Up

Many years ago my father, having watched me chew the dried up glue from off my model airplane building fingers, could stand it no more. In quiet desperation he drove me to the Trenton Hobby Centre in Trenton, N.J. and introduced me to his friend Bill Krames who, in turn would introduce me to a whole new world and one that would be, and still is, today, a big part of my life.

Model railroading, a hobby for everyone, as we so proudly proclaim, for it holds within itself so many aspects that can get out creative juices to flow and help us all to happiness and success in our spare time.

During my growing up years, Bill, and others like him, helped me learn the ins and outs of the hobby. I watched model railroading grow and mature. Indeed more and more new products came on the market, many new authors in the monthly publications came, and with them, new ideas.

Editorials drove us on to new heights an endeavor and so today, as I look upon the layouts in the video tapes and magazines, it is a treat to watch, as even the average builders achieve wonderful displays of realism in their model railroad rooms.

Now I’m older, and if not wiser, I have at least grown to look upon more than just the surface of what my eyes see. I am just a little apprehensive. I do not take, nor do I have access to polls, but I wonder why we see so many people trying to "sell" model railroading? Why do we have to say model railroading is such a great hobby? Me thinks the lady protests too much!!

For years we would see several pages of photographs in the monthly publications showing the NMRA contest winners, now there are but a few.

I live in the capital city of a good size state and there are only 4 hobby shops (3 are model railroad shops) and only one offers any attempt at teaching the hobby to the children. I look around and overall the model shops appear to be dying out.

The future of model railroading is with our youth and those who teach them. But the model shops are barely making a living as they try to compete with on-line companies having half the overhead.

The very publications that cry that model railroading is the greasest hobby in the world have become catalogs for those who run ads with huge lists of items for sale at low low prices and somewhere lost in their pages they ask us to support our local hobby shops.

Lest you think I speak only of the publications, look at the ads for custom builders and layout builders. Years ago there would be one or two men who would have their layouts custom built o r a few more who would have Bill Schopp customize a loco for them or several of us have our engines painted. but now their seems to be hundreds of us who have our model railroads made for us and yes there are even some who have their operations set up on a computer so it runs all by itself.

When it comes to the falling away of interest in model railroading I think we have me the enemy and it is us!

Al Kalmbach wrote an editorial some years ago where he spoke of a king who invited men to build his model railroad for him. But the king never realized true satisfaction until he sat down and started building his own models.

All the many aspects of model railroading make it interesting to many different individuals but none of these individuals will stay interested if they don’t reach success in their own achievements.

I believe there is an eternal principle that allows no man to be better than another but each man can be and is different.

We can look upon the work of others and learn from our inspections. We can return to our own railroads and apply our observations using our own talents and abilities. Then just like Al Kalmbach’s king, our work may not appear like those we viewed with awe but we can view our work with pride in that we actually created it ourselves and I do believe I like it better this way.

There is much more to say on this subject but I’ve go to talk to my train buddy about this new DCC stuff.

David C Mellor

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This page was last updated: 2009-11-30