Model Railroading > Europe and model railroading

Is model railroading not very popular in Europe, or for that matter, any other countries?
Don’t see any posting other than US.

My friend and colleague Joern PAchl does table top dioramas in TT: https://www.flickr.com/photos/jpachl/

TAW

I think Germany has the worlds largest indoor model railroad called Miniatur Wunderland. Its quite amaizing and very detailed.
JC

Posted from Android

Model railroading, by proportion, is more popular and a little less "gray" in the UK and Europe than in North America. Britain has three large print monthlies and lots of smaller ones, some with online presences, and other European companies are similar. The American online magazine, Model Railroad Hobbyist, counts a large percentage of its registered subscribers outside of N. America. The people over-the-pond there have closer regular contact with rail service than many many parts of the US and Canada. Hobby stores with locally oriented products aren't hard to find, even if much of the stuff is made in China. Sound familiar. There seems to be a growing number in Australia & New Zealand and in Central and South America.



Edited 2 time(s). Last edit at 04/01/20 20:29 by grahamline.

Like mentioned before, I would guess there is as much or more people into Model Railways in Britain pre capita then here. Check out the UK Model Shop Directory. It will give you an idea of how many shops there are in the UK. Germany also had a lot of shops, I ended up finding a few simply by accident. Both Britain and Germany offer lots of equipment from each of their respective countries. In The Netherlands I visited one hobby shop and was told that there was very little Dutch National Railways equipment available in N scale. France I didn't end up in any model shops. Of interest is that in the UK, Germany and New Zealand I got the idea that there were a lot of people who liked to model North America.

Jim

Oh yes.Lots of modelers of North America outside the US, but rising postal rates aren't helping.

I think there are far more model railroaders in Europe than North America.

Nick

Posted from iPhone

Americans are typically not interested in real European trains much less the model ones. More than half of my N Scale collection is European. But I'm in the minority here.

Finding models in Europe has become quite difficult. Local Hobby Shops in Germany are closing much more rapidly than they are here - primarily because they can't get any stock. They all say the same thing: I can order it, but I don't know when/if you will ever see it.

The most reliable way to get new items is to have one of my European friends buy it on E-Bay and then pick it up on my next visit to Europe. It's sad that a local hobby shop can't get them. 

These 2 Swiss coaches were ordered and bought at a local hobby shop because Märklin / Trix are available thru Walthers and I ordered them as soon as they were announced. 

It's amazing how universal some model railroading problems have become!

 

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Hugely popular in Europe and the UK.  But this board has always had mostly US members.  You're seeing a reflection of this particular group only, not the model railroading world user base as a whole.

Cheers,

-Mike

Mike Massee
Tehachapi, CA
Photography, Railroading and more..

There are American modellers groups in the UK i.e. groups of people modelling US railroads/set-ups, also stockists in the UK who deal in US-specific models.

My Dad and I model UP/BNSF/AZER with SoCal-type scenery in HO.

On TO there's a small proportion of non-US people.... I'd guess a relatively small proportion of those people are modellers... combine those two facts and I think it's pretty clear why foreign modelling activities don't get much discussion on here. 



Edited 3 time(s). Last edit at 04/02/20 02:26 by exhaustED.

I live in Stuttgart Germany and there have to be atleast 4 or 5 very solid Model Railway stores here.  There are German Model Railway publications in all the supermarkets here.  Bottom line, I feel like it is more popular here than in the states.  Just my two cents.

I also believe next years NMRA convention is being hosted by the British region in Birmingham, UK.

Nick

Posted from iPhone

tq-07fan Wrote:
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> Like mentioned before, I would guess there is as
> much or more people into Model Railways in Britain
> pre capita then here. Check out the UK Model Shop
> Directory. It will give you an idea of how many
> shops there are in the UK.

While I've been to Germany more than the UK, in the last 10 years I married a Brit and have discovered model railroading is more popular there than here.  I was in a small shop a few years ago and there was a long wall with magazines and periodicals and I counted some 35 different train related!  American model railroading is popular in the UK too, perhaps more popular than home trains.  A club I visted in the loft of a warehouse had more US trains than UK, way more.  A number of the members had made trips to the US to rail fan as well.  And that in one of the poorer parts of England up near Newcastle.

Here in the US model trains seems to be a bit of a joke among the public at large and especially Hollywood which partrays model train people as unhinged or socially mal-adjusted.  In England, it seems to be more a normal thing in the public eye.

