost/availability/inconvenience of those is just such a big
| barrier to entry for many younger people.
| ghaff wrote:
| I also suspect that many of the young people who can afford
| and are interested in many of these sorts of hobbies have, at
| least incrementally, tended to shift more urban which makes
| them impractical absent some shared club/store space. When I
| first got an apartment after school--and pre-digital
| photography--I tried doing home processing in a half-bathroom
| and rapidly concluded that was for the birds. (Even after I
| got a house, there really wasn't a suitable space and then
| digital photography came in.)
| dehrmann wrote:
| Nit: there are electronic drums
| ReleaseCandidat wrote:
| Neither drumming nor woodworking (necessarily) needs much
| space or sound isolation. Of course a "real", big drum set or
| a panel saw need both ;)
| bombcar wrote:
| The only time that museum was filled with kids was the yearly
| "LEGO Train" exhibit, which I partook of once or twice.
|
| And the people I was with (setting up the exhibit) were mostly
| younger (at the time) ranging from the 10 or so year old kids
| of the people leading it to mid 20s - not counting the leaders
| who were middle aged.
|
| _Everyone_ loved it and the number of visitors in that two
| week period or whatever it was would rival the _total_ number
| of visitors the rest of the year.
|
| But LEGO trains are _not_ model trains (my goodness), they 're
| _toy trains_ - a completely and unrespectable thing.
|
| But today I see LEGO themselves referring to the track as
| "L-gauge": https://www.lego.com/en-us/product/the-orient-
| express-train-... - which started out as almost a joke and is
| now getting some pretty serious attention.
|
| If model railroading as a whole wants to survive and thrive,
| they will _need_ to embrace the "toy" train.
|
| (Lots of these museums are really just "fronts" for the
| member's hobby, after all, and it gets them out of the house.)
| krupan wrote:
| " But LEGO trains are not model trains (my goodness), they're
| toy trains - a completely and unrespectable thing."
|
| I love this condescending sounding distinction, it's actually
| very accurate! When I was 12 or 13 I had an uncle that was
| into model railroading and I thought it looked so fun and
| cool! Then I started looking into it more and it's not really
| (at least to me at that age) because it's not a toy you take
| out of the box and play with a 100 different ways. You build
| a very static and detailed landscape, put your rails down,
| start the train up, and just sit back and look at it. Where's
| the fun in that?
|
| I just got a Lego train set for me and my kids and we've
| already built several different ways, crashed the train and
| rebuilt parts of multiple tiles, discovered you can program
| it with the new PoweredUp system, put mini figures on the
| roof of the cars, etc.
| bombcar wrote:
| Model trains descended from toy trains at some point, but
| the hobby definitely split off decades ago.
|
| What people forget is that the new blood in the hobby comes
| from the young blood and trying to keep them out doesn't
| help.
| stevage wrote:
| Yeah, the idea of building a train layout, and then
| being...stuck with it for 20 years doesn't appeal to me at
| all.
| ghaff wrote:
| It's not just the space although you either have to belong to a
| club of some sort or have a house with a fair bit of extra
| room. But stamp and coin collecting is pretty much out of
| fashion as well.
| eternityforest wrote:
| With the rise of 3D printing and wireless tech, what if we had a
| modular system of terrain pieces(Like Gridfinity), that could be
| set up temporarily at events?
|
| Every member of a club would only have to bring a small section
| but you could still do really big layouts
| kej wrote:
| My dad's train club, and most of the others I'm aware of, have
| had modular set ups for about 40 years. They pick a standard
| for module sizes and where the track connections need to be,
| and then everyone can design their own module as they like.
| femto wrote:
| For example: NTRAK
|
| https://nrail.org/NTRAK-Home
|
| https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/NTrak
| krupan wrote:
| Modular is how they've been doing it forever, just that a
| single module is roughly a 6 foot long table (my uncle did
| this, not me, so I don't know the exact dimensions)
| PeterStuer wrote:
| Even 40 years ago many opted for N scale because of space
| constraints. Clubs were almost always HO scale focused, since
| they had cheap or free accomodation often in semi abandoned rail
| hangars etc.
|
| As for age, it is not just the cost, but also the alienation of
| the young from messy analog physical dexterity, long low stimulus
| attention and slow progress in favor of high stimulus instant
| digital gratification.
