Brakie Wrote:The tri county area where I live is rich in railroad history and thus we have a abundance of modelers probably higher then normal and there is one hobby shop.Now go sixty miles South to Columbus and DCC is heavy used.I know most clubs in Columbus is DCC.
To be fair, prototype history and model railroading don't necessarily correlate.
New Jersey has had more tracks per square mile than any other state, and almost every major eastern railroad attempted to reach the port of New Jersey. Many major highways that don't directly parallel a railroad route are literally built on the former RoW of long forgotten railroads, and there is STILL a ton of trackage in New Jersey. There is a shocking number of railroad stations that have zero evidence of tracks ever reaching them, until you check old maps.
Just about every major railroad in the east tried to access the ports of New Jersey, either directly or through trackage rights and stock ownership, and then we have some pretty impressive stretches of track like the Northeast Corridor Bisecting the state. When Conrail was initially formed, I think only one small component railroad didn't have tracks into New Jersey.
New Jersey is also the most populated state per square mile, so I'd argue the odds are in favor that we have a significant level of Model railroaders in the region, using that reasoning.
Quote:Actually if you check you see MR did indeed push DCC.In fact a editor boldly stated he toured some layouts in DC and DCC was "everywhere".
I didn't buy that for one second since DCC was still in its infancy but,did notice this happen around the same time DCC advertisements started showing up.The next few featured layouts was DCC along with several DCC articles.
MR been known to push certain products and ideas while ignoring other things.MR endorse C83 but,never endorse C70-this was around the time C83 hit the hobby shops.
MR yet to endorse fine scale modeling.
Even if they encouraged it, I think DCC's merits alone are probably enough. People may not need all the "bells, whistles, and lights", which is fair, but there are lots of practical advantages to DCC, such as consisting, speed matching, etc.
I suspect that in reality, its not so much that Model railroader is trying to sway the hobby, as it is that they're trying to appease the manufacturers of DCC who advertise in their magazines. I suspect much of their Revenue comes from advertising, and I think Model Railroader wants to keep that money.
Model railroader also seems to gear itself towards beginners and intermediates, so fine-scale projects will probably not get as much attention as the same How-to articles on trees, written slightly differently, every year.
Besides, fine-scale projects are intimidating to beginners. In Gyms and other fitness clubs, There are rules about making to much noise and clanking heavy weights around, since their experience has shown that this significantly discourages gym membership of the more "average" folks who go there to get exercise, and ultimately results in lowered membership, which is bad for business, especially if your target customers are average people.
Likewise, a magazine like Model railroad probably does not want to reduce their subscriptions by discouraging anyone from the hobby because of an intimidating fine-scale project.
In the end, those people will go over the RMC.