This was sent to me this morning by one of Jan’s cousins. Its an opinion of the industry and the hobby. Lot’s of options these days, its called LIFE. enjoy the ride!
End of the Line for Model Trains? Aging Hobbyists Trundle On
Industry struggles to find new platforms for once popular pastime
Howard Zane has been working on the railroad for thirty years–building a massive model train set complete with 150 locomotives, thousands of feet of track and more than 6,000 figures. He’s expanded his basement twice to accommodate the train set’s ever-growing spread. Photo: Madeline Marshall/The Wall Street Journal
By
James R. Hagerty
Updated Feb. 10, 2016 10:28 p.m. ET
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For Christmas in 1960, Ron Mei got a Lionel train set. More than 55 years later, he still hasn’t found a better toy.
By creating model railroads, “you learn carpentry,” said Mr. Mei, 62 years old, who runs a motorcycle-parts business in Phoenix and spends 20 to 25 hours a week with his trains. “You learn electric. You learn painting. Kids today, they have skill in one thing—that’s a videogame or a smartphone.”
Model train
Model train
Once thought of as every boy’s dream toy, model trains have become a domain mainly for old men. At clubs devoted to the hobby, members below 60 years old are the young bucks. Some retirement homes provide model-railroading rooms for their residents.
“I’m a dinosaur,” said Howard Zane, 77, of Columbia, Md., a retired industrial designer who has expanded his basement twice to accommodate an ever-growing model railroad, now including more than 1,000 railcars. “My wife says I’m collectible.”
Mr. Zane, Mr. Mei and other enthusiasts yearn to pass their pastime on to future generations. They fear it will be shunted onto a sidetrack of toy history.
Toddlers still adore Thomas the Tank Engine, of course. Nostalgic parents still buy train sets to trundle around the Christmas tree. Yet today’s younger set generally isn’t taking up model railroading as a lifelong mission.
“If it’s not a hand-held device or something free on the Internet, it’s of very little value to them,” said Charlie Getz, 67, president of the National Model Railroad Association, which calculates that the average age of its nearly 19,000 members is 64, up from 39 in the mid-1970s.
Mr. Mei’s 26-year-old son, Tony, said he is impressed by the fine detail that goes into his father’s layout, re-creating train scenes of the mid-1950s, right down to the pigeons at the train stations and the rust streaks on box cars.
Is the younger Mr. Mei tempted to take up the hobby? “To be honest,” he said, “not really.”
Lionel LLC, a 116-year-old company now based in Concord, N.C., isn’t giving up. Instead, it is concocting trains that old-timers wouldn’t recognize. Along with its traditional train sets, mostly made in China, Lionel offers videogames, including Battle Train and City Builder 3D.
Carl Izzo, 83, has been building his current train layout since 1992.ENLARGE
Carl Izzo, 83, has been building his current train layout since 1992. Photo: James R. Hagerty/The Wall Street Journal
At the New York Toy Fair, opening Feb. 13, Lionel plans to introduce a train product called Mega Tracks, aimed at children eight years old and up. The tracks will be more like those of a roller-coaster, and the trains will be remote-controlled.
“It really won’t resemble a train,” said Howard Hitchcock, chief executive of Lionel. “They’re almost more like spacecraft, to be quite honest with you.” Plain old trains wouldn’t do: “We have to come up with things that jazz up the kids of today,” Mr. Hitchcock said.
Lionel still makes authentic trains and associated gear for serious hobbyists, who account for about 60% of sales. Owned by the private-equity firm Guggenheim Partners, Lionel doesn’t disclose financial results.
The Western Pennsylvania Model Railroad Museum, near Pittsburgh, promotes the hobby by offering a 20-hour Model Railroading 101 course each winter for $60.
Last year, no one signed up. This year, 11 people attended the opening session. Six were over 60 years old. The youngest was 15-year-old Alex Edder, who recently earned a Boy Scout merit badge in model railroading and wanted to learn more.
Bill Humphrey, 70, a volunteer who led the class, warned newbies that brass tracks tend to oxidize and don’t conduct electricity “worth a damn.” He also stressed that the hobby isn’t just chugging along with antiquated technology: Computerized controls are common, and “you can download all these diesel sounds.”
Perhaps the most ambitious advocate for the hobby is Verryl Fosnight, 73, a real-estate investor in Sedona, Ariz. In a steel building he erected for the purpose, Mr. Fosnight is replicating a stretch of the Union Pacific railroad as it was in 1957 in Wyoming and Utah. It covers nearly 4,000 square feet.
Mr. Fosnight has a full-time employee, Allen Montgomery, to help him create his diorama. “I am the luckiest guy in Arizona,” said Mr. Montgomery, who describes himself as a “model railroad super geek.” At 41, Mr. Montgomery is younger than most such geeks but, he said, “I never felt part of my generation.” He spent days researching the freight depot at the Cheyenne train station as it looked in 1957 so he could build a replica, including “the scratches and the dings and the gouges” on the loading dock.
Once a month, Mr. Fosnight holds an open house for people who want to operate his trains. Most participants are adults, but some teenagers and children show up.
They include Steven Hill, age 11. He described Mr. Fosnight’s layout as “a little more realistic than a videogame.” Few of Steven’s friends share his enthusiasm, however. “They don’t even know how fun it is,” he said. “I try to bring it up in conversation, but they start talking about football.”
In Murrysville, Pa., Carl Izzo has been working since 1992 on a train layout that fills an 825-square-foot room in his basement. An 83-year-old retired chemist, Mr. Izzo long ago stopped trying to convert his 10 grandchildren to the cause. He knows of no children in his neighborhood who might take an interest. Nonetheless, construction proceeds.
Guiding a recent visitor through his basement, Mr. Izzo said: “What you’re looking at is the makings of a limestone pit.” He pointed to a pinewood train table, stacked with supplies and surrounded by coiling train tracks. The limestone pit would go with the coking-coal plant he already has built for his loosely historical steel town. It also includes Louie’s bar, in memory of a tavern run by one of his uncles in Dunbar, Pa.
“Right here,” he said, gesturing toward another miniature construction site, “is going to be a short stretch of water—barges—and this is the gantry crane that is going to pick up the iron ore from the barges.”
Mr. Izzo isn’t sure when he will finish but promises it will happen by 2032, when he will be 100. “At the rate I’m going,” he said, “it’s going to take that long.”
Write to James R. Hagerty at [email protected]
