I think the analogy does not quite hold

I am a new modeler (and a Gen Y to boot) but I think the decline of the steam-diesel era may have some merit. The analogy to old war time radio controlled aircraft fails to take into account a couple of factors. Modern aircraft use jet propulsion rather than prop which is harder to model and war time aircraft are smaller with simple flight dynamics that relate well to the model.

That being said I do not think the wider hobby is necessarily in decline. DCC has helped significantly as pointed out in the article. Lance Mindheim has shown benefits of the modern era which may be more relevant than the steam-diesel era for future generations. Personally I have no interest in steam.

how many kinds of 4-6-2's were there anyway?

Steam will always have a certain charm, no matter how far into the past it drifts.  The biggest problem remains the mind-boggling variety of steam types which can never be adequately covered by plastic manufacturers.  Even brass only scratched the surface of most of the more popular or larger railroads.  Even in the case of the Pennsy or Santa Fe, there were still many locomotives which were unavailable unless you were a skilled craftsman.  

This, I think is the heart of the popularity of Steam/diesel transition era:  you don't need all of your engines to be steam; you can supplement them with diesels and have a plausible roster.  Many transition era modellers are really frustrated steamaholics who would just have steam if they could.

It also has that fifies nostalgia going for it as well, since that era is a popular in hearts of many even without trains involved.  It won't go away anytime soon, but it will have more and more competition from all the "new" eras which will come and go as time goes on.

It's a bit of everything

I decided I was going to focus my yet-to-be-built layout in the transition era not consciously, but because I entered the hobby when locomotive kits were plentiful.  I did not know any better and I bought the locomotives that attracted me.  I ended up with some diesels and a lot of steam.  As I found out more about the "real world" I could see that, if I excluded the two or three woodburning "old timers", two small GE diesel/electrics and one "GP-something" diesel, all others could have run in the same trackage.

I ended modernizing one of the woodburners, and just putting the modern diesel out of my mind (I still have it, but I have never photographed it - It is invisible, lettered for the Atlanta and St. Andrews Bay RR, with its green work caboose).  The two GE diesel/electrics I found could be run as a sugarcane railroad, a separate layout that (if I ever build it) would model Aguirre Mill in southeastern Puerto Rico: out of my mind too.! The Mantua General and the Roundhouse 2-6-0 were destined to be display models.

Then I ran into my current project after returning to the hobby: modelling the Tallulah Falls Railroad as a connecting short line on my Southern, Georgia, and Central of Georgia layout.  It just so happens that in 1955, Disney filmed The Great Locomotive Chase on the TF RR tracks!  The star of the film was The General!  So now, I can run that ol' woodburner in my layout, by stretching the years a bit (my layout's date is 1947-48).  The Roundhouse woodburner I can run as an excursion train...

So, for me, the decision was retroactive: what to do with what I already had...  I like where this took me because it lets me combine all types of stuff.  It gives me more flexibility and breadth.  I also like modeling steam-era piping and odd-looking appliances riding a boiler side, but confess that I also like the looks of the little Bachmann Spectrum GE 70 tonner I just found, to be kitbashed into TF RR #501.

Steam to Diesel

I like the transition era because of the variety of motive power to choose from, I mainly model in the bigger scales and there for can not run the big steamers of the C&O and N&W that I like the most, in S scale I have 2 4-6-2 one is streamlined tinplate by American Flyer the other Hi rail/ scale by American Models both B&O and I have an American Flyer by Lionel light Mikado also B&O and very detailed scale but with Hi rail wheels and flyer type knuckle couplers, other than those locos mentioned above I stick to starter sets in both steam and diesel in S and O gauge .  the biggest diesel I have is an O scale Kline/Lionel SD70mac in CSX road name it is a monster but will go around an o-36 curve with a massive overhang around the curves, the biggest steamer I have is an MTH 2-8-0 painted up for the Buckeye express(OSU licensed). I would like to have room to run some of the big steamers like mallets, allaganey, and other large steamers. Would also like the diesel centipede.

Steam to Diesel

I see the "decline" as more of a "dilution".  The more time passes the more modeling "eras" there are to model.  In 1960 there was 130 years of railroading to model, in 2010 there is 180 years of railroading to model.  If you spread essentially the same number of modelers over the longer span of history you will get fewer modelers in some eras.

There will always be a certain group of modelers who want to model what they see.  They will always be modeling the last 20 years or so, with that 20 years a moving target.

