Interesting Observation

I have to agree with your analysis of today's hobby. Remember too that today's modeler may have only started 5 to 10 years ago. Many have no idea how a steam engine works. Also you don't see much scratch building of models. It's all RTR. Most concentrate on wanting to run trains in operation settings. It's a great hobby to be in with it's many diversified interests. 

Bernd

What is there to disagree about?

You make perfectly valid observations. I can't imagine anyone disagreeing with them. 

When I started getting

When I started getting interested in models of steam locos (it was because of their detail and intricate moving parts more so than the steam to diesel era) it was about 29 years after the last steam loco ran in Canada and I thought that was so so long ago.

I can imagine a young modeller thinking now that 1992 was long ago and may or may not be interested in that era. 

The "modern"RTR  rolling stock and motive power is very nice and I have been tempted to buy a model and ended up starting a collection of them for the period 1974 for nostalgic reasons. For me this is modern, yet was 47 years ago!

I have to disagree

I have to disagree with almost everything here. 

Other then HO getting the majority of the coverage, but that has been talked about so many times. 

HO is the most popular scale by a very large margin. It makes sense it gets the most coverage. 

As far as equipment. It seems to be a great time for just about everybody in the hobby.  Rapido, BLI have release a good amount of transition equipment lately. Modelers from the 60s through 2000 seem to get a healthy amount of new releases a year, and yes model wide cab stuff is popular and very well supported. 

I think what you are missing is that the steam to diesel era now was a very long time ago, every decade that passes we find a new era in the mix. Only so much time and space in the hobby.   around 2000 you probably saw a bit more of it in the hobby because it was on 50 years in the past. Fast forward, now its 70 years behind us.  But with all of that said I am seeing more support for turn of the century equipment. Steamers for the 1900 time frame along with rolling stock. 

I do not see transition era modeling going away, but soon you might have to share shelf space at the hobby shop with Wabtec battery unit models, and hydrogen fuel loco models. But I am sure transition models will still be produced even then. 

Change is constant!

It's 2021

At 59, every time I think about "modern equipment" my mind still goes back to the 1970's and early 80's when I was maturing from a teenager to an adult and did most of my rail fanning. That was over 40 years ago!  Back then I considered modeling steam as modeling "old time stuff" but if I modeled the equipment I saw in my youth today, I would be modeling the "old time stuff". I actually model a freelance railroad set on a fictitious Pacific Northwest island in the 1940's but my point is that perspective changes over time. We used to think of anyone who modeled diesel as modern and anyone who modeled steam as old time but you can't really do that anymore.

Not a new trend

I model 1900-1905.

The last new truss rod equipped car to be brought out by plastic manufacturers was in the 1970's.

There has never been a wooden coal car typical of those in use prior to 1900 produced in plastic.

Pretty much, American model producers think railroads were invented around WW1.

two facets

- If you want to catch the eye of someone, produce something they just saw on a rail line near them.  So, newbies can more easily 'get caught up" in the hobby when they see rolling stock they can relate to

- If you're a manufacturer that wants to get all the details "spot on", (think Rapido) it helps if you can actually work from available accurate drawings, or better yet go and measure the prototype.

Neither of these statements are absolute, of course, but I believe they are factors.

Blair

It's true, the direction of

It's true, the direction of the hobby has been tilting toward modern (i.e. last ~25 years).  It makes sense as many modeler want to model what they see with their eyes.  The further you go back, the harder it is to find models.  As the song goes, "it's just the way it is".  I can't complaint as a late 70s fan however.

Hmmm...

Rapido seems to be offering quite a few different pieces of equipment (locomotive and freight cars) for modelers of 1940s-1960s period.  As well as Bowser.  Atlas continues to produce new equipment for that time period as well, as does Accurail.  And Tangent just offered a NYC Caboose recently.  So not sure where the hobby if focusing on mostly "modern" equipment.

Ken L

While the selection is

While the selection is limited there are  pre 1950s models in HO.  Tangent offers tank cars as early as 1917.  As mentioned, Rapido does a wood boxcar.  Intermountain offers models also pre 1950s.

If you want to see what can

If you want to see what can be done in the 20s to 30s era then you should check out what Jimsix does. He has changed up and backdated his layout more than once and, at least in my humble opinion, is very passionate in his modeling of earlier eras accurately. If you are not subscribed to RE or TMTV I would recommed giving it a shot. Jim has a monthly column and also now a couple of Q and A videos. It's HO and not On30, but the information is useful in any scale.

