Youth and the hobby

[AMJ]

This is an interesting video from USA about discussions they are having about how to attract the youth into the hobby of modelling and ways to retain then.

 

Might be an idea for clubs in the UK and makers to work together.

 

[The Johnster]

O lord not this old chestnut.  The hobby is dying, the demographic is ageing, we must do more to attract young blood, and on and on and on.  I've been involved in the hobby in terms of taking a magazine and being more or less aware of what is going on and what the debates are since 1965, when I was 13 years old, and people were going on about the same thing back then, have continually gone on about it ever since, and probably did so before I was aware of it and will continue to do so long after I have ceased to be aware of anything except the worms.  The hobby, in the meantime, has largely ignored it all and gone from strength to strength; it is more popular now than ever and it's image has improved greatly.

[tomparryharry]

Is it a manufacturer-driven sentiment? After all, no new clients mean no new money...... The largest problem, IMHO, is relate-ability. Historical education is the key, where industry has changed beyond all recognition. A tram is now a tram, whichever way you call it, and a locomotive hauled passenger train is now very much a thing of the past.

 

A failure to display & educate is a very large problem facing the preserved railways of today. People are now running trains, for the sake of running trains, Little wonder, therefore, that one or two outfits are dying on their respective bums. 

 

Scale is not an issue here; it's down to fidelity, especially in the smaller scale such as 00, where the wars will be fought. Keeping it relevant  will be the biggest challenge of all. 

 

Me? Oh no! I'll be dead by then! And anyway, I've given those manufacturers enough chances to make things like an Aberdare, and a Taff Vale 04. Too late! Too late!

[eastglosmog]

I have done my bit for the continuation of the hobby.  Infected my Nephew (9) with the bug some years ago.  At the moment I don't think he cares about the finer points of how many rivets there should be on a Dean Goods, but I'm working on him!

[sir douglas]

thought of this thread while listening

 

Edited April 14, 2020 by sir douglas

[WD0-6-0]

I think theres hope yet, my cousins young son has a very keen interest in railways which I'm sure will continue to develop. He also calls me "the train man" of which I am very proud!

There are quite a few younger people interested in the hobby, I know a few of them and I'm only 21 myself. I'm sure theres a future for it!

[TEAMYAKIMA]

Whilst I have absolutely no wish to disagree with those who paint a rosy picture of the hobby I do have to say that my experience is that the hobby is 'contracting' rather than the more provocative word 'dying'. I don't think the hobby will die, but I do think it will become very much a niche pastime.

 

I was born in 1953 and so I am one of the last generation who were inspired by steam trains as an everyday experience. Back when I was at junior school in 1960-66 I would say that 1/3 to 1/2 of my school friends had train sets - what percentage of junior school children in 1980 had train sets? In 1990? In 2000? Now?

 

My point is that people who take a positive view of the hobby point out (quite correctly) that in the last few decades the hobby has been strengthened/sustained by newly retired 'returnees', but to be a returnee you have to have been in the hobby originally in the first place. We are approaching a time when the newly retired might be looking for a hobby to occupy their time and some will decide to take up model railways but because so few have folk memory of modelling in their formative years fewer will take up modelling than in decades past.

[njee20]

It’s always been a hobby for the more “mature” participant. For reasons of time, space, money etc.

 

I’m 32, and picked up an interest from my dad, drifted away in my teenage years and came back to it about 7 years ago. My 3 year old is train mad, I suspect he’ll lose interest at some point in the next 2-10 years, with luck he’ll return, who knows. 

 

It’s already a niche hobby. It’ll never be mainstream. I think it’s actually in the consciousness of more people than in any time in the last few decades presently, with articles on Rod Stewart’s layout in the mass media, television shows about modelling etc.

 

It’ll ebb and flow, but it won’t die. 

[Pete the Elaner]

At the club, we usually work on layouts rather than get them out for a running session. We are rebuilding our test track right now.

We have a younger modeller who takes some trains along (8, who sometimes goes with his grandfather during half term). Because he is not there regularly & for an 8-year old, being among unfamiliar adults is a bit intimidating, he has never got involved with what we are working on. I am really not sure he would enjoy soldering wires or laying track anyway.

The test track would be ideal, but it is not running so last time he was there, I got out a fully working & scenic end-to-end so he could run some of his trains on. There was also a 13 year old there that evening who is more regular & does get involved with rebuilding the test track. He was unaware that we had this particular end-to-end.

