detailed structures, in case you didn’t know. And how did this
young lady get her start in trains when she was little? Thomas.
MRH Publisher Joe Fugate’s grandson, Bobby, is now 12 and crazy
about model trains. Bobby first got introduced to trains as a tod-
dler when he was given a Thomas the Tank stuffed toy, and he
refused to part with it.
Bobby also loved Brio trains and has been a real fan of the Polar
Express movie. Today at age 12, Bobby has an NCE Powercab,
some DCC locomotives and a loop of track in his room, and is
learning how to program decoders.
So take heart. Few of the youngsters coming into the hobby
today were introduced to it via the hobby shop or a paper maga-
zine. These days, it’s Lego trains, Thomas, and Polar Express. At
the national train shows, booths with Lego trains, Thomas, or
Polar Express get routinely mobbed by families with children.
The public’s fascination with trains is still very much alive and
given that the Millenials generation (those born since 1980) is
now larger than the Baby Boomers, there’s every indication the
families of Millenials are turning to train toys and train movies as
prime entertainment for their children.
One final note, on TrainMasters TV in April is a video about the
Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute club layout, the New England,
Berkshire & Western. Veteran member John Nehrich shares how
this club has almost 30 student members (and almost the same
number of non-student members). Most of the student mem-
bers come from the 20-something age group.
MRH’s web presence continues to experience double-digit
growth as well. Even though the local hobby shop (LHS) seems to
be an endangered species, it’s also not how the next generation
MRH staff notes - 3
is finding the hobby. There’s every indication the new web-cen-
tric sources are doing a good job of picking up the slack from the
disappearing LHS for the next generation.
Modeling form or function?
There are different ways to enjoy the hobby of model railroad-
ing, for sure. If you look at what gets you the most excited about
the hobby, is it building the models, or is it running the trains?
For those who like running trains, do you consider yourself a
railfan, or an engineer? If you say engineer, then that generally
means you prefer to model the operational aspects of running
trains more than watching the trains roll by.
One way we find that’s helpful when making this distinction is to
talk about being a model railroader, or being a railroad modeler.
plus:
inMasters
MRH-May 2014
