| The only time that museum was filled with kids was the yearly "LEGO Train" exhibit, which I partook of once or twice. And the people I was with (setting up the exhibit) were mostly younger (at the time) ranging from the 10 or so year old kids of the people leading it to mid 20s - not counting the leaders who were middle aged. Everyone loved it and the number of visitors in that two week period or whatever it was would rival the total number of visitors the rest of the year. But LEGO trains are not model trains (my goodness), they're toy trains - a completely and unrespectable thing. But today I see LEGO themselves referring to the track as "L-gauge": https://www.lego.com/en-us/product/the-orient-express-train-... - which started out as almost a joke and is now getting some pretty serious attention. If model railroading as a whole wants to survive and thrive, they will need to embrace the "toy" train. (Lots of these museums are really just "fronts" for the member's hobby, after all, and it gets them out of the house.) |
I love this condescending sounding distinction, it’s actually very accurate! When I was 12 or 13 I had an uncle that was into model railroading and I thought it looked so fun and cool! Then I started looking into it more and it’s not really (at least to me at that age) because it’s not a toy you take out of the box and play with a 100 different ways. You build a very static and detailed landscape, put your rails down, start the train up, and just sit back and look at it. Where’s the fun in that?
I just got a Lego train set for me and my kids and we’ve already built several different ways, crashed the train and rebuilt parts of multiple tiles, discovered you can program it with the new PoweredUp system, put mini figures on the roof of the cars, etc.