 

The whole club could feel a sudden upward change in mood once they started running trains up & down the little branch.

[TEAMYAKIMA]

2 hours ago, njee20 said:

It’s always been a hobby for the more “mature” participant. For reasons of time, space, money etc.

 

It’s already a niche hobby. It’ll never be mainstream. I think it’s actually in the consciousness of more people than in any time in the last few decades presently, with articles on Rod Stewart’s layout in the mass media, television shows about modelling etc.

 

It’ll ebb and flow, but it won’t die. 

 

I find myself bot agreeing and disagreeing with you on this.

 

TBH I think it depends on how you define what 'our' hobby actually is - and thereby hangs the issue.

 

As someone who was born in 1953 I can absolutely assure that 'our' hobby was totally mainstream - it was the very definition of mainstream, it was the default hobby for boys.

 

And therein lies the problem of defining what 'our' hobby actually is today. In my statement above 'our' hobby very often took place on the carpet or if you were posh on a 6 x 4 board.

 

So what is 'our' hobby today?

 

If by our hobby we mean a pastime as undertaken by the average RMwebber - someone who cares about liveries, and periods, and rivets - then I agree that it always has been a niche hobby and has a future as a (possibly very) niche hobby.

 

On the other hand if when  refer to our hobby we mean the hobby of the 1950's/60's/70's/80's - a mass hobby where families enjoyed 'playing with trains' then I have to say that that interpretation of the hobby is virtually dead and will continue to die.

 

Edited April 16, 2020 by TEAMYAKIMA

[Pete the Elaner]

36 minutes ago, njee20 said:

 

It’s already a niche hobby. It’ll never be mainstream. I think it’s actually in the consciousness of more people than in any time in the last few decades presently, with articles on Rod Stewart’s layout in the mass media, television shows about modelling etc.

 

Rod Stewart

Pete Waterman

Michael Palin

Roger Daltrey

 

How many more well-known people model railways in private?

[njee20]

31 minutes ago, TEAMYAKIMA said:

 

On the other hand if when  refer to our hobby we mean the hobby of the 1950's/60's/70's/80's - a mass hobby where families enjoyed 'playing with trains' then I have to say that that interpretation of the hobby is virtually dead and will continue to die.

 

Yes perhaps I should say it'll never be mainstream again, but it hasn't been for a very long time. So prophecies of doom published today seem misplaced.

Virtually every child has a wooden trainset or similar, a significant number will still progress to having a bit of Hornby track with a Thomas on the carpet. A very small subset of those will continue (or return) to 'proper' railway modelling in later life, but I genuinely don't think that proportion has materially changed in decades, nor do I think it will change significantly.

 

33 minutes ago, Pete the Elaner said:

Rod Stewart

Pete Waterman

Michael Palin

Roger Daltrey

 

How many more well-known people model railways in private?

Jools Holland springs to mind, but various others have alluded to it.

[Pete the Elaner]

1 minute ago, njee20 said:

 

Jools Holland springs to mind, but various others have alluded to it.

 

Ah yes, I forgot about him.

One of my friends has made some buildings for him too.

[TEAMYAKIMA]

37 minutes ago, Pete the Elaner said:

Rod Stewart

Pete Waterman

Michael Palin

Roger Daltrey

 

How many more well-known people model railways in private?

 

That is true - but what do all those people have in common?  They are all (very) old.

[TEAMYAKIMA]

So, as it has been said before, this is an old chestnut which has been discussed many times before.

 

I have my view and others have theirs.

 

To summarise my view in one sentence.

 

The hobby will always continue but as a very small specialist niche one which is craft based, the days of it being a mainstream hobby for the average person are fading fast and will eventually die off.

 

I don't want to disagree with others here and so I will leave it at that except to say that I hope I'm wrong but to sum it up ' I hope for the best, but fear the worst '

 

Now back to the shed to do some modelling!

 

 

[TEAMYAKIMA]

9 minutes ago, AlexHolt said:

 There was even one magazine in February of last year that published an article which went as far as saying that if you didn't have a prototypical layout you were just mucking around and not doing the hobby correctly.  

 

I think that shows the divergence within 'our' hobby - that view is shared by many in the scale end of the hobby and shows that people of that persuasion have little in common with the mainstream, easily accessed hobby of old where people just bought/made/ran trains they liked.