| lainga wrote:
| Great attitude. Hope it keeps your hobby going.
| thot_experiment wrote:
| I know a lot of people who are into model building in the
| younger-millennial older gen-z age range. I am not convinced
| that this shift is particularly pronounced.
|
| I think the real problem is that y'all got houses to put a
| train set in for like $3.50 and the only people I know with
| houses are the ones who's parents put the money down and
| cosigned the loan. The models fit on a shelf in a tiny
| apartment with a roommate.
|
| Maybe vote to approve some apartment blocks and public transit
| next time around?
| ThrowawayTestr wrote:
| No it's because people don't have the space. Are you familiar
| at all with miniature painting or Gundam model building?
| wegfawefgawefg wrote:
| I wish I could disagree with you.
|
| Since I moved out of my moms place I could not bring my 3d
| printers, cnc machine or electronics equipment. I simply cant
| fit it in this tiny apartment with my wife.
|
| I have lost these hobbies over the past two years to software
| entirely. Not necessarily a bad thing.
|
| I guess my point is, you can lose your slower hobbies without
| even realizing, just due to circumstance. It's not necessarily
| the younger generation's "fault". It is often just the emergent
| consequence of the situation.
| morelisp wrote:
| > the alienation of the young from messy analog physical
| dexterity, long low stimulus attention and slow progress
|
| I suggest any boomers with this attitude check out what the
| kids are doing with Gunpla and Warhammer. It's a space issue,
| not a "stimulus" or "physical dexterity" one.
| lupusreal wrote:
| At the same time modeling of "real things", except maybe RC
| airplanes, seems to be in a decline. For instance there don't
| seem to be many people into building models of ships/etc. The
| fantasy stuff goes a lot stronger. Kind of makes me wonder if
| declining social conditions have young people running to
| escapist fantasy stuff. Or maybe it's because the fantasy
| stuff is more profitable for corps thanks to
| trademark/copyright, so consumers follow the advertising?
| morelisp wrote:
| I think it's hard to wrap all those hobbies up into one
| "reason" for the shift. One though is that kids probably
| see a lot less ships (in real life and film/TV) than they
| did 20, let alone 50, years ago. Kids will react to what
| they're told are cool and young adults will continue the
| hobby they had as kids.
|
| That being said, the same place I buy my monster and
| spaceship painting equipment from seems to still do a
| decent trade in benders and slips.
|
| And size is still an issue, the smallest ship I could build
| is about the size of the largest "miniature" I have.
| jjoonathan wrote:
| Housing costs have been growing at 2x wages for 50 years. If
| space was a constraint then, imagine how it is now.
|
| How many times did boomers look at the two buttons before them,
| "make housing affordable" and "make housing a good investment,"
| and which button did they press every singe time?
| kleiba wrote:
| The claim in your first sentence seems intuitive. Yet, I have
| found conflicting data about it in the past. Do you have
| specific sources you're referring to by chance?
| euroderf wrote:
| > folk are always concerned it'll die out.
|
| Not if my 4yo has anything to say about it. Upgrade path from
| Brio (wooden) to electric trains.
| dbish wrote:
| Kids are funny. I've seen multiple go through being completely
| obsessed up to about 5 to losing interest and never looking at
| a model train again. I think there's something about that young
| age that makes them particularly interested, but the likelihood
| of a long time mode train enthusiast seems to be quite low.
| shagie wrote:
| The predictability of the train can be good. While I can't
| find it at the moment, there was an article I recently read
| about how repetition (in the context of Good Night Moon(?))
| and the ability to be able to predict the future is useful
| for early childhood learning and development.
|
| A train is very predictable - the sound, the motion, the
| path... for the same reason that children like having the
| same book read to them again and again, the train fills that
| role too.
| sethhochberg wrote:
| This was me as a kid. Whenever we'd drive past the local
| hobby shop I'd beg my dad to make a stop so we could go look
| at the display (and play with the various buttons they had
| that lit up lights, switched tracks, etc).
|
| I've long forgotten about model railroads and these days I
| live in small city apartments and move every few years, so
| even if I'd managed to retain the interest I have no
| practical way to build or store my own models, and generally
| prefer to spend money on experiences instead of things. I'm
| basically the problem millennial this whole thread is about.
