Go Back OH YES!!

First let Me say" I really like your new look Joe do you use Turtle Wax"?

I wouldn't want to go back 25 years but I grew up in the San Fernando Valley just north of Los Angeles Calif. I just wish the following had moved forward 25 years and some have.

In the San Fernando Valley MDC/Roundhouse had their Manufacturing plant and walk in sales 1/2 mile from my house by the Van Nuys Airport.

In that valley were 7 major Model Railroad stores that sold only Trains of all scales and another 15 Hobby shops that had 50% of their business being HO Trains. 35 minutes from my house was the infamous "Roundhouse Trains" in North Hollywood and then 20 minutes farther south the west coasts Biggest Model Railroad Store "Allied Model Trains" in Culver City which back then was bigger then A college Gymnasium Boy and Girls together and if it was made for model railroading they carried a least 5 of everything Trains in stock at all times. From there head north 18 miles to Pasadena miles and you would find "The Original Whistle Stop" almost as big as Allied but with more Brass Engines.

The the last few were within 1 - 4 mile of my house there was "The Hobby House", "Granada Hill Model Railroad sales", Northridge Planes and Trains, "Chatsworth Slot cars, Trains, and Planes", Then there was "4 Hobby Havens" 1 in Van Nuys,1 in Northridge, 1 in Reseda, & 1 in Tarzana. Most all these Hobby and Train stores were open from 10:00 Am to 9:00 P.M. Tuesday-Saturday and 12:00pm-6 pm Sundays. All but the Hobby Haven were closed Mondays and Hobby Haven was open 7 days a week only closed Christmas and New Years.

Back then I didn't need the internet or cell phones I knew what was open and when.

But Joe for most people in the Hobby your correct unless they lived in the worlds Hobby capitol like my friends and I  called it they were lucky if they didn't have to make a day trip just to get to a single Model Train Store and those were very poorly stocked unless they happened to live in a major city. Phone orders were you send a money order or check and we'll ship when we get the check cashed. No Pay Pal back then.

I am 1 in 100 that had the luxury of many quality train stores close.

Now Living in Virginia I have to Drive 80 miles to Gettysburg PA. to get to Tommy Gilbert's or Fredrick Maryland 25 miles closer to Mainline Hobby Supplies both are top notch Train Stores with a great inventory but still are only a if we don't have it we'll order it type stores.Yes I'd like it to be 25 years ago for me anyway.

I totally see where Joe is Coming from and what he means and for most people He Hit the nail Square on the head with this article.

Rio Grande Dan

Great Article

My feelings exactly, there are so many people on various forums that pollute the forum with negativity. They talk about the "good old days" and the death of the hobby, and pretend to know what they are talking about. When they are questioned they usually respond with an attack on the person asking the question, "How dare you question my opinion, I've been modeling since 1913 so I know everything". Unfortunately these types are blind to what's going on around them and most times look like fools to everyone but them. Fortunately they usually don't wander far away from their adopted forum, probably because they are intimidated by the more progressive and advanced types of modelers and technology. It's human nature I guess, but personally I will never close my mind to new ways of doing things.

We are in the best time of the hobby, and the future is bright with technology, and it will get even better.

(I used an IPad to create this message, sitting on my backyard patio listening to my Itunes library)

The good old days

Well, just read the article and want to share the "good old days". First want to put the background. I started model rring sometime around mid 60's in South America. NOTHING available there except brass Atlas snap track, a couple locos and cars, mostly european prototype. A few european structure kits. 99% of what was advertised then you had to import yourself (BIG $$$ and Customs hurdles) and you were lucky if arrived at all within the year!. Remember AHM's Funeral Sales?. Great source of parts!. Best item I ever bought?. An Unimat lathe. And NMRA gauge.

I had to learn to scratchbuild almost anything, INCLUDING wheels!. Back then articles by John Allen, Jack Work and W. K. Towers were the sources of inspiration. If I wanted to make a freight car, would be wood and/or metal. No styrene, but cardboard was aplenty. All ironwork (handrails, etc) was made of suitable sized wire, flattened on the ends with a dimple to pass as a bolt or rivet. Corrugated sheets were made with aluminum foil (from milk can seals) scribed. No scribed wood of ANY kind. Paint: hardware store enamel, mixed as appropiate.