 

Now please let me make it clear that I don't criticise either end to the spectrum, but what I think I'm saying is that there is no longer a 'our' hobby. What was 'our' hobby has expanded in diverging directions so that people at either end of that spectrum have very little in common with those at the other end of that spectrum.

[HonestTom]

Personally, I think money is a big factor in young people being able to get into the hobby. Now, this isn't a soapbox whine on locomotives and rolling stock being too expensive - there are plenty of entry-level and second-hand items for the newcomer.

 

But rather, I think too much emphasis is placed on what you can buy. For instance, all too often I find that how-to features in magazines feel like a manufacturer's puff piece. "How do I create a waterfall?" "Well, buy SoopaScenic's EasyWater (£8.99), Megascene's Riverbed Rocks (£5.99), ModelRailwayz' White Water (£6.99) and SceneMaster's Riverbed Plants (£7.99) and install them using GlueXPert's Scenic Glue (£4.99) per our step-by-step..." It's a lot of money for a teenager or a student. And to be honest, it's creatively unsatisfying to just buy stuff.

 

There's little emphasis on actually making things from scratch in a way that's accessible to all. I feel like the last well-known modeller to really lean into the do-it-yourself, use-your-imagination way of doing things was Allan Downes. I was slightly sickened by a recent magazine's Q&A section answering a reader's question about making your own weathering powders with what amounted to, "but you might as well just buy weathering powder." Like, great, but why shouldn't people try doing things their way?

 

I personally believe that a lot of the young people who would have gone into model railways, people looking to make things creatively, are going into war gaming. I watch a lot of war gaming scenery videos online, and so much emphasis is placed on using your imagination to overcome technical and budgetary limitations. There are some really brilliant modellers in that hobby who nevertheless do a great job of presenting modelmaking in an encouraging way, that really makes you want to have a go.

[MarcD]

Not sure it's dieing I would use changing may also be tempted to use diverging. But this is something that has been under the surface of the hobby for many years, and has nothing to do with the ages of the people within the hobby. 

As someone in their 40's with a train mad 5 year old I'm pretty sure that in 50 years time there will be something resembling model railways but my prediction is that there will ones that are mass produced or ones that exact scale replicas of history scenes with nothing in-between.

Marc

[BlackRat]

On 30/03/2020 at 00:53, The Johnster said:

O lord not this old chestnut.  The hobby is dying, the demographic is ageing, we must do more to attract young blood, and on and on and on.  I've been involved in the hobby in terms of taking a magazine and being more or less aware of what is going on and what the debates are since 1965, when I was 13 years old, and people were going on about the same thing back then, have continually gone on about it ever since, and probably did so before I was aware of it and will continue to do so long after I have ceased to be aware of anything except the worms.  The hobby, in the meantime, has largely ignored it all and gone from strength to strength; it is more popular now than ever and it's image has improved greatly.

It's gone ' from strength to strength' due to adults spending rather a lot of money on their hobby.

 

Sometimes serious money, 

 

I'm in my local Model Railway shop ( as that's virtually all it sells)  a couple of times a week.

 

Couple of hundred visits a year.

 

I could count on one hand how many 'youths' I've seen in there.

 

Even less under 10's.

[rocor]

On 16/04/2020 at 09:14, Pete the Elaner said:

Rod Stewart

Pete Waterman

Michael Palin

Roger Daltrey

 

How many more well-known people model railways in private?

 

 

The former F1 driver Riccardo Patrese .

 

[DK123GWR]

On 17/04/2020 at 13:42, HonestTom said:

Personally, I think money is a big factor in young people being able to get into the hobby. Now, this isn't a soapbox whine on locomotives and rolling stock being too expensive - there are plenty of entry-level and second-hand items for the newcomer.

 

But rather, I think too much emphasis is placed on what you can buy. For instance, all too often I find that how-to features in magazines feel like a manufacturer's puff piece. "How do I create a waterfall?" "Well, buy SoopaScenic's EasyWater (£8.99), Megascene's Riverbed Rocks (£5.99), ModelRailwayz' White Water (£6.99) and SceneMaster's Riverbed Plants (£7.99) and install them using GlueXPert's Scenic Glue (£4.99) per our step-by-step..." It's a lot of money for a teenager or a student. And to be honest, it's creatively unsatisfying to just buy stuff.

