02-21-2012, 12:00 PM
Russ Bellinis Wrote:MountainMan Wrote:I disagree. We are at best the current group of model railroaders, and deliberately living in the past with what we model. The future of the hobby will belong to a generation that does not revere history as we do, and which lives almost entirely in the present moment.
On what basis do you make that claim, Mountain Man?
In the modular club there are a few of us who model 1950's transition era, there is one guy who models the Santa Fe between the day after the PA's left into the 1970's, but not the 1980's. He also models the "Kodachrome" units from the short lived "S.houldn't P.aint S.o F.ast" era, as well as modeling a bunch of Penn Central. There is another guy who models anything steam, and a guy who likes 1930's passenger trains, but about 1/2 of the members are modeling the present day. When I go to shows and walk around looking at the modular layouts, I find as many people running the trains of today as are modeling past era's.
I think the biggest reason for the focus on transition era to now is the difficulty in engineering a decent running steam engine. In addition, the difference between a diesel engine on Say the NYC and the Santa Fe is paint and location of a few details. On the other hand during the steam era, each railroad had there own designs for steam engines, and they often didn't resemble each other.
On the basis of how we model - always in the past - and the lack of interest in niche history evident in the youth of today, who actually receive minimal instruction on broad history, and none on things like the railroads. Whenever and wherever you see railfans watching trains, they are invariably older people, not young people. As for "the trains of today", they are already history and in your past. You can only model what has already been done.