The Boeing Employees Model Rail Road Club may be shutting down as the company downsizes and shes assets. Need a place to resume operations and that is hard to find here in the NW. Similar fate as the Boeing Employees Midel Airplane club. The average age of the council operating the club is rapidly increasing (most members are retired ) :(
Bummer.
Jim
Sad news.
I wish everybody luck--in this economy, not just the club members.
I guess times are hard for model railroad clubs. Here, in Alabama, just about every club is actively looking for members...with little success. Have we become a nation of isolates?
Ray
I wonder if time is a more major factor. I really want to join the local club here (PWMRC). However, between kids' activities, homework, housework, career, yard, and paying a little attention to my wife, there's barely anytime to steal away to my own layout, let alone a club layout or weekly meetings. It's a shame, too, because the dues are cheap, and they have a really cool layout in a working train station. They are constantly repositioning ladders, stairs, etc from the vibration of the big freights wizzing by all day.
Jonathan
Excellent point Jonathan...in our fast paced, modern society time can be a rare commodity. Frequently I haven't the desire to work on the Monks' Island Brewery layout and just feel like 'vegging'. I can only imagine the time constraints that working full time and taking care of a home/family/children brings - let alone adding in the responsibilities of being a good club member.
Another possible cause could be avoidance of the politics club membership brings. It doesn't seem to matter what kind of club is involved; more than 3 members can generate internal friction. Personally, I have tried two model railroad clubs (since retiring to Alabama) and was made painfully aware of the 'poor fit' each made (one of the problems with being conversant in psychology I guess). The Monks' Island Brewery (and the Newburgh, Dutchess & Connecticut before it) are run by a committee of one...all decisions (even the poor ones) are unanimous. I find my layout is a refuge from the pressures of the required social interactions of daily life - I suppose club membership would diminish this tranquility.
Again, just my opinion.
Ray
Time. Not nearly enough of it to get to everything. You guys sound just like me. I'm in a club and modified my membership to inactive. I cannot get down there nearly enough to justify the cost these days. I can't even get the time to work on my layout in my own basement never mind a huge new layout 30 miles away!
Hmm. It strikes me that the comments I'm reading on this thread about time constraints in people's lives might also be relevant to the discussion of the demise of kits and the expansion of RTR.
JBF,
You make another good point. That being said, when I do have some precious time to work on my layout, I'd rather be building a kit... things that make you go... hmmm.
Jonathan
Quote from: jonathan on October 26, 2009, 08:47:18 PM
JBF,
You make another good point. That being said, when I do have some precious time to work on my layout, I'd rather be building a kit... things that make you go... hmmm.
Jonathan
The way I look at it, the sad thing about the demise of kits is that it takes away that option. Some folks who are short of time may prefer to invest the time they have in running trains, and so they may be more inclined to buy RTR equipment. But with the loss of kits, we lose that option for folks who do enjoy investing the time to build a kit, even if it is a "shake the box" kit. It's a sad situation. :(
Two things are killing the enterprise. Expensive builing maintenance and a possible flooding from an aging dam (Howard Hanson Dam) (loss of real estate ) and community apathy in trains and model railroading. 100 years ago this area was a pinnacle of railroading with any family having more than two members working for the railroad to now, where Burington SantaFe just rumbles thru town. If I was mayor of Cle Elum (North Bend,, Issaquah I woulhave a model railroad in City Hall.The towns mentione were railroad giants in 1900..
To bad.
My friend had to sell his whole model railroad collection (at least 2000 pieces plus his whole layout) I didn't talk to him for a month and when i called him to run a new engine he said he had to move and already sold his layout.
Its to bad that was one of my favorite layouts and train friends
Quote from: adari on October 29, 2009, 11:04:54 PM
To bad.
My friend had to sell his whole model railroad collection (at least 2000 pieces plus his whole layout) I didn't talk to him for a month and when i called him to run a new engine he said he had to move and already sold his layout.
Its to bad that was one of my favorite layouts and train friends
That's awful. :(
I'm trying to deaccession some of my collection (to make room for the rolling stock I keep buying ;D ), but if I had to sell it all, it would kill me. Some people have kids. Some people have pets. I have trains. ... ;D
Seriously, I feel very bad for your friend. :(
Just happened at the Laurel Apple and Wine museum in Kelowna B.C.
Was a 20+ year old large layout depicting the old packing houses and water front with rail wharf, nicely done.
The building received a major grant to refurbish it, the wine sales area is the money maker for the museum not the layout.
The layout was just dismantled and the assets were split among
the members. They talked about looking for another location which would be next to impossible to find but the killer was the fact that all but one
of the members are 60-80 range with no interest in starting over.
Jim in Kelowna
Quote from: Johnson Bar Jeff on October 30, 2009, 10:59:20 AM
Quote from: adari on October 29, 2009, 11:04:54 PM
To bad.
My friend had to sell his whole model railroad collection (at least 2000 pieces plus his whole layout) I didn't talk to him for a month and when i called him to run a new engine he said he had to move and already sold his layout.