 

There's little emphasis on actually making things from scratch in a way that's accessible to all. I feel like the last well-known modeller to really lean into the do-it-yourself, use-your-imagination way of doing things was Allan Downes. I was slightly sickened by a recent magazine's Q&A section answering a reader's question about making your own weathering powders with what amounted to, "but you might as well just buy weathering powder." Like, great, but why shouldn't people try doing things their way?

 

I personally believe that a lot of the young people who would have gone into model railways, people looking to make things creatively, are going into war gaming. I watch a lot of war gaming scenery videos online, and so much emphasis is placed on using your imagination to overcome technical and budgetary limitations. There are some really brilliant modellers in that hobby who nevertheless do a great job of presenting modelmaking in an encouraging way, that really makes you want to have a go.

I'm going to say (as a 17 year old) that much of this is probably correct. I had a train set when I was younger (5-ish), with a combination of rolling stock that I had inherited from my Dad and some new stuff that he had bought for me. It all went into the loft for a few years but came down at some point last year. At that point, it was a piece of wood, some track, and a mismatched box of trains. This may be the definition of fun for a five year old, but by the time you get a bit older I think you do need to start developing your layout in order to keep it interesting. I now have a station with two through platforms and a bay platform, each suitable for 4 (5 at a stretch) coaches, with a station building.

 

If most people were to look into this, they would no doubt go straight to the Hornby website and find that a platform which is roughly 1/2 of a carriage long costs £4.25. For 12 carriages (4 on each through platform and the one-sided bay platform) you would be paying 24*£4.25=£102. No one in their right mind would pay that, whatever age they are.

 

The next thing that they will do is google 'how to make an 00 gauge platform'. This is much better, but all of the videos that they will find will still require a trip to the DIY store to buy a large sheet of wood. Wouldn't it be better if there was more focus on what you could do with materials found at home? I know that its possible. My station platforms are sections cut out of large cardboard boxes found lying around in the loft, painted grey with a mixture of the left over white paint for a ceiling and black food colouring (it made any food it was added to taste horrible so this was the best use for it). The building is a free Wordsworth kit glued onto smaller boxes, including cereal boxes. It's a completely improvised (and free) station that needs a bit of smoothing over in places, but I like the overall effect of it. Necesity is the mother of invention, but even if you ask a question on a forum about the best way to make something there will inevitably be a variety of pricey products reccomended. Young people are resourceful but I have no doubt that they will be put off if the 'right' way to do things seems so far beyond their means. 

 

The point you make about weathering powder is also a good one. I would love to start weathering some of my models at some point, but I would also like to do so by buying as little as possible. The problem is: how on earth is anybody with limited modelling experience supposed to know where to start with something like this if nobody else is willing to give them advice beyond 'don't bother'?

 

On the subject of using materials which are already available, cost is not the only reason that young people would want to do this. Many are concious of reducing their consumption of resources, and scratchbuilding from items they already have at home, especially waste products such as packaging, would allow them to develop their layout while minimising the environmental impact.

 

As for wargaming, I agree, Everybody else at school who makes models is in that field, while a few decades ago they would have had a railway.

 

I don't want to agree with the idea that new trains are uninspiring, but I think there is some truth to it. Trains aren't 'cool' now and if there were any other modellers at school there is no way that we would find each other, because we would never want to bring up the fact that we have a model railway. The most obvious reason for this is the rolling stock. This won't get better in the future as far as I'm concerned because while I love the Hitatchi AT300's appearance, it seems that every time a TOC replaces its rolling stock its with a variant of this (800s, 801s, and 802s for LNER; 800s and 802s for GWR; 802s for TPE and Hull Trains; 803s for East Coast Trains; 810s for EMR; and similar units going to Avanti West Coast. I guess that in the steam era, or even the BR diesel era, there was a much greater variaton in the types of rolling stock around than there is now, making the railways more interesting. The only loco-hauled trains which travel along my local railway (GWML in Wiltshire) are EWS/DB's freight trains; everything else is AT-300s and Turbos.

