I think the title says it all, but who determined that dealing with trains, model or otherwise, are an 'old man's hobby'? Well I tend to disagree, considering I'm starting to become a supplier to the On30 field of modelers... I think that begs a good question, but who do we have here for young people?

17, Farmer, Horse guy and have a passion for trains.

Cody Muse

Another one here. 17 and a volunteer at IRM's electric carshop.

And yet another one!

21 year old university undergraduate.
Was a full time machinist and engineering consultant at our steam shop until university came in the way. Currently part time and contract.

Ive gone through all the fields since I was young. Started with live steam, then model railways, back to live steam, and finally the full size bug bit hard when I moved to Denmark.

32, college graduate, engineer for an automotive foundry, work (volunteer) on steam in varying scales...

I get my hands on 12" gauge most frequently, 15 and 16 inch gauges, and have some 4-3/4" in my shop at home, and also volunteer with 1:1 steam. I have been less active as of late with a marriage coming up, but I still try to get around to have a little involvement when I can so I can soak up some more knowledge and apply what skills I've picked up over the years.

Mike

21, run the machine shop for a private collection of two foot gauge steam locomotives and own my own 3 foot Fowler 0-6-2T I’m rebuilding.

Going on 17. I'm an HO model collecter, photographer, and volunteer in maintenance and restoration at the Colebrookdale Railroad.

15, published author in Illinois railroad history field, board member for the Heyworth Railroad Museum, photographer, model railroader, and slide collector.

Thomas

Dylan,

The bit about trains being an old man's hobby got started because at least 100 of us grouchy old bastards die off for every bit of new talent that shows up....

WELCOME to you young 'uns !!!!

It definitely isn't! I might be 39 and not really qualify as "young" anymore even if I still do research as I did during my university years, but my 11 year old son does enjoy watching trains (especially since rail transportation is really common where we live now, every day there's something new in the train station : wheat, crude oil, steel, tanks...) and has said he'd like to build a small electric train circuit... which I sadly had to turn down because of the lack of free space in our flat.

When I first started attending the Association of Railway Museums conferences in 2006, the scary thing was that I was the youngest person in the room-literally. TRAIN wasn't any better. As things progressed and ARM and TRAIN became the Association of Tourist Railroads and Railway Museums (now Heritage Rail Alliance), I begin to see changes in our membership. We now have a larger number of young people participating in the industry and are beginning to see changes at the management level in many organizations. The need to reinvigorate our organizations with new, younger folks is one of the reasons that some folks, like Linn Moedinger, are now stepping aside. At the HRA Conference, I believe Mr. Moedinger said about his situation that he felt it was time to step aside and allow the folks he'd trained to run the railroad.

As someone who had the privilege to learn heritage railroading from one of the pioneers of steam railway preservation in the United States (Robert M. Soule of the Tennessee Valley Railroad Museum), I realize now that while there have been many things said about the pioneers and the younger generations, there was a lot that those folks just didn't know how to do. No one knew that a group of volunteers could preserve equipment and run a railroad. No one had a go to plan on how to groom the young folks to eventually take on the leadership roles. That was all learned by trial and error. Now, we have recognized the need to prepare future generations to take our places in the preservation industry, railroads and museums are now working to actively develop young people's interest in railway preservation and prepare them to take our places when the time comes for each of us to step aside.

Got one right here! 16 years old, with a passion for the high iron and the iron horse.

21, history student looking to go into museum or archive work. Been into real and model trains all my life and started volunteering as crew last fall, looking to do restorations as well.

I'm an old-timer and a past President of IRM (I was 17 when I joined in 1966). It is REALLY encouraging to see the number of young people who have been coming into the organization in recent years. It's definitely not an "old man's" group. The young guys (and even some gals) are taking over, which is good for the future.

I don't know this for sure, but I suspect that the culture at some organizations is to treat younger members as little more than a nuisance to the "old folks" who know everything. That's not true of IRM. While IRM has its warts and internal politics (as every organization does), it is generally pretty welcoming to younger members.

I'm relatively young at 28, and volunteer at a tourist line where about half of the active participants are actually younger than myself. I firmly believe over time as our society changes, so will the makeup of our preservation societies.