Getting the Next Generation

I agree with the writer that things like Facebook and Twitter will attract the younger folk as well as good quality video on You Tube.   The other thing that will bring them in is Train Shows and exhibits.   Here in Queensland where I live the show season has just started.   Bundaberg was a regional centre and had there show in March, the Brisbane show has just been held in May, the next one is another regional in Toowoomba in the weekend over the end of May and the start of June.   Then another small Brisbane shows held by another club in the Northern suburbs, then the Gold Coast Show both in August and the Ipswich Railroad Museum holds there's in October.

The upshot of all of this is for about 5 months of the year there are shows held in and around Brisbane, (within a hour and a half to two hour drive) and the amount of young people that attend these is staggering.   Most are younger folk with their parents but a lot are the teenagers as well.   The exposure to the clubs and layouts present ensure that the hobby is in a good place at the moment.  Yes while some of the smaller hobby shops are finding it tough the larger ones are still around and those with an internet presence still seem to be able to attract new followings at these shows.   We have retailers from the local area, and from other cities and states attend just about every one of these shows.

I don't fear for the future of the hobby at all, to me it seems that we are in pretty good shape and that the technology that we are heading towards with battery power for loco's not far off and other things that the younger generation is in to with computers I believe that we will be around for a long time yet.

Rob McLear

Kingaroy 

Australia.

Railroad Modeler vs. Model Railroader

This is an interesting philosophical discussion.  Unfortunately, I have heard it defined exactly opposite of how it was defined in this MRH article.

(Russ Reinberg from Finescale Railroader described it exactly the opposite in Trevor Marshall's 6/1/2011 podcast).

Either way, it's an interesting philosophical discussion!

Keep up the great work guys.  I love the magazine!!! (and especially Trainsmasters TV)

My son's point of view

I have been involved in discussions with my son about the lack of interest in kids relating to trains  a lot recently and we talked about it at length. My son is 21 and has trained as a programmer. He also has excellent hands and has an ability to look at any piece of machinery and see very quickly how it either works or what is wrong with it. When he was about ten years old, we deadheaded on the American Orient Express to San Antonio from Santa Fe and we were the sole occupants of the Sandy Brook, Ike's old boat tail car from the '50's. My son played video games the entire time while his old man pressed his nose to the glass and cooked Santa Fe style French toast for everyone in the Galley..

My son runs these gaming tournaments in Boston and Seattle called PAX. He's the floor manager bringing up to 150 computers together in a gaming environment for people who pay about $150-1500 dollars each to be in the tourneys. My son chooes the games that will be played.  The tourneys amazingly draw tens of thousands of gamers to each contest. What he likes about the HO stuff I'm  doing is the DCC and applications for it.  He has no real interest in fine modeling although he clearly has the  skills. He watches me handbuild turnouts and he has no interest.  I have not really introduced him to OPS which I've been participating in down at Dave Sias layout in Merideth NH. He has expressed some curiosity when I describe it to him as a sustained switching  puzzle where a bunch of people rely on each other to be on time.

Regardless, he said he doesn't see how to keep it going for a very simple reason and that's money. He said that to build what I've done is an over 20K investment and it's far from thorough. He said just to buy an engine with no layout is cost prohibitive compared to gaming. He said gaming has the same sort of social interaction as Facebook stuff with next to no cost and that a $500 dollar layout is not going to be a good enough draw to do it. Even Bluebox kits are vanishing and $40 dollar RTR is what replaces it. That's not craftsmenship.  He thinks facebook is zero calorie intimacy but kids are very different about intimacy than my generation and he posts a lot on his facebook  wall anyway. . He did like the interaction with me for a while but his interest wandered away into chips and LEDs again pretty quickly. I draw him back but it doesn't last. He's always happy to help or to solve a problem but then it stops. Is he typical? I don't know. Compared to the thousands he sees at PAX, or Southwest in Austin,   I didn't see many kids at Amherst. Thomas the tank engine really may be the only link you're going to maintain. 

I think being content with what we've got may have to be enough. What we've got is really cool. Steam engines got replaced too by jets. Jets frequently get replaced by internet conferences. Things evolve based on what people want.

One thing I can tell you is

One thing I can tell you is that I've run across a lot of 20-somethings who are in the video-production business that I would hire full-time in a heartbeat to help produce TrainMasters TV... if only they knew a bit about the hobby.  They are excellent at camera operation, lighting, audio and even have some story-telling skills.  Beyond that, for most of them their knowledge is in the area of games - and gaming culture.  

