p51 posted:WestinghouseEMDdemoguy posted:naveenrajan posted:" I have never seen an operating steam locomotive & because I have only been in the US for the last 15 years, I have no appreciation for or interest in steam locomotives & other historically significant but obsolete train models"
I would suggest to go online, find a local train excursion with a steam engine and go check it out. Post your findings afterwards, willing to bet after you've seen one in action you'll change your position.
I'd be willing to bet that it won't. Seriously, I know plenty of people just like naveenrajan, for whom steam is meaningless in any context because they were born decades into the diesel era.
Many hobbyists are all about the new and little else.
I'd never met a train buff who didn't like steam as much as the newest diesels for most of my life, but in the last decade I've met a lot of them, all of whom are in their 40s or younger.
Once your focus group gets out of the baby boomers or older, you'd be surprised what spins the spurs of younger train buffs. I know I sure was.
I think that it is hard to make generalizations about almost anything people are interested in. There are young people out there, I have seen them at car shows, that are into the whole 1950's car thing, the hot rods, the clothing, you name it, yet they were born many decades after the 1950's...by the time they were growing up, the era of hot rods a la American Graffitti was long gone, yet they embrace it. There is a show called Lead East, that happens every labor day literally within earshot of where I live, and they feature doo wop groups and such, have the old cars from that era, yet it attracts a lot of people in their 20's and 30's.
I grew up long after steam locomotives were only seen in old movies and pictures, other than maybe excursion engines, yet I was fascinated by them (I am in my 50's). People still come across pictures of them, and from watching little kids at train shows, they seem to love the steam engines they see running, and I can understand why. Steam Engines were dirty, noisy, hard to maintain, rough on the crews, diesels are easier to operate, cleaner, easier on the crews, and it is why railroads switched. On the other hand, Steam Engines are just plain interesting looking, Diesels are marvels of engineering and design, but they are relatively plain, steam engines because they are noisy, with steam pouring out of the valves, siderods moving, the steam whistle, they look more like some prehistoric beast then something produced on a production line and I think kids see that and are attracted, much like they are with dinosaurs.
Sure, there will always be those who want to model what they see, but there are also a lot who are fascinated by things that came before. I ran into it myself, I finally broke down and bought a tube amplifier to match the turntable I have and a collection of records I have scrounged far and wide, and sitting there listening to the music, with all the pops and clicks, and seeing the glowing tubes, is fun (and I am not going to argue whether solid state amps are more efficient, less noise, that cd's and digital music is 'noiseless', that a good solid state amp is just as 'warm', that isn't what this is about). It simply is some people I think will always be fascinated by trains. I love the pictures and such people post on some of the threads about old NYC, yet I grew up long after the railroads were a shadow of what they were, I never saw the Els (other than the third avenue extension that ran in the Bronx until the 70's, the one that did this crazy up and over of the Cross Bronx)..
So I do think that steam engines will still be produced as toys and models and some will like them, even young people. It is funny when I hear posts complaining that young people aren't interested in things like rail societies and such, many of the people in those groups when they were young were not exactly hanging out at rail historical societies, they were dating, watching tv, listening to music, drinking with friends, and doing the things that kids and young adults do, in the 1950's they were all hooligans going to be motorcycle gang members, in the 1960's they were either hippies spaced on acid, terrorists of the Weather Underground, or were zombies in front of the tube...more importantly, I don't think kids are zoomed out zombies, but I think that many of those groups do nothing to attract young people, either. Many of them, and I have seen rail historical groups in action, don't exactly reach out to younger people, there is a branch near where I live, where the guys spend time restoring old rail equipment, and while some of the guys were really friendly and forthcoming, a lot of them were clannish and cliquish and quite honestly, turned me off (I was in my 30's at the time), as if I was trying to enter some sort of secret society..
I guess we're looking at your co-worker the way a lot of folks look at us train nuts, but as long as we're around, the interest in the artifacts will be there somewhere.