| throwaway421967 wrote:
| kind of reminds me of "Strong Ideas, Held Lightly"
| euroderf wrote:
| The way you put it, it sounds like a phase, like dinosaurs.
| dbish wrote:
| It seems to be from the examples I've had. I wouldn't
| invest too much into assuming they'll still be in the train
| hobby in a few years, fun while it lasts though :)
| teeray wrote:
| I wonder if train simulators have filled this gap in younger
| populations that would have stepped into the hobby.
| TacticalCoder wrote:
| I still have the Marklin HO model train from my youth. 40 years
| later it still works and kids love it (when we take it out).
|
| One winter we mixed it with Lego from the Harry Potter series and
| pretended the train was the one going to Hogwarts.
|
| Toys that still work 40 years later are amazing.
|
| Younger parents who didn't play with model trains are also in
| awe. For those who have enough room it's really a nice thing to
| do to play together with your kid(s).
|
| It s not crazy pricey either if you don't go wild.
| Timothee wrote:
| As a teenager I had a Marklin catalog that I kept for years. I
| spent a lot of time turning the pages to dream about all these
| models and layouts...
| bb123 wrote:
| Model trains require a large amount of dedicated indoor space.
| With millennials and zoomers frozen out of the housing market I
| expect a large proportion of them simply don't have the room.
| Timothee wrote:
| I'd be curious how mobility plays into that as well. The
| YouTubers I see often seem to be well settled in their large-
| enough-for-the-hobby houses. If you end up moving often, or
| just _feel_ like you might have to, it's more difficult to
| invest time and money into it.
| ElevenLathe wrote:
| I've just been thinking about this in terms of metalworking.
| I've long wanted to have a home lathe, welder, possibly
| milling machine or at least a drill press. I recently moved
| into a house with a sizable basement workshop space and am
| enjoying setting it up and doing some simple projects (none
| of those high-dollar tools yet, but I have a selection of
| files, rasps, a nice vice and workbench, etc.).
|
| The thing is, I don't expect I'll necessarily have this kind
| of space forever (and almost certainly not this particular
| one), so it's hard to justify things like cutting a hole in
| the side of the house to crane in an industrial lathe. I'm
| planning on getting more hobbyist-scale stuff (though still
| space-consuming) with a goal of using it to build my own,
| smaller, portable workshop (a small lathe, provisions for
| using it for milling, a selection of cutting tools and the
| necessary meta-tools to maintain them, a pack-up
| forge/foundry).
|
| The ultimate dream is something the size of approximately a
| (possibly large) suitcase or footlocker that can be used to
| recreate itself (think RepRap but a whole, miniature machine
| shop), so that I can 1) continue in my hobby even if I have
| to move into an apartment, and 2) share this with other
| people by helping them bootstrap something similar. The David
| A. Gingery book series ("Build Your Own Machine Shop From
| Scrap") is my inspiration here, though so much of the series
| would be a lot easier if you could start with some existing
| machine tools instead of having to do literally all of it
| from scratch).
| shagie wrote:
| They mentioned the 'T' scale which I recently came across.
|
| https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=PNje4KTLZT4
|
| It is 1:450 scale and half the size of the Z scale.
|
| https://www.tgauge.us
|
| When describing starter sets, the track area is dimensioned in
| mm. https://www.tgauge.us/product/452/20/lner-125-hst-train-set
|
| > The 120mm loop included in this starter set will cover an
| area of 253mm x 372mm (10" x 14 3/4").
| altairprime wrote:
| I don't have a tabletop to spare in my apartment. We use a
| folding table for board games so that we can put it away
| afterwards. Space is at a premium and simulator games take up
| even less space.
| smdyc1 wrote:
| Likewise. I've even given up table top games like Flames of
| War for lack of space to place a 4ft x 6ft game board. No
| chance to fit a static model railroad. My dad fit one in
| our townhouse growing up by building it around his and
| mum's bed. She hated the thing. Every few months it would
| encroach further.
| dave333 wrote:
| N scale allows a worthwhile layout in a 2ft x 4ft area and
| requires even less for a switching shelf layout and is
| relatively cheap.
