I'm on the younger end at 26. I've loved trains my entire life. Got a Lionel set for Christmas at age 5 and bragged to my friends about it because the box said something like age 12+. Got an N scale set a few years later and its been my main scale since.
I will be 67 next month (Dec). Some days I feel like I am in my 20's some days I feel like i'm in my 90's. I got into the hobby in the early 2000. It was after I had my liver transplant and was unable to work any more. Got bored not doing any thing. So I started out with a 4' x 8' table top layout. After our house was destroyed by hurricane Wilma. We got a new home that has a den and I claimed it 'Dad's Train Room". Now I have a work in progress a L shape layout. Started out with a U shape layout but started another hobby "amateur radio also known as Ham radio" so I turned the U to an L Layout to make room for my Ham equipment. Now I have the best of two worlds. We need to get more younger people involved in our hobby "model trains and also ham radio". We are a dying breed.
43 posts so far, without this one. Minus the OP's three non-age= 40 possible. 32 dates, for an 80% response rate. Not at all bad, in fact better than usual, when thinking of many other past similar topics.
I agree that this is a good response ration Boxcab. Looks like the average so far is about 60 so as usual, I am below average yet again.
Okay I'll jump in here. Older then I care to be and feeling it. Seventy (70) big ones. Surgeries, that are beginning to make me wonder how much of me they can replace? I started serious model railroading by leaving behind my TOY TRAINS, at the age of 12. Don't get me wrong I enjoyed my toy trains. I've been involved with model railroading ever since. I started out with S Scale. Cousins and space restraints put and end to it. HO learning quickly that tight radius curves isn't the answer I was looking for. For example 15", 18" 22" and 24" radius curves. Not going to make me a happy camper. Sometime in the late 70's I began to watch a small scale of toy trains start to take shape. Not meeting my approval because it looked way to toyish. The good news. I soon learned with N scale I could use those same radii as afore mentioned and that was the answer I was looking for. N Scale soon came onto it's own with relatively authentic looking train equipment. PMI, Atlas, Arnold, ConCor, even Rivarossi got into the act and we had trains to run. Micro Trains brought us knuckle couplers and then Kato came along and raised the overall standard. Something for all manufacturers to reach for. If you go to where young people are today you will find them showing a great deal of interest in Trains. Thomas the Tank, although Toy Trains is Okay for the early age of kids. I'm uncomfortable with it as they get used to a small play area. Mom's like that but that's not what Model Railroading is all about. We have one local club up the road, that encourages kids to come in and operate trains. Teaching them the values of Model Railroading. Go to train shows and you will find the girls taking a very real interest in the layouts on display. Asking questions and wanting to learn how to build their own. Train periodicals and computer presentations are up in numbers and the subscribers are higher then ever. There's more How To's, out there then there's ever been before. How To Videos can be found on You Tube as well as from Modeling Wig Wags. Different levels of How To's from the inexperienced to the serious Model Railroader. Good ones and the proverbial bad ones. Newbies teaching newbies the same mistakes. Mistakes? Yes you can make mistakes. Not worth beating yourself up for. You'll know them when you make them and will most likely echo what we've all said, "I won't do that again." The internet makes it easier then ever to shop for those hard to live without Passenger Train Cars, Realistic Stock Cars, Big and Small Locomotives and those ever present motors/diesels and more. The face of Model Railroading will change. Somethings will change while somethings will remain the same. You may end up seeing more high speed trains running around club layouts. While the old farts still run their locals powered with steam/locomotives or those lousy stinking replacements called Diseasels. What will continue? Toy Trains and the fun you can have. Serious Model Railroading and the different levels you can aspire to. Old Values will become New Values as each generation following us or coming along, discovers for themselves the merits and joys of true Model Railroading. Computers will take over operations and DCC will become a thing of the past. What? What? What did I say? It isn't dead yet.
It would be interesting to add up all the years of experience in model railroading that members have responded on this thread. Joe
Better get my answer in before somebody starts totalling the numbers! I'll be 65 in two months and retired for the last time in 3 1/2 weeks and then I'll get to start on a real layout this time. I've been buying most of the items I'll need including decoders for all my locos and I have more than enough to keep me busy for quite some time. I have two brothers-in-law who are interested in trains, but for some strange reason they want to model in HO instead of the Normal scale (N scale, of course). I guess I should be happy to have someone who shares the fascination of trains and model railroading, rather than someone who doesn't understand and gives you those sidelong glances and those condescending acknowledgments if you mention anything train related.
"I have concerns similar to all activities now-a-days that the younger generation is not getting involved in the Hobby of Model Railroading! I doubt that there will be very many participants in answering this question; however, the question may give give some indication of what is happening, even with a small number of answers! Similar to Hunting, sailing, golfing building and flying R/C model airplanes and other activities/hobbies that my generation was heavily involved with, the younger generations may not be following in our foot steps which could mean the eventual end to such activities!" My response was a comment on your preamble. But, you are right, I didn't actually answer. I'm 67. I retired with a full military pension at the tender age of 52, and got into the hobby six months later.
Just a few months south of 42. Been an N scaler since I was 9, loved trains since I can remember. Now that I have a layout, I don't have time to play with it, and it shares the room with the cats' litterboxes, so it's tarped over to minimize dust. I gotta figure that out...
What's happening here in response to the O.P.'s original question may not answer said question. Is it safe to say most of us who've responded, are in the after 50's range of age. To know what's really going on in the hobby. You have to look further and wider to see how the hobby is doing. If you get my drift. It isn't dieing as may be suggested here. All indicators say it's growing. The key word here is changing.
I'm 38. I started in N scale about 6 years ago after attending a train show with my dad. He's in an O Gauge club but dabbles in HO and N scale. I had an HO scale figure 8 when I was younger, but then have not been into it at all until recently.
Been a N scaler since the early 90's while I was in the Navy. I though it was a neat departure from the Horribly Oversize models that limited me with space storage while on the ship. Like everyone else I fell in love with trains at a early age. Downtown the Missouri Pacific was a sight to see everyday when I was in my small east Texas town. When I was a tot I vaguely remember seeing a couple of Jenks Blue F units rolling in town with a mashup of other diesels pulling freight through town. All the way up through grade school. I remember our bus either being held up in the morning and afternoon for the long trains that would rumble through town. Every time I counted more than five locomotives. I knew that I will be counting a 100+ car train moving through town. For my seventh birthday I received four set of N scale Champ of the Road(not road champs) toy trains. By Christmas I received a Tyco Rock Island C 430. I enjoyed this for some time too. When I turned 13 My parents took me to Texas state railroad to ride number #500. I chased trains with my Minolta 35 until I entered into the 10th grade. Well this year I started to collect Z scale. Because once again to space size on our apartment here in France. Once we return I will finally start my first real layout. Better late than never at 48.
Many are still forgetting to answer the most important question; or, if they do answer, bury their age in the middle; or, at the end of a long paragraph about their life, making it difficult to locate the most important part of what they have to say, how old they are. I appreciate hearing how you came to be a Model Railroader! But, the purpose of this thread was to get an idea about how old we are. There are almost 3 pages of responses to my question, since Saturday Nov. 10th, 2019. I think there will be a fairly good amount of response to come to some conclusions about how old we are! Agree/disagree with my thoughts on how accurate this survey will be, it's your choice.
My thoughts on how to divide up the ages goes like this: Child, 0-12 Years Old Adolescent, 12-19 YO Early Adult, 20-44 YO Middle Aged 45-64 YO Senior 65 YO and older Not going to ask if this is agreeable to everyone as that seems like it would be a loaded question. However, if you feel my divisions are out of wack we can talk about it.