 

The saddest part is that model railways would have so much to offer young people if we could capture their interest and make them feel welcome. A modern model railway provides opportunities for people with interests in art, DT, computer science, physics, even history. Depending on how it is done it can provide transferrable skills such as research, it can allow people to develop skills that they will need if they don't want to hire a tradesperson every time something needs fixing. It can just provide a form of escapism, where you can enter a world either from the past, your imagination, or a combination of the two. Working on a model railway would do wonders for the mental health of many young people by allowing them to focus on something other than the pressures of real life, and something that they have total control over when everything else seems beyond their reach.

 

One last note: in case anything that I have said seems harsh, it is not intended in that way. I don't think that the railway modelling community is deliberately patronising to young people. However, while there has been a fast reaction to technological change (widespread adoption of DCC, for instance) I think that the reaction to changes in other areas has been much slower. Or perhaps the reverse has happened. When you started out with model railways, what did you want? Did you want a seemingly infinitely diverse range of specialist, often pricey, paints and dyes for representing everything from water to concrete? Or did you want to buy some trains and some track, and then use things which you have lying around the house to turn it into something special? I think that like many things, there is a certain level of overcomercialisation which has crept in, especially in areas such as scenery, ballasting, and weathering which it should be possible for people to do using, primarily, things that they already have at home (or that they could buy in a supermarket or DIY store if they don't). There is of course a place for high end products where the perfect finish is required for a new exhibition layout, but that is unlikely to be the sort of first layout a young person is interested in building. It would also be nice to see a growing community of layouts builts using cheap, unconventional techniques. While my aforementioned station isn't going to win a lot of (any) contests for the most faithful recreation of a railway station ever seen, it has a certain charm to it. If I tidy up the edges and get around to adding some (free) platform signs, fences (sleepers from old bits of track?) and other finishing touches it has the potential to be far better looking (in my opinion) than the plastic Hornby stations I could have paid upwards of £100 for.

 

One last note (I mean it this time): I have a habit of thinking that I'm about to finish before a thousand more ideas pop into my head. I guess my layout will definitely be one of those that is never finished. Back on topic: there is one other obstacle to young people getting involved that I touched on earlier. Model railways are generally seen as an old man's thing and you would probably face a fair amount of teasing for admitting to owning one. I don't really see how we can solve this as a community. People have talked about the likes of Rod Stewart, Michael Palin, Ricardo Patresi, and a couple of other names I've never heard before higher up in this thread. If young people are to get into modelling, I guess that they need role models. Once upon a time, this was always the father, but this route seems to have faltered in the past few decades. We need to either hope that some social media influencers decide to reveal their secret passion for modelling, or people like me need to pluck up the confidence to put our heads above the paraphet and try to tempt others into modelling. We also need to get girls interested. If Kathy Millatt wasn't a judge on The Great Model Railway Challenge, I doubt that I would be able to think of a woman associated with railway modelling.

[HonestTom]

12 hours ago, DK123GWR said:

I'm going to say (as a 17 year old) that much of this is probably correct. I had a train set when I was younger (5-ish), with a combination of rolling stock that I had inherited from my Dad and some new stuff that he had bought for me. It all went into the loft for a few years but came down at some point last year. At that point, it was a piece of wood, some track, and a mismatched box of trains. This may be the definition of fun for a five year old, but by the time you get a bit older I think you do need to start developing your layout in order to keep it interesting. I now have a station with two through platforms and a bay platform, each suitable for 4 (5 at a stretch) coaches, with a station building.

 

If most people were to look into this, they would no doubt go straight to the Hornby website and find that a platform which is roughly 1/2 of a carriage long costs £4.25. For 12 carriages (4 on each through platform and the one-sided bay platform) you would be paying 24*£4.25=£102. No one in their right mind would pay that, whatever age they are.

 

The next thing that they will do is google 'how to make an 00 gauge platform'. This is much better, but all of the videos that they will find will still require a trip to the DIY store to buy a large sheet of wood. Wouldn't it be better if there was more focus on what you could do with materials found at home? I know that its possible. My station platforms are sections cut out of large cardboard boxes found lying around in the loft, painted grey with a mixture of the left over white paint for a ceiling and black food colouring (it made any food it was added to taste horrible so this was the best use for it). The building is a free Wordsworth kit glued onto smaller boxes, including cereal boxes. It's a completely improvised (and free) station that needs a bit of smoothing over in places, but I like the overall effect of it. Necesity is the mother of invention, but even if you ask a question on a forum about the best way to make something there will inevitably be a variety of pricey products reccomended. Young people are resourceful but I have no doubt that they will be put off if the 'right' way to do things seems so far beyond their means. 