| morelisp wrote:
| Plus storage for elements you aren't using, plus work area. A
| coworker was shocked I could dedicate a ~1.5x4 L desk to my
| miniature painting. Most 25-30yo people I know here in Berlin
| would have to choose between this or a partner, purely based
| on space; or a 1h trip into the city centers.
| nic547 wrote:
| I don't think it needs to be dedicated indoor space - at least
| in my bubble, it's not uncommon to do temporary layouts on
| floors. It's obviously very focused on the railroad part, but
| turning your apartment into a model railroad for a few days
| every once in a while means you can use a lot more space.
| Outdoor spaces can be used as well.
| AlbertCory wrote:
| How about _real_ trains you can ride on?
|
| https://www.nbcbayarea.com/news/local/historic-bay-area-mode...
|
| There's another one in the hills above Palo Alto that's open to
| the public once a year. Now I can't find it online. Anyone? It's
| not Roaring Camp.
|
| This was a real train on private land, with a machine shop and a
| crew of volunteers. It had a loop of several miles.
| adamredwoods wrote:
| Portola Valley: https://www.pvarr.org/
|
| I've ridden on the Roaring Camp Railroad, but not the Portola
| Valley one.
| AlbertCory wrote:
| that's it. thanks.
| mrandish wrote:
| In my suburban area of N.Cal (outside the bay area) we have a
| huge, well-appointed central train museum housed in the former
| regional central station were volunteer docents in period
| costume give tours. It's a popular weekend attraction that
| draws tourists and during the week is a regular field trip for
| the schools in the region. They also do regular rides on period
| trains on several miles of closed track and occasional longer
| runs on public track.
|
| A big part of it is funded by doing interactive Polar Express
| recreation trip/shows complete with singing, dancing, hot
| cocoa, cookies and a visit by Santa. They do two trips every
| day and three on weekends from before Thanksgiving to
| Christmas, each with several hundred passengers. It's a great
| experience that's pure magic for kids. The whole thing is done
| with top-notch production value and officially licensed by
| Disney. Tickets aren't cheap but well-worth the price and
| always sold-out with long waiting lists. When our kid was that
| age, getting tickets was challenging enough that we just got a
| yearly family membership to the museum to ensure priority
| selection and it became a tradition our kid still talks about
| every holiday. If you have (or know) kids of that age, check if
| there's similar holiday train excursions in your area.
|
| We also have several smaller train clubs in the surrounding
| suburbs and rural areas including a couple who own and run
| full-sized trains on a few miles of closed track they maintain.
| There are also several large area parks which host clubs that
| run smaller "kiddie-style" trains on loops of around a half-
| mile. These are generally run by volunteers and free/donation.
| So at least in our area, I'm happy to report that train hobbies
| seem to be doing pretty well, although I don't know about the
| home-based scale train end of things.
| HuShifang wrote:
| There's also this in the Berkeley Hills. Smaller though.
|
| https://redwood-valley-railway.business.site/
| rodgerd wrote:
| Also: https://www.esplanaderail.org.nz/
| lnrd wrote:
| I think what drew people to model trains was the ability to
| create and automate your tracks. It's an interesting and fun
| thing to do, basically designing a system and going trough all
| the small things needed to make it work. I can see how today this
| itch can be scratched by many different videogames (Factorio,
| just to give one example), while decades ago it was either model
| train or nothing much else.
|
| I think younger generations are drawn to cheaper and easier to
| access forms of entertainment that provide similar intellectual
| experience. It's a shame for the hobby, but I find it a very
| reasonable thing to happen.
| jonathanlydall wrote:
| My thoughts too.
|
| When I was little my brothers and I played a lot together with
| Lego.
|
| Now we're all over 40 and occasionally play on a heavily modded
| Minecraft server to scratch that itch.
|
| In many ways it's so much more practical, essentially unlimited
| building materials with no real cost, no issue with physical
| space in the house, we can do it casually in the evenings while
| doing voice calls on Discord, no unpacking or packing up needed
| before or after.
|
| There are even great rail cart mods for those interested in
| track switching type activities.
|
| We make a point of doing in person LANs about every quarter,
| also for old times sake.
| fragmede wrote:
| Some of my friends are even already doing the meet ups in VR.
| jprete wrote:
| I think this is the best explanation. I myself spent enormous
| time on Factorio "model trains" and it was even better because
| my train decisions were always motivated by an external
| requirement in the game. Model trains by themselves feel a
| little more sterile in comparison because they're disconnected
| from the rest of the world.
