Funny to see this now. A couple days ago I was on vacation in San Diego and visited the San Diego Model Railroad Museum in Balboa Park and a lot of the traffic flowing through my head about it are all points addressed in the above article:
"Almost everyone working here is quite old"
"The amount of space this takes up is incredible, I wonder how people get into this hobby, I've never lived anywhere where I'd have enough space to set up a model railway long term"
It's kind of a shame too, it was the first time I think I've ever really appreciated the large scale model train installations. When I was younger I'd see them at random historical museums and mostly just think "yeah choo-choo sure does go in a circle haha". I think the San Diego museum did a good job of conveying that it isn't really just about the trains as much as it's about modeling the landscapes and towns the trains actually go through. Viewing it from the perspective of a massive scale diorama of some region really raised my overall appreciation for the whole endeavour.
"Almost everyone working here is quite old"
"The amount of space this takes up is incredible, I wonder how people get into this hobby, I've never lived anywhere where I'd have enough space to set up a model railway long term"
It's kind of a shame too, it was the first time I think I've ever really appreciated the large scale model train installations. When I was younger I'd see them at random historical museums and mostly just think "yeah choo-choo sure does go in a circle haha". I think the San Diego museum did a good job of conveying that it isn't really just about the trains as much as it's about modeling the landscapes and towns the trains actually go through. Viewing it from the perspective of a massive scale diorama of some region really raised my overall appreciation for the whole endeavour.