I'm going to have to agree with Rich on this. The only way to fix
anything is to talk about it and hopefully find a way to make things
succeed.
I will further this assessment of John' observations with the train sets
that he saw at big box stores in the past. A former studio-mate was
raising a passel of closely spaced kids. They bought a typical low end
HO train set as a Christmas gift. My friend mentioned a few weeks into
the new year that they tossed the set--it never ran right and most the
track wasn't rugged enough to withstand 6-9 yo kids!
I also purchased a G scale basic set from Eichmann for around the tree.
We ran it only a few minutes for 2-3 years. When I last dug it out, I
discovered that the entire worm had worn into almost nothing.
I can imagine parents returning sets to these department/discount stores
in large numbers. These stores will normally saddle the manufacturers
with the liability on those products. Additionally parents would then
think twice about buying another set sometime in the future. This is a
perhaps a time for the quality producers to raise their heads, seek a
market and correct the damage caused by marketing junk. Detroit has
had to do similar a couple of times since I've been buying cars.
I recently made contact with a somewhat older hometown neighbor kid (who
also was the oldest of a 5 boy family). Every year they would get a
load of sand delivered into an area next to their house, so we could
play in the sand. We built an outdoor railroad (without power) for a
few days with his Lionel stuff--just cars and track.
S content--original AF track was plenty rugged, AF Pike Master when
mounted on those panels was reasonably rugged, AM track is very stout,
and SHS track was also very good. I haven't seen the Lionel version,
but I see this is a good thing in raising a small crop of serious teen
modelers, if we can catch them at some stage.
Bob Werre
PhotoTraxx
On 11/11/12 10:53 AM, richgajnak wrote:
--- In [email protected] <mailto:S-Scale%40yahoogroups.com>,
[email protected] <mailto:S-Scale-owner%40yahoogroups.com>
wrote:
>
> All;
> I am nipping this one in the bud. Let's not speak of our hobby nor
scale in a negative way.
> Keep it positive..
>
> Thank you
> Jeff Sankus Co-moderator
>
>
> > Could it be that our hobby is NOT as doomed as it may appear to
some, including me from time to time?
> >
> >
>
Funny, I didn't read anything negative in John's post, more a sense
that model railroading is alive and well inspite of the odds thrown at
the hobby by the modern world.
John and I don't see eye to eye about various aspects of our hobby and
S, but I didn't see anything negative or controversial in his posting
about seeing more trains in the stores.
However, we cannot just sit on the sidelines and pretend everything is
all bunnies and puppies in S or the hobby in general.
If we cannot have a reasonable discussion regarding both the good and
bad of the various aspects of the hobby, it is my perception that this
is not moderation, but blatant censorship.
Read this post fast guys, I expect both it and myself will be gone soon.
Rich G(ajnak)