Electrical was a transformer with a rheostat. Period.

Scenery was made with crumbled newspaper covered with papier mache or plaster. All scenery materials (foliage, ground, ballast) scratchbuilt or gathered on site and sifted.

So, I really miss the good old days,I learned a lot. But I do not want them back!.

I want

Internet

Finished the article. Definitely has an internet slant to it. But I guess it should since the Internet has so profoundly changed our lives. I don't lament the past. Quite the opposite. I look forward to the future and what is coming next in the hobby. I would trade every blue box on the planet to have the technology of 20 years from now whatever that might be. I'm sure it will be cool.

N Scale Then and Now

I was modelling in the 80's - and the 70's.  First railway set was a Aurora Postage Stamp (N Scale).  I bought a few buildings and let my new Santa Fe engine circle my little village. 

Still have most of those buildings - some have been bashed into something else.

And while we lived in a city with several good hobby shops most of my stuff came at Christmas or Birthdays.  I was working for $2.00 /hr in a machine shop saving to go to college.  Model railway stuff was a luxury. 

Keeping the engines running and the cars on the track took some effort in those days.  I still have some of that first set - have switched out the pie-cutter wheels for Kadee (now MT) and put on MT couplers.  There are still cars that are about the same quality, but now you can get super detail.

1970's vs 2010  The photo does not really show the difference but the walkways on that THB hopper are see through grid, very fine.  The ladders are not just molded on to the side of the car.  And I can now buy THB rolling stock, "Back in the Good Old Days" you could model the Santa Fe or Pennsy.  Very little choice, very few Canadian roads. 

By the 80's we had children, but I still managed to build a layout, in an unfinished basement, it was 4x16 - lots of room in an unfinished basement. 

I remember one wee lad who was brought over to see this layout, looking at it he said "Hey Mister - that must have taken you all day to build". 

I was now indulging in a few "presents" to myself.  I got a great windfall when K-Mart first carried N Scale - whoopie they were close by, and cheap ... but sometime later they decided no more N scale, ... well at least I stocked up on clearence items.  Bought about 10 of those Bachman Super8 diesels.  Those baby's ran and ran and didn't stall it was wonderful. 

And as you said, no internet, no ebay, no MRR forums, ... how did we live?  Well we had more time for hobby's and reading (remember - from a book). 

As for the decline - don't worry about it, lots of room for niche marketting and besides us baby-boomers are retiring soon and will want to get back to our hobby's. 

He Gets Around A Lot, Doesn't He?

Geared Steam:

"How dare you question my opinion, I've been modeling since 1913 so I know everything".

Small world. I know that guy, too. I don't think he comes around here much anymore, if at all.

Mike

Yes, I remember!

Yes, I remember the Good Old Days!

I remember getting my first Railway Modeller magazine (living over in the UK) and eagerly scanning it. Fortunately, if you modeled British or German, there were a lot of advertisers in the magazine, so I knew exactly where to go, though as it was mostly Triang Hornby, i could go to my local hobby store just a mile up the road and get most of what I wanted. Running quality left a lot to be desired though unless you wanted to run at high speeds! Then there was a section of the magazine that listed all the clubs in the UK, but again you had to get the right month depending on where in the alphabet the club was. Another section was the Inquiry Corner. That's self-explanatory but imagine have to send a letter to the magazine outlining your interest, waiting for it to be published and then await as reply. Probably 4 months minimum.

Yes, I remember the Good Old Days!

Having said that, I think we had just as much fun then because there weren't the distractions we have now. I probably spend more time on Forums and 'reasearching' on the internet than I do actual modeling. But I wouldn't want to go back though.

