Tim,
I don’t know how old you are but I date back to the late forties and early fifties in my model railroad history. Most of what was written then had to do with making models from available resources. Except for a few professional model builders most railroad modeling was more “compromise” than exact scale modeling.
Locomotive kits were all metal zamac castings, rolling stock kits were metal, wood and cardboard and structures mostly cardboard with windows, doors and siding printed on. A popular series in MR was “Kitchen Table Locomotives” where lokies were built almost entirely from wood utilizing broom handles, etc, for boilers.
O Scale was considerably ahead of HO in many ways with some beautiful bronze and brass kits from Lobaugh for example, but these required a level of expertise to properly assemble that exceeded the average RR modeler’s abilities.
Gradually parts and more highly detailed kits became available for those with modeling instincts but so too by the late fifties did ready built brass locomotives, notably in HO that revolutionized everybody’s rosters. There were lamentations about bringing to an end the scratchbuilders not to mention the professional custom builders but it didn’t happen.
There was an even bigger outcry when ready to run plastic rolling stock became available. No serious modeler wanted that “plastic junk” on his layout! Hehe! I have to confess to a similar ire from myself. Ruination!!! However as the quality improved and we got over the initial repugnance the plastic stuff was gradually accepted until finally even locomotives were rolling merrily on our layouts. Too, the newer model railroaders came onto the scene after the fact and mostly just merged into the status quo.
It is only natural that the current batch of forum participants as well as readers in the model railroad press should be interested in those items readily available and with which they are familiar. Not much call these days for a review on a Mantua Mikado or a Silver Streak reefer kit. Also dedicated magazines are in a kind of trap not of their own making in that they must have appeal for the widest possible audience. This precludes having an overabundance of articles that are over the heads of newer modelers.
As we progress through familarity and knowledge in our chosen hobby niche we tend to leave much of the published word behind. This is a natural result of our interest and progress but the future is coming up behind us still learning the things we long ago dismissed as obvious and maybe even a bit boring now.
I don’t think the skill level will be lost but it will be changed. There will most certainly come a time when people will wonder how “those modelers in the dark ages” ever got along without a CDC machine in their garage to replicate all those small indesribable parts needed for decent modeling.
I think your concern about change is well founded but it is a concern that has been expressed every couple of decades and hasn’t ended in ruin yet. I don’t think it will in the foreseeable future either. Maybe largescale in the scales and format that we know it will disappear as others have in the past but as long as there are railroads there will be model railroaders some of which will push the envelope in search of new perfections.