Its to bad that was one of my favorite layouts and train friends
That's awful. :(
I'm trying to deaccession some of my collection (to make room for the rolling stock I keep buying ;D ), but if I had to sell it all, it would kill me. Some people have kids. Some people have pets. I have trains. ... ;D
Seriously, I feel very bad for your friend. :(
Thanks :(
Its to bad
I find this thread interesting from a social-interactive standpoint. There seems to be a common theme of older individuals trying to keep 'the lights burning' in model railroading. Are we becoming irrelevant?
I can remember both my junior high, and high school, having an active model railroad club. I also remember many of my friends having some sort of train layout (before we discovered girls and cars...not necessarily in that order). How many public schools today can boast a model railroad club...let alone a layout? How many of our younger citizens are even interested in the hobby?
While working in the mental hygiene field, I frequently worked with pre teens and teenagers. I probably had 25 or 30 clients (in this age range) and only one was remotely interested in model railroading. One has to wonder if the hobby 'fits' today's environment. Most of us, that dabble in model railroading, are passionate in this pursuit...I am not so sure that view is shared by a very large segment of society.
Are we going to go the way of cursive writing?
Ray
Ray,
You really coaxed me to reflect on my own experiences in MR, and if it might relate to others. I think we devoted modelers/fans, became that way at an early age. Probably like golf, football, art, science... you either caught the bug or you didn't. Does it stick? I've mentioned before I had to wait 40 years to have the time, money and space to build a layout--hopefully not the last layout I build. It was an old man, who showed me his layout, that turned me on. Well, everyone is old when your seven (my son's age btw).
I can't imagine a school having an MR club. That would have been really great growing up. Must have been a decade or two before my time. At the LHS's, the train guys are all my age or older. The young kids seem to like the helicopters and parking lot race cars.
Don't think I haven't noticed the teens-30-year-olds on this forum. That is a good sign I think. Remember youngsters, the only stupid question is the one that doesn't get asked.
Final thought. We are also a very transient society. I moved every few years my entire life, unitil I finally retired from my first career. That may also explain why we are a bunch of old f--ts who play with trains. We always had the will, just needed the opportunity.
There you go--you made me soliloquize.
Jonathan
For me, the interest in trains came as a child. I'd see all the different freight cars - containing slogans and interesting heralds. Cabooses were also very interesting to look at. Add to that a godfather who had boxes of Kodachrome slides featuring GG-1s and other interesting PRR locomotives.
Of course Lionel trains were like today's computer games; every kid wanted a set. In New York City Macy's always had a huge Lionel display, plus there was also a Lionel Corp. layout to visit as well. You could also go to the Gilbert Hall of Science and watch the American Flyer trains travel around a large U shaped dogbone layout. Their layout was always scenicked more realistically than the Lionel exhibit but the trains were, in my opinion, much more toylike than Lionel.
What do you see today when a train goes by? A snakelike train of nondescript hoppers or freight cars that have been painted over a few times due to corporate takeovers. Plus all the engines look alike. I find I have no interest in modern railroading.
I belonged to a club. we were forced from two locations by landlords who thought we were eccentric and rich. However, the one big problem for us was always getting insurance so that we were covered if a visitor tripped or some how got hurt.
Every club has a dynamic. There are several groups at play - the workers, the guys who just like to operate, the group who complain about the workers and those who plainly do nothing but complain about everything and are late with dues.
I hope the Boeing club can continue to thrive. Getting young blood is a problem.
Jim Hi
This is off topic, but my wife and I really enjoyed an overnight stay in Kalowna on our way from Vancouver to Banff and back. We loved the Vineyards and a stay at a neat little B&B over looking the lake. What shocked me was the Arizona like look to that part of BC. I guess the mountains block the rain clouds.
Lee
From St. Louis Mo.
As time is consumed, the club is getting closer to the ultimate question that needs to be addressed.Who owns the club's assets and how far are the aging founding members willing to travel ? Just maybe a new face (or faces ) will surface willing to run the club elsewhere with both DC and DCC operations andencourage some levity.( crashing trains into builings modeling brake failures and such )
Reply to Woody Elmore: I was particularly taken by the third paragraph in your post. Yes, modern railroading does not have the variety of mixed freight or power found in years gone by. That, however, is the beauty of model railroading. You can pick an era and model it with all the variety you now miss in today's modern railroads. Models are available in all scales for all eras. Get back in the game.
Regarding the demise of model railroading among the young. When I go to train shows I tend to agree. Older "grampas" like me are there with their very young grandsons but I see very few teens and 20 somethings. Yet, when I read the posts on this Bachmann site, especially the ones on DCC, I'm convinced there are many young people involved in the hobby because they seem to be the only ones that fully understand all the DVV stuff. I sure don't. I'm further convinced that the young are involved when I try to understand some of the "texting" abbreviations that are used. I'm not down on DCC. I think its fascinating and the way to go when you are starting out, have a small layout or only a few locomotives. It's just not for someone like me who has been collecting locomotives and using cab control (successfully, I might add) for over 50 years. I grew up in NYC and visited the Lionel showroom, Gilbert Hall of Science and Madison Hardware. Lionel & American Flyer were the high tech "toys" of their time. The kids I hung with all debated the pros & cons of Lionel & Flyer the same way they compare iPods and computers (and DCC systems?) today. I truly believe that DCC and all the high tech that goes with it saved model railroading by keeping the young involved. Just keep manufacturing the locomotives in DCC AND DC so we are all happy. It's a hobby for life.