Brian

The only model railroad store I remember, near Van Nuys

airport was SanVal.  Model Die Casting was located on Rosecrans Avenue in Hawthorne, between Prairie Ave. and Crenshaw Blvd.  Athearn was located at 120th & Western, about 4 miles away.  Clarance and Irv were good friends and produced parts for each others models. When I was just starting in this hobby, a friend and I would ride our bicycles over to Athearn's and go through their dumpster looking for parts, in the days before recycling.  I still have some rejected hustler & RDC bodies.

Bob Hayes

The internet has truly

The internet has truly changed our way of life.  I do miss the days of independent Athearn and MDC/Roundhouse, but the products since the merger, such as the Ford Model As and the Mack trucks and much of the RTR product has been a delight.

The good old days

I am struck by Joe's dependence on the Internet. Is he in the Model Railroading Hobby or in the Computer/Internet Hobby? I well remember the time before the internet. Apparently nobody ever introduced Joe to Library. Even when we vacationed on the New Jersey Shore, there were libraries in the larger towns and even in most small towns. Museums were and are another source of information.

My father brought me up as a model railroader, consequently I began reading his copies of Model Railroader magazines since 1946 (three years before we got our first TV) there was always a substantial listing in the back of the magazine of Hobby Shops all over the country, indeed across the world.

Information was always out there, we just had to get off our asses and do a little digging for it. In those days we were taught how to find information, we never expected it to be just given to us.

Everytime I wanted to

cook something I would go outside and start a fire. Then someone introduced me to a stove.

Now it's a whole lot easier and the food tastes just as good.

Hmmm...that sound's like an Andy Rooney Rant...

GearedSteam: Back in my day it wasn't even easy to eat.  Every time I wanted to cook something I would go outside and start a fire. Then someone introduced me to a stove. It was revolutionary when they showed me how to use that large storage bin - I thought it was for storing your pots and pans right after you washed them!  Now it's a whole lot easier because the food comes in the box; to cook it I put it in another box, and when it's done a matter of seconds later, the entree in the second box looks just like the picture on the first box.  Me personally, I never could do that with the large bin under the range.  It always came out black and checkered.  Strangely enough, the food tastes just as good. 

  I am struck by Joe's

And today we can sit on our asses and do 100 times more digging than we ever could running around town or the state or the country. It's a good thing in my book, providing us with a more focused use of what time we do have for the hobby, and providing more time we can do other thigns when we're not busy but not doing the hobby too. Historical societies need to hurry up with their digitization projects and charge us reasonable annual fees to view their collections!! It's better for the photographs, better fo rhte museum staff, and better for all of us that we have this available now!

We are talking about donkeys, right?

Look, an empty one. That's because I got off mine and am actually building a railroad!

I'll refrain from posting an

I'll refrain from posting an image left over from the 7-UP "Show us your Can!" Contest...

MDC on saticoy by the owners gate in 1967 at Van Nuys Airport

I was learning to fly at the time and just out side the owners gate of the Van Nuys airport was Round house models until 1978 when they moved to who knows where and by then the sign said MDC/Roundhouse engineering and model Company.

Every tuesday and thursday after I finished flying lessons as I pulled out the gate I would go past their warehouse   and some times I would and stop to see what was new in the display. It wasn't a Hobby shop and not everybody could get in but 4 of my friends worked there and I could knock on the side door and go in through wearhouse door and through the molding room and then into the front where the display case was with one of each of their engines in production at the time.

My one friend once gave me a box full of seconds on sprues he was the production forman and my best friends older brother. Aparently sometimes when they did a run and the last batch in the centrafuge mold machiene didn't get enough plastic. Some of the parts would not get completely made and they would just toss the rejects in a box. At one time I had close to 50 Diamond stacks and a lot of other acessories like wheels Static un-operating couplers, roof walks, Caboose bodies, and Trucks. But I did buy some stuff for them and during summer vacation in 1968 I made deliveries for them all over Los Angeles. Their back door opened onto the airport property and we would load boxes for shipment on tug carts and the tugs would take them to the cargo hanger for air freight shipments. we also received Bob tail trucks filled with Boxes from another MDC product manufactuer and I'd help unload the trucks and we would load them on the carts too.

