It kinda depends on what you mean when you say the Golden Age is "over."
Do you mean over, in the sense that this is the end of new, different, available, high tech, high quality engines and trains? No, I don't think so. Frankly, as someone just getting back into it after a 48 year absence, I am stunned at the wide array of trains, engines and accessories that are available. Unbelievable really. But, as long as people are willing to pay $250 to $1,000 for a new engine, somebody will make them.
On the other hand, if you mean over as far as it seems to be a hobby of diminishing popularity in the U.S., then I tend to agree.
When I was a kid, there must have been 8 or 10 really big train layouts around, just in my subdivision, that my friend's fathers had in their basements. Lots of them were old school prewar and early post war, but there were also several big time HO layouts . The Dads were really enthusiastic, and were happy to show us how the trains ran, and even let us handle the throttle if we were careful. Every kid I grew up with got some sort of train set around his 12th birthday.
However, in the past 20 years, I have lived in three different locals, in two different states, and have never known anyone other than myself that had the slightest interest in "toy trains." Yes, there were occasional train shows around, and of course there were a fair number of people there, but nobody I knew of, and in the last 20 years, I never had a friend or business acquaintance at work say that was buying a train set for his son or daughter. X-Box is now the right of passage gift at age 12, or even younger.
In a similar vein, the sports of skeet and trap were really popular when I was growing up. When I was a teenager, you often had to wait an hour for a range to open up to shoot one of these 25 shot games.
Now, most skeet and trap ranges have been closed, and the ranges that have survived have changed to Sporting Clays layouts ( a 50 shot game), and when I occasionally go there are not many people there. Almost no women, and the men are in their late thirties to late 50s, all carrying $3,000 (or more) over/unders. To shoot a single game, it often costs $30 to $40, plus the cost of two boxes of shells. (For a game that takes about 45 minutes.) It has morphed into an "elitist" sport, and is dying out.
Golf is also a dying middle class sport. About half the public golf courses in America are going out of business (well before Covid 19), and Country Clubs are really hard pressed now to find someone who will pay $5,000 to $10,000 (or more!) as a membership fee to join the Club, plus the green fees and cart fees per game.
If you happen to own a golf course, you are pretty much out of luck. Nobody (not even the Japanese) will buy one from you now. It is a money losing proposition. Again, it is turning into an elitist sport, and that generally spells the end. I have two clients that developed, constructed and own two large private country clubs about 25 years ago. Both of them are barely breaking even now. The old members are now dying out, and new members are few and far between.
Mannyrock
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