I can't hire any of them long-term because they need to understand the hobby, the terminology, and have some modest modeling skills.  Most of them have never built anything, and none have shown any interest in being involved in what we do.  Unfortunately for them there are not many jobs in producing media around video games, especially in my part of the world.  

In 2015 I have a full-time job opening for one of them.  I'm just wondering how difficult it would be for me to train someone in how to be a railroad modeler by then.

One thing regarding a

One thing regarding a demographic of our hobby is just as stated old guys. My wife accompanied me to a train show and  had to step out to make a call. Prior to leaving she stated that she would be back and find me. Upon finally locating me she said when she came back she just thought now I just have to find a fat old guy. Next thought this place is full of fat old guys. Next thought there is my fat old guy.

At one train show I noticed a large group of teenagers with a model railroad club. That club had put forth effort and attracted this group and was also putting forth the effort to show them how to do things. On Saturdays they had what would pass for a class about something related to model railroading. I talked with some of these kids at length and found that they were very interested in trains and soaked up information like a sponge. The kids all seemed to be above average intelligence and seemed to have great skills with anything that was electronic in nature as far as interface went. The age seemed to be grade school to about 17.

I think the group we are after in our hobby would be more akin to the chess team than the football team based on this group. Think of finding geeks (not meant to be derogatory). Some high schools will have clubs or a sponsor, another good source would be scout troops as well. Now I am not trying to exclude anyone based on what I saw but was just mentioning it to toss out another demographic to look at. One of the magazines used to have a section called student fare, I remembered reading that when I was not a fat old guy. Maybe Joe could start a section of the magazine tailored for the youth and new guys to the hobby. Links to it on the social media may bring folks to the magazine and then to the hobby.

Rob in Texas

Would it be easier to train a

Would it be easier to train a modeler how to work a camera and lights? Maybe you need to consider the chicken and egg thing. Just a thought. Obviously you could not train someone to your skill level in a week but you might be able to train someone easier than teaching them to be a model railroader. Also if they are already very interested in the hobby this could become their dream job.

Rob in Texas

I would love to see the NMRA

Rob, I've considered that route too.

But most of the hobbyists in my neck of the woods - and in the hobby in general - are over 35 and already have careers where they are comfortable, or are retired and really don't want to work that much.  My local MR club has one member under the age of 30, and the majority are over 60.  On the other hand, we have a college in town that churns out two dozen broadcast-TV graduates every year.

churns out two dozen broadcast-TV graduates every year.

I don't think it matters if the video guy knows about trains. someone can give him a script. The main thing is excellent technical skills so the product comes out clear and interesting to view. If it's a layout video I'd rather hear the owner/builder's comments than the camera guy's anyway......DaveB

Dave...

These are behind-the-scenes people I'm talking about, as opposed to on-camera.  I have found through experience that both those on-camera and behind it need to know the difference between an SD40 and a GG1.  Very little of our content is scripted, and the material that is will sometimes be edited on the fly just before cameras roll.  Everyone involved needs to know their stuff.

Where it really becomes an issue is in the editing stage.  When someone is talking about scratchbuilt structures on their layout we can't be showing a shot of a Walthers kit, for example.  Someone outside the hobby won't know the difference.  We've all seen that kind of error in mainstream TV.  We absolutely can't fake it on TrainMasters.

Back to the topic:  In the past decade or so, I have witnessed a thirst for more authentic experiences, whether it's better food, or their living arrangement, or social situations - certainly in my age group.  Doing things with your hands seems to fit into that paradigm.  I'm not sure if younger people have the same yearning for authenticity in their lives however.

another thought about it, maybe two...

Don't forget when the issue of entry level cost is looked at that the current youth of America is massively unemployed. Levels like 25% unemployment are the reality these days and that doesn't allow for buying trains.

The other aspect candidly is sex.  Kids have it now pretty regularly at astonishingly early ages. Sex trumps trains as entertainment. Didn't happen when I was a kid, but... just sayin'

C'mon now!

Back when we were youngsters kids just stayed home and behaved like little angels.  You bet they did.

Anyway, rates of teen pregnancy are at or near historic lows, and continue to drop, suggesting the kids are considering retaining more disposable income for their train hobby rather than supporting their own children.  Those kids are thinking ahead!

CONSENSUS

That is funny that you show that diagram, I just read this morning in the news that the population growth in the US for the past ten years has been very, very low. It has not been that low since the 1940's. I guess it has to do with economics.

Lack of population growth - double-edged sword

While fewer heads in the next generation means less consumption of resources, it also means a smaller market (ouch).