| lupusreal wrote:
| Honorable mention for OpenTTD
| justsomehnguy wrote:
| I was going to mention it too.
|
| Though after billions of billions made in TT/OpenTTD and
| whatever imaginable railroad systems it lost most of it's
| magic for me. Every once in a while I install it, browse and
| add some mods (FISH of course) and... after I'm on +300%
| profit each year it starts to get boring.
| FinnKuhn wrote:
| Playing together with friends and with mods for different
| settings like Japan, Canada, etc. is what keeps the game
| interesting for me personally. It isn't about having a
| giant profit, but building interesting things.
| lupusreal wrote:
| Yeah, the economy is pretty easy to beat. I've found that
| using the cargodist option can spice it up a bit, it makes
| it a bit harder to print money using passenger lines.
| Nevertheless, the greatest challenge for me is fixing all
| my own past mistakes.
| stevage wrote:
| Yeah, the basic economy of TT was always disappointingly
| easy.
| shagie wrote:
| > I think what drew people to model trains was the ability to
| create and automate your tracks.
|
| The original home of many people who became hackers (old use of
| the word) was the TMRC at MIT. Tech Model Railroad Club -
| https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tech_Model_Railroad_Club
|
| As told in Steven Levy's Hackers book, there were two groups in
| the TMRC. There was the group that went on train rides and did
| meticulous models on top of the track... and there was the
| systems and powers group that worked with wires and automation
| (from the telephone company) under the track.
|
| From the Wikipedia article...
|
| > The club was composed of several groups, including those who
| were interested in building and painting replicas of certain
| trains with historical and emotional values, those that wanted
| to do scenery and buildings, those that wanted to run trains on
| schedules, and those composing the "Signals and Power
| Subcommittee" who created the circuits that made the trains
| run. This last group would be among the ones who popularized
| the term "hacker" among many other slang terms, and who
| eventually moved on to computers and programming.
|
| > ...
|
| > At the club itself, a semi-automatic control system based on
| telephone relays was installed by the mid-1950s. It was called
| the ARRC (Automatic Railroad Running Computer). It could run a
| train over the entire set of track, in both directions, without
| manual intervention, throwing switches and powering tracks
| ahead of the train. A mainframe program was used to compute the
| path, and all modifications to the layout had to be compatible
| with this ability.
| MPSimmons wrote:
| Factorio has definite model-railroad vibes. Including actual
| functioning train layouts. But nothing beats looking at a
| running model on a tabletop.
| dylan604 wrote:
| Seems to gloss over the physical space required to have a model
| train. A video game can come in many sizes from phones to
| consoles and is much more accessible and even portable.
|
| Growing up, we had a 4'x8' sheet of plywood covered in the fake
| grass and then decked out with structures, trees, people, cars,
| and all sorts of stuff. It was a lot of fun setting it up,
| building the models, and deciding on a track layout. Took weeks
| building it. It took days to get bored with it. For some
| reason, we thought it a good idea to tack down the tracks for
| better stability, but it made it a nightmare to rearrange the
| tracks. However, it stayed like that for _years_ and from time
| to time as I got older would fire it up and quickly bore of it
| again.
| stevage wrote:
| Yes, and if you're really into the physical aspect, there are
| all kinds of robotics kits and lego and such that can give you
| that.
| londons_explore wrote:
| I understand why model trains used to be expensive - they had
| hundreds of handmade parts.
|
| But every other toy industry has taken on mass production and
| most toys can now be produced mostly by machine for cents.
|
| Yet still model trains are beyond the budget of most 8 year olds.
| crote wrote:
| Part of me feels like this is simply the result of it being an
| aged hobby. When most of the people involved in the hobby are
| of retirement age with plenty of money to spare, why would
| anyone try to compete on price?
| londons_explore wrote:
| When those people die, model railway companies better be
| quick to start releasing sub-$10 models to entice the next
| generation...
|
| And while we're at it, lets add moving block signalling, app-
| control, departure boards and other 20th century features...
| bombcar wrote:
| Model trains aren't toys, that's the problem.
|
| _Toy trains_ are available and cheap(ish) - but they are often
| not really the same as models.
