Bermuda Ken posted:romiller49 posted:Face the facts. Model railroading including O Gauge is not a kids hobby. Go to any train shop or train meet and all you see is adults. The hobby, as always, will survive.
Rod Miller
Absolutely TRUE!!! Kids today can not AFFORD to get into O scale. Its' just too spendy!!! A new Loco is $300-$1500, cars are $50 each, add in track, transformers, scenic, ect and you have the price of a good car wrapped up in it!
I think most kids see it as whimsical fun, but prefer to invest the $$ into a PC or tablet or living life.
For myself, it took many years to become $$$$ available to get some nice running equipment and a layout.
I do share my layout with the kids. They run Chessie engines on their "Kitty Kat Train" and have a blast doing so...
As a teenager who has been in the hobby for 9 years, I will say that yes, O SCALE is out of reach of the younger generations. O GAUGE, however, is not; I have managed to create a rather large layout and collection through a combination of letting family know what my interests were (grandad is a hoarder on the search for "new" things, and great grandparents frequent garage sales) and keeping an eye out for the deals at the shows and on the internet. Thanks to that, I have a mixture of classic tinplate and postwar/MPC Lionel that run on a 8'x12' layout in the rafters above the garage that I am genuinely proud of. I do tend to sell or give away the less interesting pieces as time goes by, and do my best to do so where it will do the most good (younger siblings of friends, to give an example) for bringing others into the hobby. Most of us aren't nit picky, we do fine imagineering our roads when the interest is started right (and society isn't a worry).