Bob Hayes what year are you talking about? Thanks

Dan

Now children...

This thread is vearing toward the island of personal-attacks.

Please, lets all play nice in the MRH sandbox. In the imortal words of Rodney King, "Can't we all just get along?"

Before pressing send on an emotionally charged response, go install a decoder. When you return, if the response still seems appropriate, post away. Otherwise ...

Charlie

My focus was more on how we communicated about the hobby

My focus of this RR was more how we *communicated* about the hobby 25 years ago and how the ease with which we can communicate with each other today has changed things. The internet is a large part of that.

Sure I used the library to get model railroading information. A lot! But the library didn't help when I wanted to locate an obscure model railroad part or wanted to find inexpensive used equipment. Today finding this sort of thing anywhere on the planet is just a few minutes away, thanks to the world wide web.

As I thought about the larger implications of the changes - how easy it is to hook up with others who share my interests today compared to 25 years ago - I was inspired to write this RR.

I see some on the forums who complain about ready-to-run and the demise of "craftsmanship" in the hobby, so I've elected to see the cup half full instead of half empty and consider how the changes have improved the hobby. With every change, you lose some things and you gain some things. Ironic that looking at what we have gained might be considered a "contrary view".

The Net was not my issue

While the Internet is a useful tool, I don't think it has contributed nearly as much to the success of the hobby as two other major advancements since 1986.  I came back to the hobby of my youth because of DCC and Sound, something I heard about at the LHS (Warren Mizell's Store in Westminster, CO), and not on the Internet.  It was 2005 and I can tell you that when I heard the sound coming from that BLI 4-8-4 and saw that I could control TWO trains on the same piece of track at the same time, I was all in.  I went to the web hard after the intro, but have pretty much stayed at arms length when I started to realize what I really wanted was face to face with model railroaders I could sit down and share a cup of joe with.  My policy, for some long time is I'm only interested in the opine and skills I learn from people who are doers not talkers (typists).  

Today, the forums pretty much leave me cold and Yahoo is well let me just say that reading Joe and Charlie's monthly rag is one of the better uses of the Net. And the only reason I ever paid any attention to them is because I saw good pictures of their layouts. Interestingly, here in the Denver area, I've visited more than 50 different model railroads, most of a quality that is truely excellent, a number of them World class. 

The net is certainly a useful tool, but like an airbrush or a #11 blade, it is just a tool. Spending time in the train room making something work and running trains is what it is all about. Yes, my layout is computerized, I'm into the business nearly 5 decades now so I do appreciate the power but I have no desire to be a virtual model railroader. To me, there is nothing like watching my computer run 7 or 8 trains through scenery on my layout.

Thanks Joe & Charlie for your excellent work. Someday, I hope to come through your neck of the woods and visit your layouts personally.

And I'd rather stay in 2011 than go back to 1986, the house was full of 5 teenagers at the time. . .

Joe Daddy, There is one thing

Joe Daddy,

There is one thing to consider, though.  Many of your DCC gurus out there were raised on the net - that's how DCC really got out of the bag, as I see it.  And the advancement of programs like JMRI and Xtrakcad has made it possible to use your iPhone as a DCC Throttle.  These advancements together are leading towards a remotely operateable model railroad.

This might not matter to some people, but I do see a potential future where model railroads COULD become money generating ventures.  How?  How many modelrailroaders LOVE to operate but lack the budget, the space, and the time to build and maintain a model railraoder?  Now how many people are paying ridiculous sums of money to play online games like WoW [World of Warcraft] or paying money to watch sleezy types strip live on camera?

Now those last two ideas may seem like they have absolutely nothing to do with Model Railroading, but then again, what on earth does an iPhone have to with model railroading, either?  And the first idea - how on earth could a model railroad ever GENERATE revenue???  Call it supply and demand - there are more people with free time and no place to operate and less people with functional layouts [currently, none!] that could be adapted with very little work - mainly, the addition of the cameras and the interface between the layout,t he computer and the internet.

