QUOTE (john woodall @ 8 May 2008, 18:11)
<{POST_SNAPBACK}>Its an interesting discussion as to where the hobby is going.
When we were all children model railways were the thing to get into, and those who had them were the envy of their mates. Times have changed, and now the younger generation are being exposed to model railroads probably by their grand parents. Most will drop the hobby but there is a chance that in 10-20 years time they will pick it up again.
But their expectations are going to be substantively different from what is common place today. If we look at the British scene, we have a major supplier that has only just embraced the "DCC" concept at a basic level, and still produces relatively inexpensive less detailed models. If we look at the German scene we see that the major suppliers embraced the "DCC" concept about 20 years ago and are now embracing the sound revolution. The models are relatively expensive, but are getting more highly detailed. That being said they generally have a hobby range that is less detailed, relatively cheap and produced to entice the beginner into the hobby.
Potentially Roco pushed the barrier this year by releasing a train that had operating pantographs on the locomotive and opening doors on the carriages. With a set like this, there was no question about whether it should have sound or not. Uhlenbrock have a train detection system that not only says what locomotive passed point A but also its direction. Marklin and Uhlenbrock have operating overhead cranes. The Faller road system is now pretty widely used to add movement outside of the "railway" environment. Busch have a sound system that provides ambient sound to the layout area.
Here we have a number of quite different features that enhance the play value of model railroading. To a generation that will grow up using a PC like we did with pencil and paper, these features will not only be wanted but conceivably considered to be the norm.
Model Railroading is the greatest hobby in the world. You, the modeller can do what you want. For the technically minded there are now a number of great toys out there to add to the experience if you want to buy them. If you thing is to take a model and improve it, then you can do that as well.
The hobby will survive, its just that peoples expectation of it will change. In 20 years time, no doubt my expectations will have changed. The question is will the British branch of the hobby have the same expectation as I may have in the future, or will they still be 20 years behind Europe in terms of technological development and what I take for granted right now, be just beginning to be the norm then
John?
Soom good observations there John, I think reluctance to change is still a big issue in the UK. However it is not all doom and gloom, on this forum I argued a few years ago that that if DCC sound was introduced into the UK market people would pay for it and would want those extras. There was an alternative arguement that the UK modeller will not pay anything over 100quid for a model so this would not take off. Mt arguement that DCC sound would take off in the UK seems to have been borne out as the small amount of UK outline DCC sound locos that have been produced are selling very quickly. It seems to be the manufacturers rather than the modellers that are holding things back technology wise. I think the best thing that could happen to the UK market is for Roco, Brawa or even PCM to make a couple of UK outline 00 gauge locos to raise the competition.