|
| https://www.lego.com/en-us/product/freight-train-60336 is a toy
| train that's $200 for a "full kit"
|
| But I haven't seen an HO-scale toy train in ages, sometimes
| around Christmas you see the "larger toy train around the
| train" style thing for $50-150.
| Waterluvian wrote:
| My dad's building a 1/12th scale railway at the cottage.
| Apparently demand is picking up according to a mom and pop shop
| he bought from, who suggested more boomers are retiring.
| rithikjainNd01 wrote:
| Im so sad about this. I am 24, and have loved Model Trains my
| whole life. I grew up in India, where there was no model
| railroading scene (I picked it up as a toddler in the UK).
|
| My drive for moving abroad was to have the space to make my own
| model train set. I got lucky and we made it to the States when I
| turned 18. But I still need to earn, get a house, before I can
| build my layout. Hope it sticks around until then.
|
| My heart aches, I have such a passion for model trains. I've
| taken a few friends to shops and they always found it
| interesting. But no one buys anything. I don't think kids will
| ever get into this, I blame the babyfication of Thomas and
| Friends more than anything else.
| smm11 wrote:
| I've rebuilt a 40s-era Lionel train track system (mostly replaced
| the power plug to the control box), and ordered an AFX track from
| ebay just yesterday. The sizes don't mesh, but both are going on
| a plywood layout in the garage.
| krupan wrote:
| All of you complaining about space, you just need to move to the
| country. I hear real estate in Missouri, Alabama, etc. is pretty
| reasonable.
| MentallyRetired wrote:
| I dabble, but much like RC cars, video games have choked out
| another physical hobby.
| i_don_t_know wrote:
| Meanwhile in Hamburg, Germany: https://www.miniatur-
| wunderland.com
| 1oooqooq wrote:
| How long until we have model networking?
|
| tiny racks filled with tiny Cisco routers. with tiny cables
| management and tiny blinking LEDs everywhere.
|
| You can even add buttons to simulate solar storms on your tiny
| microwave antena model which would change how the blinking lights
| work on the tiny routers.
|
| And if you want to splurge like some train modelers do with fake
| grass and such you can maybe even go for the middle manager model
| as if it's walking around the server room as he tries to avoid
| the CEO that day.
| zeusk wrote:
| Have you looked at /r/homelab?
| 1oooqooq wrote:
| They are the prime market. With the space they got for their
| measly single rack they could emulate an entire regional
| branch!
| d0gsg0w00f wrote:
| I had a lot of fun with my capstone project on GNS3
| KolmogorovComp wrote:
| I wonder if this also a consequence of the commodization of
| travel in general and daily commute in particular.
|
| Taking the train (also applies to the plane), is much less an
| 'experience' that it was 50 years ago, and so the prestige around
| these objects also diminish, effectively reducing their value as
| toys too.
| crote wrote:
| As a younger person who _in theory_ is interested in model
| railways, the sad truth is that the drawbacks simply outweigh the
| benefits.
|
| Model trains are physically large, so building a layout in my
| apartment is pretty much impossible. They are extremely
| expensive, and if you want to get something which can do more
| than literally run around in a circle you're looking at a $X000
| setup cost. The "sexy" part (digitally controlling the trains)
| seems to be pretty much stuck with poorly-designed protocols from
| the 80s.
|
| I like trains. I like DIY electronics. I like 3D printing. But
| given the barrier to entry, I'll just stick with OpenTTD or some
| kind of Euro Train Simulator game.
|
| My friends are into Warhammer and DIY racing drones. If those
| hobbies have no trouble attracting younger people, the problem
| here really isn't young people's interest.
| kiwih wrote:
| I've recently been designing a custom implementation of a DCC
| controller for a new model railroad I'm setting up - what don't
| you like about the protocol?
|
| I find the protocol fascinating in that the data signal is
| combined with the power, so you just run everything over the
| two tracks.
|
| Further, a transmitter is just a simple H-bridge that costs
| pennies...
| mbutler4 wrote:
| This is a bit sad for a number of reasons: my dad used to have a
| setup when I was a kid, I had sets as a kid, and the Tech Model
| Railroad Club
| (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tech_Model_Railroad_Club) was a
| source of inspiration to me as a kid with a computer and a train
| set.... It's sad to see this appearing to trail off, but I agree
| with a previous poster, I think the retirement of more baby
| boomers and their nostalgia may yet give the market a boost.