A lot of it depends on what the manufacturers build.  If they decide not to produce F units and 40 ft boxcars, suprise, the 1950'sera modelers will begin to evaporate.

I think that as people get more into operations, the earlier eras will become more popular.  Modern eras are really inferior for modeling in many ways to earlier eras.  The equipment is bigger, the trains are longer, there is less switching.  Less operation, less activity, less challenge.  On the other hand, the space most modelers have hasn't gotten bigger.  Most people are in the same size spaces modelers had 30-50 years ago.

That is actually one reason I went to the 1900 era.  I can comfortably fit a yard in about half the space of a 2000 era yard.  My small steamers and 34 ft cars look OK going around a 24" radius curve (overhang, what overhang?).  Virtually everything moved by rail and it was all carload business.  I can have as much switching as I can stand.  With an earlier era I can put more operation, more activity and more challenge per square foot than a contemporary layout.

Plastic steam engine reliability.

When I first entered the hobby, I wanted to run steam engines exclusively, but in the 1980's and earlier, reasonably priced steam engines were almost as hard to get running reliably as the prototype was to operate and maintain.  Larger steam locomotives required a much larger radius than 4 axle diesels.  As a result I went to transition era to be able to run a little steam, but also have the reliable diesels.

Later, I joined a modular club, and Bachmann came out with a 2-8-0 in the then "Bachmann +" line.  This was the old tooling that was destroyed in a fire a few years ago, not the new Baldwin 2-8-0 that Bachmann came out with a few years ago and offers currently.  I bought it and took it out of the box at a modular club set up.  We have a 36 inch minimum radius on the mainlines, so I figured it would work well.  It didn't.  Bachmann put so much side play in the driver axles that the fist driver would move over far enough in any curve to allow the front rod pin to lock up on the valve gear.  I put the locomotive back in it's box and ran my F7's and Gp 7's.

I took the Bachmann home and made thin shims from styrene ad installed them behind the drivers to limit side play.  The problem was that I didn't have a layout, so I had to wait another month for the next modular set up to try out my steam engine.  The shims restricted side play enough that the locomotive would not go around a 36 inch radius without derailing!  I took it home again and took it apart and removed the shims on the two rear drivers, just leaving shims on the front two axles.  I took it back to the club to run at the next set up.

It worked at the next set up of the club, but at that point it was almost three months since I had bought the engine.  It is not a very good running engine, but it will run now.  In the mean time, I bought more diesels to fit the early 1950's and they are reliable right out of the box.  I also bought a Bachmann + 4-8-4 in Santa Fe a few months later.  I tried it out on a club set up and it would hardly pull itself around the layout.  The drivers would slip like crazy just trying to pull the tender and a caboose.  I added weight, and "fiddled" with it until I figured out that Bachmann had fitted the lead and trailing trucks with springs heavy duty enough for use on a Lionel O guage locomotive!  The springs on the lead and trailing trucks were actually lifting the drivers off of the rails!

I have bought other steam engines since then and the newer offerings by Bachmann and IHC are very good.  BLI also makes really good stuff but they are well out of the price range that I can afford.  I have a box with 4 or 5 steam engines that don't work, but are repairable as soon as I have time to fix them.  Meanwhile my diesels run with no more work required than installing decoders and cleaning wheels.

In short, modeling the transition era allows me to run steam engines, but doesn't force me to run them all of the time, with the commensurate need to spend as much time fiddling with them as running them.

The major problem with

The major problem with running steam in HO is cost and having to tinker. A good well detailed and accurate plastic model is rivaling the cost of brass locos. Another thing is the fact that most steam loco models will need some tinkering to get to run good. With the hobby going to RTR stuff and very little kit building most new model railroaders have no idea how to fix even simple things. Changing a broken coupler is beyond some of the members of our club. The complexity of a valve gear problem would send them to the nut farm. It drives me crazy watching the same guys bring the same equipment to run on the clubs layout with coupler trip pins too low or wheels out of gage or binding trucks constantly derailing. If I don't fix the RTR junk for them they will never run. I get the same argument every time, It said it was ready to run! 

    Pete

look at the cost...

I model N Scale Southern Pacific...I can buy 3-4 Tunnel Motors or 1 Cab Forward for the same price. Let's see, $300 for one 4-8-8-2, or $300 for a GP35, a pair of SD40-T2's, 5 hoppers, a box car, a bay window caboose and a bunch of flex track ( I am good at looking for deals).

