You are hereRant: The Death of Model Railroading (and old-school hobby shops)
Rant: The Death of Model Railroading (and old-school hobby shops)
Author's note: the following originated as a response to a thread topic on the Tyco Collector's Forum, when another member lamented the sudden closing of the "local hobby shop". After a few others echoed similar sentiments, I found myself on a rare e-tear, banging out this long missive, which went on to be echoed itself. Even without the direct "train forum" context, I happen to think the following speaks volumes about our current state as a society of instant-gratifaction consumers, and the passing of old values and morals.
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The writing has been on the wall for years, and will only get worse. I'd personally love nothing more than to run my own full-service hobby shop - with a healthy helping of trains of course - but I know it would be a fool's errand.
10 years ago I used to travel extensively, and made a habit of looking up hobby shops where I went. These days my travels are more limited but where I do go, there's little to choose from. Where I've returned to, old shops have closed, and it's obvious some others won't be there the next time I'm in town.
When I moved to / near Lexington KY in 1999, there were actually 5 hobby shops, including 2 dedicated train stores. Now the only thing left is Hobbytown USA - which doesn't do many people many favors outside of the RC world. When I starting building the Saint Canard Midland in 2002, there were 4 hobby shops with train departments in Louisville, and I made a point to buy something from each. Today, only one survives, although it thankfully is doing stable business as the last full-line, full-service family-owned shop in Louisville.
Even in Chicago, where railroads still rule, a number of shops have closed, and even my old favorite has been having a rough go in the last few years. And it's not for lack of service, or selection, or even attractive pricing.
For what it's worth, I don't consider Michael's, Hobby Lobby, et al. to be "hobby shops" in any shape or form. They are actually and primarily "craft / decorating" stores, mostly the domain of women, and places which specialize in fabrics, florals, framing, seasonal/wedding and useless imported decorative garbage. Sure, there are useful materials there, but modelers can find useful things anywhere. A token aisle or two of Testor's paints and full-MSRP kits, rung up by disinterested associates, does not a traditional "hobby shop" make. An island of last resort is more like it.
But then mass-market retailers have given up. Few years back, Wal-Mart and Meijer could be counted on to have a few decent sets around Christmastime, maybe even all year. Now there's nothing - Walmart doesn't even have model kits or supplies of any sort anymore. And I wonder how much longer Target will be in the business of giving trains away after Christmas before bailing out completely; nobody buys at full price beforehand, so why should they carry them at all?
For all the wonderful things this hobby has to offer, face it: there are too many barriers to entry. A train set at face value is simply boring: it goes around in a circle a few times. There is no longer anything novel or interesting about electricity or motors or self-propulsion itself, in this age of i-this and mobile-that. Even if a discounter sells an inexpensive but nice "train set" - and there are some truly excellent, inexpensive sets out there these days - where on earth does the newbie find anything to make it really neat? Buildings? Operating Accessories (who even makes those anymore)? Scenery? Extra cars? Do they go to Hobby Lobby and get sticker shock from Woodland Scenics' overpriced convenience, or pay $30 for an ancient outdated Plasticville building that should have been 10, but came preassembled in China to save you 3 minutes for your extra Jackson (and costs almost as much by itself as that entire discount set from Target did)?
Say nothing of the stereotypical "train guys" at the local hobby shop: crabby oldsters arguing about details and minutiae, in the name of justifying stuff that costs even MORE than the glorified junk at Hobby Lobby. "Sorry, we don't sell a caboose that's cost-appropriate to add to that set you bought for your kid, but these $30 Walthers ones are nice, and hey check out all the pipes on the bottom of this $50 Rapido..."
But most distressingly, why on earth would anyone foster any of the love or mystique to even WANT to model a train in the first place, these days? Railroads have pulled up from thousands of communities, have become invisible elsewhere, and even where you have an active RR situation, it's courtesy of a faceless corporate national monolith running bland rolling stock with tiny acronyms and graffiti on the side: nothing that invites today's ADD-afflicted persons to imagine, or dream, or yearn, or wonder. But let's say you are somehow intrigued in spite (or maybe because) of this: should you dare venture toward the property for a closer look, you're a terrorist. Or a "foamer" trying to make the engineer crash with a text message. Oops.
RC cars and planes are exciting. They're even "Ready to Roll models" in their own right. They run in multiple dimensions, not confined to circles on a table. You can take them with you and use them anywhere, indoors and out. They're colorful and (get this!) not expected to have every last invisible pipe accounted for. They're loud and sound "real" without expensive incompatible static DCC systems. They look like what you see in races on TV and historical documentaries on cable on a daily basis. They seem expensive up-front, but are not nearly any more so than a completed, respectable layout - and a complete, serviceable unit worth years of enjoyment doesn't cost much more than a single sound-equipped locomotive, with starters costing much less. They're customizable and repairable and personalizable, and are enjoyed in competetive and friendly social environments. I can see why they're eating the RR hobby for lunch. Model Railroading is about to become the shipbuilding, dollhousing, and stamp collecting of our time - a niche hobby with dedicated participants, but as much as we might laugh at those "fuddy dud" hobbies I just mentioned, well there we go.
Sigh. This is a very cynical rant, but it's no fun seeing something you love die a slow painful death.
Ah, nothing like "The Death Of Model Railroading" to get a good rant going. Here's my take, as someone who has been into the hobby as a kid (see below), and has rediscovered it in my mid-life.
