Trains & Locomotives Gallery 2
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The model Train & railroading hobby, at least in the USA, has been slowly declining in popularity since perhaps the mid 1990's. Although a wealth of new products are being issued lately, the sizes of each of the runs pales before the numbers that used to be produced per given model. But even limited runs seem in many cases to still be over-production and existing stock has to be dumped (look at BLI for just the latest example). Likewise, the steadily increasing prices have far outstripped inflation and the growth (or lack there of) of personal income in the States.
Magazine sales, too, across the board and always a gauge of the hobby's health since its very beginning, are down dramatically (MR alone has lost 45,000 readers in the past 10 years). The final straw is that model railroading is largely a Baby Boomers' hobby (the average age of a hobbyist is placed at close to 55 currently), resulting mainly from wide exposure to Lionel and Flyer train sets as kids in the 1940's and 1950's. As the older members of this demographic begin to pass, the number of hobbyists will show a progressive, substantial decline. Kids in the 1960's played with slot cars, not trains. In the 1970's interest in model trains by the general public was perhaps at its lowest ebb ever, while video games have been the in thing for quite some years now, so the relative percentage of younger people in the hobby is quite small.
