>>1233706Speaking as someone born in 1990, one major issue is that modern passenger and freight operations are very uninteresting (to me at least). All you ever see across the US are the same 4 or 5 modern GE and EMD locomotive models in uninspired paint schemes pulling monotonous units trains or bland passenger cars. And in any given region you'll likely only see one or two Class Is on the road (BNSF and UP in the West). This is why I focus my modeling and railroading interests on the 1960s and 1970s. Take BN, for instance. On that road a lone you could see four different predecessor paint schemes; even more importantly there was a wide variety of locomotives and rolling stock, 20+ year old Alcos alongside brand new SDs on the mainline, with everything from 40' foot boxcars to large cylindrical grain hoppers in tow. Passenger rail, even in the early Amtrak period, was almost as diverse. Lots of interesting shit passing by on the rails everyday, always something new to look out for. Nowadays its exciting to see an SD40-2 on the rails; you'll never see a 4-axle geep in mainline service today.
In addition to the modern railroad landscape being boring, model manufacturers add to this problem by focusing much of their efforts on modern (1990s+) locomotives and operators. As a result, the period that would actually be interesting to many consumers is neglected in favor of modern shit that has oversaturated the market. Even newcomers like Scale Trains focus mostly on modern shit. So the problem is both changing demographics and poor market decisions by model manufacturers.
Pic related, this is the kind of shit that would get young people interested in model trains, IMO.
