I have just ordered Playing with Trains : A Passion Beyond Scale by Sam Posey. I have had his other book, The Mudge Pond Express for years and enjoyed his honest and unpretentious writing style. I entertain myself by reflecting on "famous" or public people and how interested I would be in having a conversation with them and often find that I really have no interest in them at all. Mr Posey is number one of a very short list of public persons that I am confident that I would enjoy a conversation with.
The reviews of Sam's new book brought to mind my current thoughts on the hobby of Model Railroading. I am getting down to putting up my bench work and posted some of my plans to on-line interest groups for feedback to provide a reality check on what I plan to build. When I sorted through my feedback, I found that the interests that people have in the hobby are so fragmented. It was hard to put the feedback into a constructive format. It will be interesting to see how many will be interested in sharing my viewpoint of the hobby when I get my layout built because like most who are in the hobby, the path I am taking is my own.
It seems that there is a universal starting point and then most of us, take a personal path from there. My thought is that there are two primary appeals of Model Railroading that effect all ages inside and outside the hobby. First, there is the mechanical marvel of it. Watching a train traverse the track with a string of cars is a mechanical magic trick like you get from observing the workings of a mechanical clock. Second, a moving train that animates a miniature environment of a scenic layout produces a prospective that makes us giants and provides a feeling of control and power.
Because most of us who are in the hobby today are older, there is talk that the hobby will fade away. If I am correct about what the primary appeal is, then I do not expect that to happen. I expect the numbers in the hobby to go down and I think there are many reasons we can expect the product choices to go down. Because the presence of trains in our lives have been reduced, activity in model trains will be reduced but the appeal of a model world animated by trains will still be there just like the appeal of Napoleonic toy solders marching in a line endures today.