| mmmBacon wrote:
| I don't think this is just model trains. I recently took an
| interest in naval history and became interested in building a
| scale model of USS Missouri or Iowa. After researching how I
| could produce a realistic looking teak deck, I realized how big
| the model would be and how I don't have the space for that.
| Damogran6 wrote:
| Son is into R/C Drifting. He's 21 and throws a considereable
| amount of money at it (though not crazy when you consider what
| Records/Cassettes/CDs cost in the 80's)
|
| There's a crazy national involvement and it's pretty common to
| see two dozen guys watching the cars drift around the circut on
| Thursdays-Sunday nights.
|
| The cars are crazy with LiPO amperages and full suspensions,
| active cooling, and programmable throttle profiles.
|
| I guess the point is: It's social, and in-person, and has a lot
| of similarities to something model trains in a communal location
| would provide.
| quasse wrote:
| I'm glad R/C seems to be shifting to meet a younger demographic
| in a way that model railroading hasn't been able to. I recently
| bought an ARRMA and I'm blown away by how powerful it is
| compared to the Tamiya and HPI stuff I grew up with. It's fun
| to see the new R/C sports (drifting) and twists on existing
| hobbies (FPV becoming a new focus in R/C planes).
| PLenz wrote:
| Model railroading is D&D for non-fantasy folks. And I say this as
| a model railroader
| dver wrote:
| Here's a layout I've been following:
| https://www.youtube.com/@rcgrabbag
|
| Easily highlights the issues in messages here, takes room, time
| and money to do this.
| MPSimmons wrote:
| Please don't let this hobby die - this is my plan for when I'm
| too old and jaded to do this anymore
| Animats wrote:
| "Model Railroading is Fun!"
|
| Model Railroader magazine used to put that on their cover,
| perhaps in hopes of convincing people.
|
| They've been acquired by Kalmbach Media, which also owns
| "Trains", "Garden Railways", etc., along with "Astronomy" and
| "Discover".
|
| At full scale, the Pacific Locomotive Association, which runs the
| Niles Canyon Railway, seems to be hanging on. Those operations
| are high-maintenance and require many hours of volunteer labor.
| kleiba wrote:
| Setting up the old model train set surely must be on a lot of
| folk's bucket list. I for one definitely will set mine up one
| more time when I'm retired. Although I have never done that as an
| adult. But I think it's such a fantastic hobby to have.
|
| Everyone who prefers a virtual alternative in form of a video
| game is nuts! I cannot even see much similarity between the two,
| unless creating and automating tracks is really what you find
| interesting about the hobby (as lnrd hypothesizes). To me, that
| is the least interesting thing about it. It's not about creating
| a run of tracks, it's about creating a _corner of the world_. The
| scenery, the (long) building process, the hidden gems and
| stories... For many, it 's also about being in a club, the
| community... you know, like, in the old sense of the word, not
| the internet sense of the word.
|
| The article makes a good point that we should actually be living
| in a golden age of model building. Twenty, thirty years ago, it
| was much harder to come by supplies while in the globalized world
| we live in today, everything is just an online order away. But of
| course that also makes it much harder for your local shop to
| survive.
|
| Also: youtube channel tip:
| https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCjRkUtHQ774mTg1vrQ6uA5A
| h2odragon wrote:
| Keeping track and wheels clean enough to transmit power to
| rolling stock _sucks_.
|
| Now we've got plenty of battery to make that viable; and the
| radio technology to control the engines remotely _cheap_. once
| the industry works that change out and grovelling over you
| contact path is eliminated; they 'll have a boom.
|
| People will want to buy bare chassis units and 3d print their own
| model shells to put on them. A couple of industry standards about
| sizes and battery connectors and they could get somewhere, kick
| off a hobbyist reseller market, like people painting figurines
| for tabletop games.
|
| More likely "private equity" will buy up the existing market it;
| milk it til it dies; then sell the shell to some litigious patent
| shark vulture outfit. "The community" will have to invent new
| standards on its own; which i believe may be underway.
|
| https://hackaday.com/2022/09/21/3d-print-yourself-a-tiny-ste...
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