 

The point you make about weathering powder is also a good one. I would love to start weathering some of my models at some point, but I would also like to do so by buying as little as possible. The problem is: how on earth is anybody with limited modelling experience supposed to know where to start with something like this if nobody else is willing to give them advice beyond 'don't bother'?

 

On the subject of using materials which are already available, cost is not the only reason that young people would want to do this. Many are concious of reducing their consumption of resources, and scratchbuilding from items they already have at home, especially waste products such as packaging, would allow them to develop their layout while minimising the environmental impact.

 

As for wargaming, I agree, Everybody else at school who makes models is in that field, while a few decades ago they would have had a railway.

 

I don't want to agree with the idea that new trains are uninspiring, but I think there is some truth to it. Trains aren't 'cool' now and if there were any other modellers at school there is no way that we would find each other, because we would never want to bring up the fact that we have a model railway. The most obvious reason for this is the rolling stock. This won't get better in the future as far as I'm concerned because while I love the Hitatchi AT300's appearance, it seems that every time a TOC replaces its rolling stock its with a variant of this (800s, 801s, and 802s for LNER; 800s and 802s for GWR; 802s for TPE and Hull Trains; 803s for East Coast Trains; 810s for EMR; and similar units going to Avanti West Coast. I guess that in the steam era, or even the BR diesel era, there was a much greater variaton in the types of rolling stock around than there is now, making the railways more interesting. The only loco-hauled trains which travel along my local railway (GWML in Wiltshire) are EWS/DB's freight trains; everything else is AT-300s and Turbos.

 

The saddest part is that model railways would have so much to offer young people if we could capture their interest and make them feel welcome. A modern model railway provides opportunities for people with interests in art, DT, computer science, physics, even history. Depending on how it is done it can provide transferrable skills such as research, it can allow people to develop skills that they will need if they don't want to hire a tradesperson every time something needs fixing. It can just provide a form of escapism, where you can enter a world either from the past, your imagination, or a combination of the two. Working on a model railway would do wonders for the mental health of many young people by allowing them to focus on something other than the pressures of real life, and something that they have total control over when everything else seems beyond their reach.

 

One last note: in case anything that I have said seems harsh, it is not intended in that way. I don't think that the railway modelling community is deliberately patronising to young people. However, while there has been a fast reaction to technological change (widespread adoption of DCC, for instance) I think that the reaction to changes in other areas has been much slower. Or perhaps the reverse has happened. When you started out with model railways, what did you want? Did you want a seemingly infinitely diverse range of specialist, often pricey, paints and dyes for representing everything from water to concrete? Or did you want to buy some trains and some track, and then use things which you have lying around the house to turn it into something special? I think that like many things, there is a certain level of overcomercialisation which has crept in, especially in areas such as scenery, ballasting, and weathering which it should be possible for people to do using, primarily, things that they already have at home (or that they could buy in a supermarket or DIY store if they don't). There is of course a place for high end products where the perfect finish is required for a new exhibition layout, but that is unlikely to be the sort of first layout a young person is interested in building. It would also be nice to see a growing community of layouts builts using cheap, unconventional techniques. While my aforementioned station isn't going to win a lot of (any) contests for the most faithful recreation of a railway station ever seen, it has a certain charm to it. If I tidy up the edges and get around to adding some (free) platform signs, fences (sleepers from old bits of track?) and other finishing touches it has the potential to be far better looking (in my opinion) than the plastic Hornby stations I could have paid upwards of £100 for.

 

One last note (I mean it this time): I have a habit of thinking that I'm about to finish before a thousand more ideas pop into my head. I guess my layout will definitely be one of those that is never finished. Back on topic: there is one other obstacle to young people getting involved that I touched on earlier. Model railways are generally seen as an old man's thing and you would probably face a fair amount of teasing for admitting to owning one. I don't really see how we can solve this as a community. People have talked about the likes of Rod Stewart, Michael Palin, Ricardo Patresi, and a couple of other names I've never heard before higher up in this thread. If young people are to get into modelling, I guess that they need role models. Once upon a time, this was always the father, but this route seems to have faltered in the past few decades. We need to either hope that some social media influencers decide to reveal their secret passion for modelling, or people like me need to pluck up the confidence to put our heads above the paraphet and try to tempt others into modelling. We also need to get girls interested. If Kathy Millatt wasn't a judge on The Great Model Railway Challenge, I doubt that I would be able to think of a woman associated with railway modelling.