Marketing 101 is if the market has fewer total heads, then if all other factors remain equal, your business is on track to shrink. As if the hobby shops (or all brick and mortar retailers) didn't have enough to worry about, a shrinking market with fewer new kids coming into the world wanting to play with trains just adds to the negatives.

That said, I do know the Millennials generation (kids born from about 1985 - 2005) is now LARGER than the baby boomers with families having an average of 3 kids during those years. That means there's MORE families with kids looking for fun toys like trains right now - and Google trends supports that. Searches for Lego Trains, Brio, Thomas, Polar Express are all UP.

Don't forget some things that

Don't forget some things that may have affected that demographic, the pill shows up during the biggest drop, Abortion increase, new STDs that antibiotics don't cure. I would be suspect of those numbers just for the huge number of unwed mothers on welfare. I also think we have a group on welfare in the united states that is over 40% now which is record high levels from what I am hearing and reading. Not trying to turn this into a political discussion at this point the cause is not important, think flat tire, we have a flat if it was from a nail or worn out it is still flat.

Now to go back to the topic the shift in demographics coupled with reduced disposable income and time will effect our hobby more than anything else. One of my fellow club members thinks the huge focus on operation may also be affecting our hobby as you do not have to have a layout. It is possible to play the operation game on a computer and skip the buying, building, problem solving that comes with the hobby. It also takes no more room than your computer. Now I am in favor of operation, but I also think you should build things to some degree not buy the ready to disassemble stuff.

One thing I think gets folks involved is an open house and instead of watching the trains orbit, get a throttle in the hand of the guest and have them operate a train. The actual being there has an effect on most folks that they don't get from watching.

Rob in Texas

Present

But for now, we should enjoy what we have and be more concern about the present. None of us are fortune tellers but for now we can start working on our layout so that we can run our trains in the future.

Well, I didn't mean it to be

Well, I didn't mean it to be controversial but there are far more distractions now than when I was a kid in the late '50's and the distribution of disposable income is a lot worse.

I spent the morning doing OPS and it was fairly intense for me running a yard and everytime I made a spotting mistake, a new train arrived. I absolutely loved the challenge and I wound up inundated! We go back Saturday for a regional meeting and the goal is to take the new folks who have never done it to have a great time and to leave everyone feeling like they love these trains. Everyone will run a train.  Even so, there's no young folks. My inclination is to enjoy what we have which is remarkable and if it draws kids, it draws kids. If it doesn't, it doesn't.  The numbers that the facebook stats show include a huge pile of people. My big concern is still that it's all moving towards pre-packaged stuff which fails to interest me at all. I don't want someone else modeling my realism or my layout.  I am drawn to the process, not to the finish line. The cadence of the process beckons me. 

it's all moving towards pre-packaged stuff

the ready to run stuff is just bigger parts to create a more complex whole. Instead of spending a month on one car or small building we spend it on one scene or module. ....DaveB

You nailed it, Dave

Dave you totally nailed it with this comment. We're still working just as hard at the hobby, except now it's about building layouts/modules instead of building individual models.

I, for one, consider that to be a good thing.

Where it has affected the publishers is your entire readership can use articles about building a better layout, but very few readers will be interested in a model of something from the 1952 Clinchfield, for example.

Individual model building has become so location, road, and era specific that filling a publication with individual model-building articles is simply a good way to make sure the majority of readers won't find anything they can use. So instead, the magazines are moving to more articles about building better layouts - and then more readers are happy.

As a result, however, the model builders in the hobby complain that model-building is dying. No, not really. It's just so dang specific that publishers need to be very selective about what they publish around model building or risk losing readership.

Yup

Exactly the reason I canceled my RMC subscription. Loved the long format article style but after 24 issues found very little I could translate to my layout.

the majority of readers won't find anything they can use.

Modeling specific cars or buildings can have a wide appeal if they are technique focused and not specific model focused.  Interesting or innovative methods can be applied to other projects so the author should be thinking along those lines when deciding if a project is worth writing an article about and when choosing which aspects of the construction to document. I recall enjoying the old "essential freight cars" articles in RMC even though I don't recall ever building any of those specific cars I did find useful information in  the articles....DaveB

Very true ... but

Very true, but a surprising number of people can't seem to translate the techniques to their scale, location, prototype, or era.

A very common email we get goes like this ...

"You guys don't publish enough O scale modeling, so I'm unsubscribing and will no longer be a reader of MRH."

