--- In [email protected], "Ed" <Loizeaux@...> wrote:
>
> > I was thinking about the piece in the new NASG Dispatch about getting young
> > people into the hobby. I don't feel the complexity built into this
> > locomotive is going to help much, but I would like to hope I'm wrong.
>
> I think you have hit upon a new explanation for the demise of model
> railroading. At least new to me since I have not heard or thought of the
> complexity factor before. Speaking as a former 7-year-old, I could
> understand two wires to the track and two wires to the motor and two wires to
> the headlight. I never did figure out how the whistle worked until a year or
> two later. It eventually came to me. I was a 3-rail Lionel kid. Didn't
> have to worry about reverse loops and figure eights or insulating pins at all.
> Cheers....Ed Loizeaux
>
I don't think complexity is so much an issue, kid today have grown up
surrounded with various technologies, so it's less of a boogie man that it was
back in the day.
However, there seems to be a perception I've noted on other boards that thing
like Thomas the Tank engine, Polar Express, Hogwarts Express, etc. are going to
create legions of model railroaders. I disagree with that position. There may
be some that eventually get into model railroading because of these toys, but
the odds are against it.
I was a Lionel child also, except my parents bouth it for my older brother when
I was still in diapers. I'm wound up being the one with the interest, while my
brother didn't get interested in model railroading.
What worries me is some of the "older young folk..." They're into model
trains, but have little knowleges of what a railroad is and what it does. It
sort of a "wild west" mentalitiy of run whatever you want, because it's your
railroad, even if it means hauling the Empire State Express with a Shay,
"because it's cool..."
Now, I've been known to take some liberties with prototype realities
occasionally, but I don't stretch it very far or make it a way of life.
I just saw a post on another board from a fella who wanted to know what the
"longest engine" he should buy to haul his passenger cars, then rattled off a
couple of contemorary freight locomotives as possibilities. They prefer to look
for the quick internet feel good group consensus rather than doing some basic
research. They'll justify a grand for a locomotive but won't spend 60 bucks on
an "In Color" book for research.
Rich G(ajnak)
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