CAPPilot
You hit it for me. We had a 9 x 5 Marx layout of the floor at Christmas and tired of it at about 8. My brother and I started building wooden and stick model planes, then move to U-control model flying into high school and got several neighbor hood kids into flying, even if it was 95 degrees and 20 mph wind blown in south Texas. Then scratch building and model boats with gas motors and later a radio control boat with Tubes! Then we built Heathkits stereos and my brother got into Ham radio through out his life time. See, even then we were attracted to the modern stuff of the time and the more fun to operate (fly) things. If only slot cars had come out then I would have gone into them.
So it is not too hard to see why an old form of transportation and slow moving hobby like model trains has a hard time competing, even with all the electronics, sound and more realism of today's modern trains. I stuck to the portable layout, I built when my two kids were young, as a part time hobby. The son, now an engineer and daughter enjoyed them then and to this day she is only one who can run the whole layout and shows some interest in seeing the layout an hour or so when her family comes to town. None of the 7 grands, 10 to 18 now, care much or know how to run it. But boy can they use those devices.
So we have to accept that model trains are our hobby and be glad the wife and family tolerate us and the trains!
Charlie