History keeps getting bigger

In the 70’s when I developed my perhaps lifelong (I’m not dead yet) love of trains, railroading had been around in a practical form (not just little isolated things here and there) for maybe 100 years.  It’s now the 2020’s, 50 years later.  So, the total history of railroading is 50% larger.  If you assumed that modelers spread out in equal distribution across the entire time period, that means the percentage of people modeling eras prior to 1970 is now 66% instead of 100%.

Now as Dave points out percentage wise there’s not much before WWI, so if you consider 1920 on, then the amount of railroading history covered has doubled from 50 years to 100 years.

In other words, it makes perfect sense to me that the percentage of people interested in the ancient time period of steam only, or the very old transition period is declining.

On a slight tangent, the definition of modern seems to depend on perspective.  For a steam modeler it may mean anything after 1950, but for a present day modeler anything older than say 2010 does not seem to be modern.

Comparing US and UK

Whilst there is a healthy production of modern (ie last 20 years) RTR here in the UK there is also plenty produced for the other end of things. Bachmann have just brought out an express passenger loco (the LNWR Improved Precedent class) in 4mm scale,  that was built in 1887 and was defunct by 1928, there are several other early locos available RTR, and an immense variety of kits. Freight (goods) and passenger cars (wagons and coaches) are not in such good supply RTR, but two lines of "stand for" coaches from the 19th century are in production, based on prototypes but being sold in a variety of different colour schemes, plus a number of prototypes originating in the first decades of the 20th century. The period between the two World Wars is well served RTR.

Two things occur to me. One is that in the UK the people interested in the early period have pretty well exclusively been modellers (for whom the market for kits is still fairly healthy). Many of them are now getting older and potentially less dextrous but with more cash. The second is that with our transition period not ocurring till the 1960s many of the early steamers, and most early 20th century cars, carried on running till well into the last half of the 20th Century. This means that early locos and cars are viable RTR.

Aside from US HO I also model North Wales and the Wirral

You might be surprised

Self fulfilling prophesy

Much of what is offered is driven by what is offered.  It's a "chicken and the egg" thing.

If there aren't models for a particular era, then fewer people model that era.

If fewer people model the era, then manufacturers offer fewer models.

It continues to spiral to where we are now.

Publishing certain scales

Nothing new

The trend of “Modern Era Modeling” is nothing new. 
 

I find that a large number, perhaps even a vast number of modelers tend to model what they were exposed to early in life. (I didn’t, however) In many cases, when they started modeling it was the modern era. Of course that isn’t true in every case. Even Allen McClelland “updated” his V&O periodically. 
 

I bet in 25 years, today’s “Modern Era” modelers may not be modeling what will be the modern era at that time. They may be modeling 2015, not 2045.

Look at the Positive Aspects

I would say there are a few positive aspects of what you want to model. It just might require a little more searching.

Forget modern produced items for your era. Go out to the train shows and estate sales and pick up your era equipment,...and likely at a MUCH reduced price of the modern stuff !

Aging out

Nothing has been more replicated, by more modellers, than 'transition era'. And if you go through the old magazine archives on Trainlife, you get the sense that everybody was trying to model PRR's 'horseshoe curve' in their basements. Steam's kinda been done to death. Kinda interesting, and perhaps indicative, the freshly minted 'weekly photo fun' thread has at this moment 4 images on it - three steam engines, and one early diesels.

As visually interesting as moving siderods might be to some people, steam engines are always toys to me because - visually - the models/modellers cannot reproduce the most visible elements - the smoke and the steam! The 'living, breathing", sound and fury the great-grandpas remember from their youth isn't there. (And yes I know, neither is diesel exhaust.)

I never had any interest in wooden cars and steam, and I welcome the too-long delayed shift to steel and internal combustion. Perusing the hobby press the past 50 years, I've been interested in maybe 5% of what was published. Even this site.

Update: a few hours later. There are now 8 images there. 6 steam. 1 1960's diesels, 1 1950's(?) diesel. Nothing newer than 1970 (50+ years ago). So on this site, at least, the thread's op seems .. premature to me.

I'm at the opposite end of things...

The modern era is okay to watch trackside, but I can't reasonably model this era in the space I have....so TOC is more doable, the railroads were more relevant and were the reason many towns existed.   As for the modern days, 8 or more lookalike locomotives and a rolling scrapyard blowing by a 60 mph just doesn't cut it for me.  I hate graffiti, and these cars reaching 50 or more years of age, and haven't seen paint other than graffiti the whole time, with luck you get a turbo fire for variety. That being said a lot of folks make remarkable models of these junkyard dogs and are remarkable.  But I like my teakettles and old wood cars.  Just my two cents....room for us all and no one era is better than another, just a matter of personal preference.