A slightly different take

While I respect what other have said here I have a slightly different take on this idea.

I model something I have never seen working other than in a few museums and a couple of Norfolk Southern excursions, Steam!  I was born in the sixties and grew up loving of all things Penn Central. It was everywhere I went and they certainly didn’t run steam.  So I have regressed.

When I started in modeling, if you want to call Lionel modeling, I had a steam engine and a GTW Geep.  When I switched to HO as a teenager, I had nothing but diesels, but somewhere along the way and I am not really sure when or why, I got interested in steam. I can tell you why I am still into steam.  It is the living breathing, no two the same, smoke belching, moving parts that you can see and the sound of a whistle aspect.

I started buying brass steam after college and am working with an importer now to bring in a Canadian National steamer.  I own a few diesels in plastic and brass, but mostly it is steam.  I model an era that happened when my parents where young and in a area that I have never lived in and more than likely never will, but that, to me is the beauty of modeling. Creating a version of once was and will not be again. It takes time and money to do this, but as a former army mechanic, I enjoy the tinkering part and the cost just is like being a kid a again and saving up to buy something you really want.

I do not see the steam to diesel era going away, I see it thriving and going on for years to come.

Steve

Same here...

Like Steve, I was born in the 60's, never saw GN steam or electrics in action, yet model the early 50's GN, on the other side of the country from my hometown.  So what's my problem?  (please don't answer that...

While nostalgia for something you grew up with can be a powerful influence, it's far from the only one, as Joe points out. Besides the early airplanes analogy, you could also point to the affection for vintage 30's/40's/50's autos and motorcycles from people not then alive... or the interest in Civil War battlefields and re-enactments... or the brilliant Revolutionary/Civil/WWI/WWII modeling expressed in Fine Scale Modeler.

Ideally, whatever interest may be waning in the transition era is being replaced by the burgeoning interest in modern railroad modeling. Hopefully. (As an aside, a young modeler recently chuckled at complaints from old fogeys about look-alike equipment in the modern era, rebutting that a long string of brown 40' boxcars isn't terribly diverse either. Now add modern coil cars, autoracks, container variations, coal gons, modern reefers, modern boxcars, centerbeam flats... there's plenty of variety if you look for it.)

But we don't actually know, do we?  Where is the data?  It's all anecdotal. Surely an industry association or Kalmbach or the NMRA has done some serious polling on the size and composition of our hobby and how it's changed over time. Anyone seen this published?

News of transition era's death are greatly exaggerated

I can't recall the year this was done, let alone remembering the exact percentages they published, but I remember Model Railroader doing a big survey of their readers over ten years back and coming up with some interesting results. One that really stuck in my mind was the most popular modeled era question. The numbers went something like:

• Transition era (1940-50's) ~50%
• Modern era (1990's to present) ~25%
• No particular era ~15%

And every other time period was a fraction of that remaining small slice of pie. I am going by memories and rounding numbers, but it was severely lop-sided towards the transition era, with modern and no era taking up most of the remainder. I think 70's modelling (what I do) was around 4%, and took into account that this was probably a passing fad due to the generation-X'ers in the hobby.

Going on layout tours over the years, whether they are local shows or part of NMRA conventions, I note the numbers keep coming pretty close to that MR survey. Lots of transition era, a decent number of modern-era, a few tinplate / Lionel 3-rail, and the one layout here doing something specific in the 1920's, another in the 60's, and one or two more in some other years. And before people think that 50% transition era is populated entirely with 40's/50's born boomers ...wrong! I see a lot of younger folks who caught the steam bug.

Long story short, I fully agree with our author. I don't see the transition era fading away any time soon.

Same here

Yes a string of brown 40' boxcars is boring. But back in the day there were all the billboard boxcars being pulled all over the good ol' US of A. They were not boring when you waited for the train to pass. Ah but now days I sit and wait by the crossing about 700' from my house and watch 140 - 150 of the same BNSF coal hoppers roll by. And not even a crummy with guys to wave at. All there is at the end is either a RC diesel or a one eyed FRED blinking at you. I'll stay in the steam era any recall the colorful memories and the times I got to ride those great steamers. 

Only electrics are era-less and have stood the test of time

From before the turn of the century to the modern day, they are still growing in speed and route miles.

And the sheer joy of modeling and watching working overhead, whether trolley poles through grand unions, or pantographs under catenary. The only railroads worth modeling!