Obviously there will be bugs to iron out in this arrangement [how does one deal with derailments or naughty engineers, for example - simple enough, you have a railroad staff monitoring and managing trains as admin/moderator oversight!] [how do you make sure only good trained engineers run the route? You have a virtual/real remote model railroad Engineer certification lab, a simplified layout with low quality engines you don; thave to worry abou tbeing destoryed. where engineers have to pass the lab test - it includes following recorded instructions and signal recogniziotn test, the pass or fail activated by lasers at each point, in order to get the "credentials" necessary to run the train!]  but eventually I see a day where the great news is that you are number 104,584 on the waiting list to take a train up the La Mesa/San Diego-Tehachapi Loop layout.  

I ask you, how much would you pay to do this, if you were able to jump to various cameras along the route as you "drove the train" through the scene?  You'd be listening to a dispatcher, all the while watching the signals via a camera car coupled to the head end of your train, and "railfanning" your trip via the remote scene cameras.  $10.00?  $20.00?  Consider the number of people who actively play Microsoft Train Simulator - this crowd would be tappable by this concept, not to mention the rapid operators in the room!

The trip might take between 1 and 2 hours, and you never even once have to leave your home and spend money on the airfare, rental car, hotel fare, food fare, and the extra fare to take care of the family while you're pursuing your hobby.  All you'd have to do is open their website, click on the link to "Engineer's room" verify your credintials, and you'd be within minutes of running your train - depending on your timetable and your turn on the waiting list, of course!! 

And if you're not up to operating, there's the other potential Idea of a passenger train with a couple cameras set up so that you could take a trip through the railroad as if you were a passsenger on the train - LIVE!  Click the Link to the station you wish to board from, and when the train stops at the station, click the "board train now!' link and you're on the train - where now you can toggle various live cameras to see both the country from the train and the train from the country.  the best part is, such a "railfanning" trip could be Free, with an advertisement ever present about the fact that YOU could be the next engineer if you pass the Engineer exam and pay some money to get on the waiting list.  Think about it!!

Ultimately, none of this would have come about to be without the internet leading the way for development - both technologically and socially.  And in the future, there are even greater things to come - becasue at this moment, we are FAR from tapping the full potential of this reservior!!

Club of the future

Benny,

Interesting ideas.  What you are describing sounds like the model railroad club of the future, with a membership class that includes those who may be far-removed from the club location, but still want to participate.  So, the "fee" involved is really dues paid.

There is the issue of on-site crews to watch over the physical plant, but I don't see that as a problem.  There are as many different desires for level of participation as there are people.  A club I belonged to years ago in Los Angeles had members from all over L.A.  Probably 10% of the members did 90% of the physical work on the layout, with a much greater turnout on run days.  But, the dues of those members who mostly ran, helped finance the construction done by those of us who also liked to build, so there were little or no ill-feelings regarding work (except for, maybe, cleaning up).

Ah, the good old days, with Pittman motors that used mega-amps of power, and Kemtron switch-machines that slammed your switch points over so you were sure to have conductivity through the points.  Who needed "DCC-friendly"?  Certainly not us!

Benny, thanks for proving my point.

Benny,  I get no joy from  driving a model of a train.  While what you describe is what might be available in some video game, it is pure silly to me.  Model railroading is so much more; it is about buiding and fabricating and construction, not some cereberal and passive exercise of the imagination.  I'm just a simple guy who likes making complex things work together. And, I get a kick out of seeing kids and adults alike come visit my layout.

I'd never spend a minute of time reading Model-Railroad Hobbyist if it was not about how to build something or show us how someone else has already built something.

Thanks for proving my point, I want to experience, not read.  IF I even wanted to drive a train, I'd build a 7" scale and have at it.  Or better yet, I'd buy a Cagney.  Why mess around with an RC car when I can drive a Corvette?

And while they are useful tools, neither Xtrackcad nor JMRI have been essential components of making the hobby what it is.  My blog has my long standing opine of both programs.  Excuse me but the iphone throttle is but a johnny come lately.  KAM had it available on my smart phone and my tablet pc back in 2005.