Attracting Fresh Blood

My son enjoying his Brio trains. Hopefully his interest continues and Brio can give way to Lionel.

A topic of many forum flame war is attracting young people to the hobby. Threads on this topic always get to be something of a broken record with such played-out hits as: "young people want everything ready made and don't want kits!" "The hobby is too expensive," "Kids can't put down their electronics," and so on. Then the young people on the forum more often than not start pushing back, things get ugly, the thread gets locked and nothing is accomplished. As a young-ish person (I'm 33), let me address some of the above points and offer my own two cents worth.

The first criticism that often gets heaped on younger modelers is we're impatient and we want things ready to run. We don't want to assemble kits or scratch-build. Baloney! I say! I love putting structure kits together and taking the time to paint them and make them look appropriate for the era and locale. I would love to scratch build more but my skills are sadly lacking. That brings me to another point, not everybody is good at scratch-building and having the ready-to-run stuff makes the hobby more accessible.

Then there's "the hobby costs too much." I know, model manufacturers aren't exactly giving the stuff away. But there are still affordable trains out there. When I was a kid in early 1990s, most toy stores still carried trains. A new HO freight car set you back $3. Adjusted for inflation, that's about $5.32 today. No the cars weren't super detailed or road specific and they had the old horn hook couplers. But you could buy them on a week's allowance.

As for the fact that kids can't put down their electronics, this might be a valid point. It's not so much electronics as it is other toys in general. Lionel found themselves losing the interests of children back in the 1960s. Railroads for a lot of the country aren't visible and children aren't aware of the role they play in everyday life. On top of that many local hobby shops have long since gone out of business.

We know what the problem is, now how do we fix it? My son loves Thomas the Tank Engine and Chuggington. When we get stuck at a grade crossing we couldn't be happier. My wife and I bought him Brio set and loves playing with it. If he continues to show interest, I'll encourage him .Same goes for my daughter.

Encouraging that early interest may very well be the key to getting more kids involved in the hobby. Shows like Thomas and Chuggington may create that initial interest but all too often, I believe parents think it's something their child will outgrow and they don't encourage them. So how do we reach out to these parents? I really don't know. I do know model railroading has a lot more offer than video games. It's great teacher. It taught me woodworking, electricity, how use tools and fostered and interest history.

I do believe things aren't as dire as a lot of the old timers make them out to be. When I volunteered at the Hub City Railroad Museum, I was the oldest among the sizable group of young people there. Some of them will hopefully become part of my operating group. Many parents brought young children through and they were enthralled by the museum and the chance to see real Norfolk Southern freight trains roll by too. I try my best to mentor fellow modelers and help them out anyway that I can. And there's still a lot I have to learn.