Peace, Bill

Modeling periods changes: much a feeling than reality?

.

Every year such debate come on

And each year conclude the same.....I'm not sure about any change in fact 

In fact is just a feeling because when you see the answers,  interest seems never changing, some are for the steam area, the transition area and the now modern one.

If you read the older topic about the subject same feelings, same answers, same conclusions, but not real changes.

And for me is really a feeling which don't really illustrate the reality I see and I read.

Like  Jeof say youngers  have interest in the steam area and some older have interest in the modern area.

Did we see more advertising about modern equipment in place of second age materials not sure; the fact is advertising seems to have changed but the offers remains great for all area's

May be also and it's a personal  feeling, seems Walters is less active and this is perhaps not to be neglected in the point of view of the market 

But when you see the major manufacturers the most offers new models in all the time area; each year several        ( unfortunately always the same) USRA steam power is offered, like first and second generation locomotives and modern one from the 2000's , same with cars and structures and details set 

Spectrum steam models is a hit like BLI and Kato  modern power is a hit.

If we could really make some statistics about these offerings on the market , I' m sure the variation will be extremely small year after year,  if even it appears

The only thing which seems really decrease is the offer of brass models but this is a niche market

And about scale popularity course HO is the most representative this seems evident 

And again a personal  feeling, but I have been always astonished about popularity because is a matter of fact N scale remain from a long time the second scale in use and the press about N scale remain extremely secondary perhaps more than O scale in some case. I admit I'm an avid N scaler.

The  other change which seems to me evident is the pop up of small layout or modules , big layout one and empire seems declining.

And also some companies are changing hands, MTH, NWSL and may be ME for the best know, which is good news but could also change deeply the market and choice of the offering.

Used market

If you account for the used market, I'd bet that the transition era accounts for more of the market than is represented by new stuff. The transition era has had decades for stuff to be bought, sold, maybe re-sold again, so you can get 40' boxcar kits or built boxcars at swap meets relatively cheaply and easily.

It has also become impossible to model mainline freight operations in HO scale, maybe even in N scale. Last-mile switching is more compelling than ever, although the transition era offers more possibilities for different types of operations if one wants to take it to that level.

I seem to have a bias against 1960-1980 due to living in the Northeast, in another thread Joe set me straight on that based on some polls or reader feedback he had at one point, and that era is alive and well outside of the Northeast PC/Conrail roads that were a total disaster during that time period.

It also depends on the type of locomotive. There aren't very many prototype-specific branchline steam locomotives in plastic, as up through the transition era, there were tons of different models on different railroads, and the big market for railroad-specific stuff seems to be large locomotives that run mostly on club layouts.

I also wonder about the "HO scale is 74% of the market". What does that even mean? 74% of the $? 74% of the units sold? 74% of the modelers? 74% of the layouts? All of those mean rather different things. HO scalers tend to collect more because more is available, and thus people who like to collect tent to go to HO scale. But some of the niche scales tend to have passionate modelers, they just don't tend to spend as much on RTR locos, rolling stock, and building kits as HO scale.

There are also many multi-era and multi-scale modelers like myself.

Model Railroading is dead….

Model Railroading is dead…. long live Model Railroading.

I have tried pointing this out elsewhere.  The hobby as it was had died off many many times.  As it has so radically changed that it is not the hobby it was. 

It used to he you scratch built everything, then we got kits and plastic and kitbashing and so on.  The hobby keeps evolving.    

-Doug M

trends, eras, and such

  Time passes. In the 1950s the transition era was modern. TOC was only 50 years past. Now 50 years past was 1970.which is 20 years later than the once "modern" transition era. There was a boomer type surge in model railroaders caused by the post war baby boom so that too will pass as each boomer passes. I started out as a fan of the transition era as that's what I saw as a kid but over the years I also enjoyed the 70's 80's and 90's eras and their advancement in car size and variety. Due to mergers and less traveling I'm not as keen on post 90's era but if I was born in 1990 I'd have a completely different perspective. As for popularity of the hobby I don't base it on numbers sold as the population has greatly increased. I base it on percentages of population involved in the activity and in that respect I think model railroading has declined which makes perfect sense as the number of kids exposed to railroads has declined due to railroad mergers and contraction of local switching. We don't have the friendly local yards and crews that we had in the 1950s when I was a kid. .....DaveB