You lament the fall of the local hobby shop; well sorry, welcome to the Internet age. I, for one, don't miss driving halfway across town to pay mark-up on limited in-shop selection to support the overhead on a brick-and-mortar clubhouse for some weird old dudes to hang around and shoot the bull. I don't need to pay $5 parking and $10 at the door to get into the train show to see the local club's same NTrak modules yet again and haggle with a bunch of carny-like road-show vendors trying to hawk a bunch of used Rapido-coupler crap and old memorabilia they picked up at an estate sale to me. I have a huge, easily searchable, possibly sales tax-free, better-priced, new and used inventory available 24/7 at my fingertips online and delivered straight to my door. This isn't just a model railroading thing...this is serious business model shift for EVERY retail business. From shoes to books to computers to home furnishings to toys, you name it...it's all being reduced to warehouses with minimal staff, an online catalogue, and home delivery. Travel agencies, newspapers, banks, phone service: it's all going online and people are being cut out of the equation. This is not the death of model railroading, it's merely a generational shift.
I don't heed the cries of the "back in my day" foamers who lament Class I consolidation, rails-to-trails, the demise of Kodachrome (what?) and slideshows, and the overly-romanticized days when railroading was "human". Yeah, Model Railroader magazine circulation is down. But take a look online. How many scanned ZTS/SPINS/car control manuals, track plans, maps, timetables, signal maintenance, and employee manuals are out there? Hundreds. How many blogs, groups/forums, and railfanning YouTube videos are available now? Thousands. How many digital pictures? Freaking *millions*. Railfanning is very much alive, despite the "No Trespassing" fences, "No photographs" Amtrak policy, track abandonments, and economic downturn. And don't forget there's a considerably vibrant MSTS/Trainz/etc. community (despite some of the software being nearly a decade old). Try telling some of those guys that the 100s of hours they've spent designing and customizing their own routes is not "model railroading".
People can lament the lack of kids entering the hobby, but I'm not worried. I look at what's available for my kids: BRIO (and its many compatible knock-offs) and Thomas are big time. Video games didn't just appear with the Xbox and Wii. Nintendo has been around since the mid-80ies. And when has it ever been true that model railroading was cheap and accessible to children? When was it more than strictly an indoor hobby for nerdy kids that weren't into sports? When was it ever the case that for under the age of 14, it was something seriously more than busting out the train once a year to run around the Christmas tree in a circle at full speed? You can still, and always could, do that for today's equivalent of $50-$100. But if you're talking about serious model railroading, it has never been a hobby for children. I would argue that without a parent helping (pushing it on?) their kids, it has never really been accessible to anyone under the age of 25. Even as a casual hobby, it requires disposable income, time, life stability, and floorspace. It is not for when you are struggling through college or living in your first dingy apartment or starting your new career and family, and certainly not for when your job is part-time at McDonald's and you're fighting with your snotty little brother over who gets the top bunk or borrow the car.
So what's my point? Like I said in the beginning, it's not dying, it's changing, and the older generation is getting grumpy. (I'd go so far as to say this is how things work in all aspects of life!) It seems to me that in the past decade, N-scale has evolved and grown in more ways than you can imagine. There are tons of tech-savvy up-and-coming model railroaders, most of them baby-boomers with looming retirement and money to burn. They won't be restricted to the "steam-diesel transition era", are excited about computer-controlled signaling and DCC, and are comfortable with ordering online. They don't need to go down to the LHS for advice, they can get it all from their desktop. Kids still know and love trains, and what they might not see rolling through their town, they can and will find online. I have no idea what this will produce in 30 years, but you better believe that when that mid-life crisis kicks in and they've got that spare bedroom when the kids are off to college, a few hundred bucks per month on model railroad stuff isn't unrealistic. Has this ever been different?
The "hobby" needs to adapt and change with the times. From that perspective, I think it's doing okay. It might not be what we remember from our youth, but it isn't dead yet, and I'm still not convinced it is even dying.
...is the key here. Once I got a look at Model Railroader when I was eight or nine and saw the possibilities beyond the circle of track, I was hooked. Noobs need a hand to get to the next step, whether through the web or a magazine, or at the local club. There will always be competition for the hobby dollar -- slot cars were tipped to kill off MRR'ing in the Sixties -- so that's nothing new. Besides, most guys put trains aside for girls and cars and high school and college, then come back to it as older, more sophisticated hobbyists. Kalmbach should link up with trainset makers and drop a free issue in each box. That's one step. Offering quality afforably-priced lines, such as the Atlas Trainman and Walthers Trainline, is another. There is a huge, dare I say largest, consumer segment that will never be able to pay $300 for a loco, or even $40 for a boxcar. Go after them, hard, and make do with a smaller, loyal group of customers.
It is a shame really, technology has hurt allot of hobbies. Take what I do for example. Nowadays ever jackass with an I-phone or crackberry can take a picture or video and send it into the news because they jerk off to the thought of getting their name on TV. What they don't realize is just how much that stuff is worth and they're just pissing it away for free. I for one hate how everything has to be fast and inefficient.
Problem is in this day and age of video games, TV, and instant entertainment at the push of a button, rampant A.D.D. disallows young people from getting involved in such things as model railroading. All other forms of crafts like woodworking, scrapbooking(chicks), etc which require actual TIME INVESTMENT to get gratification just do not appeal to ... See Morethe younger generation anymore. Why waste 3 hours repainting a train when, as you mentioned, just to watch it go in circles? Just flip on that xbox 360 and shoot up some noobs, in 3 minutes tops you will be scoring headshots. Tired of messing with that? Flip another switch and instantly you are watching whatever current Disney Channel show is popular. The way TV and video games are today, they instill a shorter attention span into kids.
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