Cheers, Jim



Edited 1 time(s). Last edit at 04/02/20 04:55 by SPDRGWfan.

Indeed the hobby is very popular here in Europe. Most model local (European stuff), some craze ones like my model US trains (both HO & HOn3).

Model railroading, and railroading in general,  seems to be alive and well in Japan.  There are large model railroads all over the place it seems.  I saw lots of railfans on platforms and in the countryside, as Japan is a rail dominant country.  It was refreshing to see.
 

Not European, but I never knew there was such a big group of modelers of New York Subways, until I recently joined a FB group for them and saw all the wonderful layouts and equipment they have put together.

Rich

As the owner of Allied Model Trains, around 1980, I decided that I needed to attend the International Toy Fair in Nurnberg, Germany, to see for myself, just what was going on in Europe.  What I found was a gigantic showing of products that few in America seemed to know about.  I also found that the hobby of model railroading was taken MUCH more seriously in Germany than in the USA.  Model Railroading was considered "THE" accepted hobby for a gentleman in Germany.  During the Toy Fair, you would see lavish, operating model train displays in many non-toy/hobby retail shops in Nurnberg.  At the same time, when the big Toy Fair was held in New York, you would not see even one train layout, but tons of Barbie Dolls & Hot Wheels instead.  One of the reasons that the hobby is so much bigger in Germany, is that real railroads are much more prominent there.  Most every city is centered around a Main Train Station or "Haupt Bahnoff."  A tremendously higher percentage of the population in Germany ride trains between cities and towns.  Here, we would usually fly or drive those same distances.  I have been out of the business since 2007, but the MR business in Germany was thriving even then.

Hope you are all well,

Allen Drucker



Edited 2 time(s). Last edit at 04/02/20 09:32 by Streamliner.

I have lived in Germany for a few years, and I agree part of the interest in model trains is that folks are more exposed to real trains (though Germany has cut back some). I also agree that it is more accepted for adults "to play" with model trains. They also have a better standard of living in that they can afford more of these goodies. But since I have family in Germany, I can tell with personal feedback that people are more educated there and many Germans seem to be natural engineers when it comes to mechanical things. Thus, they are more attracted to trains, planes, cars, etc. (They talk about their automobiles, for example, more than we do here and compare horsepower and other statistics.)


I would suspect that Japanese are in the same boat as to education and aptitudes. It is sad, that for most of us, our standard of living is lagging, compared to a nation like Germany. But the German government supports labor unions, and shuns many of the tactics U.S. corporations like Wal Mart and UPS practice here with lack of benefits and the use of part-time workers.  Germans also get many paid holidays and probably on the average a month paid vacation a year. People don't waste time in college like many do here. The whole educational  system and how you end up doing your life's work is different. Even if you don't make the grade to go to university, you can learn a trade and make a decent living. I still wouldn't move anywhere else, but we really are falling behind and China is eating our lunch. For example, much of the PPE that we desperately need now is made in China. It amazes me at all the profit the medical industry makes here and it is shoppng for cheaper items in China of lower quality. Near me, high tolerance items used in the orthopedic implant industry are being out shopped to China. To be fair, Germany purchases good from China too, but it doesn't seem to distrupt the worker as much.


Victor A. Baird
http://www.erstwhilepublications.com

 



Edited 4 time(s). Last edit at 04/02/20 13:55 by wabash2800.

NYSW1904 Wrote:
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> I live in Stuttgart Germany and there have to be
> atleast 4 or 5 very solid Model Railway stores
> here.  There are German Model Railway
> publications in all the supermarkets here.
>  Bottom line, I feel like it is more popular here
> than in the states.  Just my two cents.
I was in the Army at Stuttgart Army Airfield from 63-65 and used to go downtown to a great shop.  Having said that, the name totally escapes me now.  Still had some steam running back then.  Local store had Marklin as a sideline.   

DevalDragon Wrote:
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> Americans are typically not interested in real
> European trains much less the model ones.

I've hoped that with the fall of the Iron Curtain, some Russian models mighjt become available. I'd love a model of one of those smoke-belching ТЭ10s.

Sure to make an ALCophile drool, and a Climate Change believer cringe: https://youtu.be/fhZJ0ReTSLo

Arved Grass
Fleming Island, FL

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