Then when I go look at the current issue when we get this email, I see there's a column on DCC sound, there's a column on bulk oil distributors, there's a column on some amazing weathered models, there's a small article on using drafting tools to help modeling, there's an HO layout feature, there's Yes it's a model photo inspiration (and one O scale model), there's an article on building a structure, there's an article on painting signs on buildings, there's an article on making trees ... but all the article examples were HO or N scale.

You notice, all those techniques can be applied very nicely to O scale - but because they ARE NOT O scale, then people can't always make the leap and they quit reading MRH.

That's one reason we don't prominently talk about the scale outside of the TOC - because a good modeling technique is a good modeling technique no matter what the scale is.

So no matter how "general" the technique is - some people just won't make the general application, so it's tricky.

+1000

Exactly.  Most such articles, especially ones primarily featuring scale drawings, involve models I will never have the slightest interest in building.  Emphasize core model building competencies in a generic way that can be applied to any project and I'll read it.

...

I've brought up the idea of remote operations before, whereas model railroad operations could very easily be tuned to become a competitive online experience...and we collectively have all the tools available to do it... To be honest, I just don't think the industry/community is interested in the things the young people are interested in, and a lot of young people don't want to have anything to do with a crowd of old people who look like their dad - and some of these young people are in their 40s... I do run into this sentiment when I talk about the subject at work.

I kind of realized this myself after I sold a small pile of stuff on ebay, looked towards the closet and did the math... He's right about the cost of the online games, they cost nothing except time.  Facebook only costs time.  This hobby: Time, Money, Space, sanity...

 These things that are important to you...are they important to young people?  Why should they build something?  My friend who does build stuff is now in Japan, building electronics.  Every time he puts together a successful project, it becomes a crowd sourced product.  It's a double satisfaction whammy for him...

And student fare went away for a good reason: the students stopped writing in.  In this era, it's VERY easy for web natives to find what they're looking for without asking questions, and when questions are asked, it's on forums or facebook or in places far removed form both... 

The question, though, is what will these kids be losing out on if they become model railroaders at this crucial time in their developmental careers?  At 17, it'd be far more productive to be learning a programming language than it would be to learn how to use DCC.  Or they could use that chunk of money to buy a car, and get some legs under them - or use their weekends to get a part time job.  There is SO MUCH to do right now for young people...

You nailed the first point, but the second point...Young people have more immediately disposable money until they move out or go to college, and even then they're living on borrowed time.  The bigger point here is that young people have SO many options for their money, it's very quickly spent.

Yes, we're thinking ahead, which means we're usually using at least one if not two forms of contraceptive, and if that doesn't work, there's always Plan B if we know we screwed up and Plan A[bortion] if we find out there's a surprise a couple weeks later. 

In my masters program I took a management course where we discussed a matter of anchors, these qualities we hold dear to because we think we HAVE to have them, when in reality, it's only a psychological misconception due to our frame of reference, our personal preferences, or because it's our own background.  An example would be saying the car I am going to buy HAS to be red, and then when all the cars are white, black, blue, or green, complaining that there are simply no cars to buy.  In truth, there are cars to buy, I'm just hung up on that one quality that artificially limits my choices.  I remove the anchor, poof, there's a car I can buy, LOTS of cars I can buy.  Or maybe there IS a red car, but it is much more expensive or much more broke than the others, but I buy it anyway and then complain about how it was all I could get.

Simple Fix: Separate script from video.  Sit a content expert down with the video after it has been shot and cut to write and record the script.  Dub the script in.

In other words, you're asking for the sky when all you need is light.  Behind the scenes, how many of those people in the credits of movies are actual subject matter specialists for the movies they make?  Usually, NON of them!  They simply know how to do their skill, and they do it well!  Hire a production expert, not a model railroad expert, and teach them what to look for.  They'll get the shot you want, you take care of the rest.

Then HIRE THEM!

They need experience, you need proficiency.  At the same time, they're likely gunning to aim for bigger and brighter stars on the horizon - but they can't until they get real experience under their belts.  So get with the college and find out what it would take to offer a couple internship seats for seniors.  Or put out that job listing and HIRE that one person with the idea in the back of your mind that in two to five years, this person is going to move to a new job with better pay in a better city with options you'll never be able to compete with.  That's what we do! 

But this rotation of staff will be great for you and for TMTV - why?  First, you will learn how to train people with no modeling experience how to get the shots you want. It will keep you fresh in honing their production skills, which ultimately shows in the final screening.  They don't need to know if it's a GG-1 or a SD-7, they just need to know how to produce a quality screen image, what you want in the shot, and how to follow your direction to get exactly what you're looking for.  This may mean you'll have to work on your communication skills, but it will make you and them better at the profession!

Wisest words spoken all night...