 

At the risk of self-promotion, one of the goals I have with my YouTube channel is to present modelling as a fun, accessible thing that anyone can do (although I'm probably a bit too old to be considered "youth"). But I put a lot of emphasis on things like dolling up second-hand rolling stock, basic scratchbuilding and using everyday materials - for instance, I have a couple of eyeshadow palettes that I use instead of weathering powder (it's basically the same stuff and can be bought for a couple of quid online) and I've been making buildings out of food packaging (ever noticed how much the inside of an egg carton looks like stone?).

 

But in general, I felt like there wasn't really an "intermediate step" easily available. Everyone knows about train sets, and the magazines mostly showcase either modellers who are already experts or expensive products. I wanted to make videos for people who'd dipped their toe in the hobby, decided they liked it and wanted to get more involved without making a massive commitment. I also wanted to partly aim at people who aren't into the hobby (yet) to show that it's not all about memorising timetables and precise scale modelling - it's about creativity, and the 10-year-old who makes a factory out of a shoebox is as much a modeller as the guy making finescale locomotives out of brass.

[Steven B]

On 16/04/2020 at 11:20, AlexHolt said:

At exhibitions you mostly see young children with their families and older people, around the teenage years quite a few drop off from the hobby and not a lot of them come back afterwards. At my local club theres around 3 people under 25, me included with the rest mostly being in the 50+ age range. Its not really a problem and age has never really been a barrier to the hobby in my eyes.

 

Oddly enough, when my Dad started taking me to model railway exhibitions in the 1980s that's exactly the age profile I remember - families, a couple of teenagers and then mostly older men. Fast forward 30 years and when I take my four year old we see the same age profiles. Price of models has always been a problem. Models back in the 1980s were out of reach of my pocket money - I remembering borrowing from my parents to pay for the Hornby Class 142 I bought from Cheltenham Model Centre via post (both ways!). Anything else (Lima HST and Transpennine Mk2s) came as birthday or Christmas presents. A twelve year old family friend is in the same boat today. Hopefully, he'll be the one taking his children to shows at some point in the future.

 

I find it interesting that you often get posts and letters to magazines asking about what can be done to attract younger modellers. I don't recall anyone writing on how to attract anyone who isn't the stereotypical white 50+ middle class male, which being honest is what makes up 90% of the railway modelling community.

 

Steven B.

[DK123GWR]

1 hour ago, HonestTom said:

 

I put a lot of emphasis on things like dolling up second-hand rolling stock, basic scratchbuilding and using everyday materials

 

I wanted to make videos for people who'd dipped their toe in the hobby, decided they liked it and wanted to get more involved without making a massive commitment. I also wanted to partly aim at people who aren't into the hobby (yet) to show that it's not all about memorising timetables and precise scale modelling - it's about creativity, and the 10-year-old who makes a factory out of a shoebox is as much a modeller as the guy making finescale locomotives out of brass.

That's exactly the point! This is the sort of thing that will make model railways so much more accessible. It will also help to relieve some of the problems caused by the price of models - its still a lot of money to most young people, but if they're not spending money on scenery, or spending is minimal, it may allow them to actually get that model they want, and to stop them from being put off by only having the same two trains running around in stock condition. If you go for the option of buying your buildings and specialist products for weathering, the only option allowing them to buy a new model will be to run them in stock condition on a very mundane sheet of wood. Either way, finding ways to do it yourself will prevent people from being put off because of either boring trains or boring scenery, as well as making the process of developing the layout more interesting and rewarding.

[jonhinds]

As others have pointed out, price is a major bottleneck for many younger and low-income modellers. I’m in my ‘30s (young-ish) and currently unemployed for health reasons; even a simple coach purchase requires some careful accounting. It’s the price of the actual locos and rolling stock that’s been the biggest hurdle for me.

 

With the rise of 3D printing, I think there’s a lot of scope for a small company to make cheap modular body components and perhaps put together a simple all-in-one starter kit with pre-painted shell, motor, chassis etc included as an accessible first modelling project for newcomers. The ‘maker’ scene is a great fit for the hobby and could help with affordability.