The steam-only comment is funny to me, in that I know several people locally who only have interest in the most modern stuff and might not even turn around if a steam locomotive went past!
I also know some local guys who live and breathe model trains (most of them are into N scale for some reason) but aren't the least bit interested in the 1:1 scale thing. You like the models of a thing you couldn't care less about? Man, that doesn't make sense at all.