August 2003

"Mainline Commentary"/Letter to the Editor

Over the past year, the Mainline Modeler editorial staff commented on the increasing specialization of the model railroad hobby, especially concentrating on the negative aspects of the “fragmentation” of the hobby. Fears have been expressed concerning a higher level of loyalty towards individual factions than towards the hobby as a whole, threatening the health of the hobby. Additionally, the hobby’s diversity is growing faster than the overall size of the hobby, hurting growth.

This assessment of the hobby is presented with the best of intentions, but it overlooks three key facts:

1. There is no monolithic “Model Railroading” hobby.

The only common thread uniting the Model Railroading hobby is a general interest in railroads. Each and every one of us is a specialist to a degree, whether it’s expressed as an interest in a particular railroad, era, equipment, type of operation, or scale.

2. Attempts to meet the wide spectrum of interests in the hobby with a “one size fits all” approach are doomed to failure.

Because the hobby is so diverse, attempts to market by appealing to the lowest common denominator are doomed to failure. You simply can’t expect to sell something that would appeal to someone who collects Lionel to a prototype modeler. The major campaign currently sponsored by a major publisher promises the prospective hobbyist “The World’s Greatest Hobby,” but from a newcomer’s perspective, it doesn’t tell him what’s great about it. You have to give the consumer more than a retro print of an engineer helping a child into the cab of a locomotive. It’s like the automotive industry – it would be most efficient for the carmakers to sell everyone four-door sedans, but not everybody wants one. That’s why they market cars from sports cars to SUVs.

3. The diversity of the hobby is not a liability, but its greatest strength.

Few hobbies have as many facets as model railroading, and that is really its greatest attraction. It’s easy to fault the special interest groups as contributing to the fragmentation of the hobby, but you’ll find more generalists across the spectrum of these groups than people who concentrate on one thing and one thing only. It’s not as if joining one special interest group bars you from signing up for another one. Consider also that many of the recent advances in the hobby – DCC, prototypical locomotive, passenger cars, and freight cars, duplicating prototype scenes and operations – would not be possible without a core group of modelers who are willing to push forward. Some are quick to bash the rivet counters, but I’ll guarantee that those people benefited from the fruits of their labor – somebody out there is buying all of those Kadee PS-1 boxcars and Proto 2000 locomotives, and it’s not just the hard-core prototype modelers.

There is more than enough here to attract and hold the interest of new model railroaders – it shouldn’t be so hard to market diversity of the hobby as a strength. In the end, pandering to the lowest common denominator is self-defeating.

Benjamin Hom