YouTube’s Model Railroading Renaissance, and What it’s Like to be Part of it

Model railroading has been considered a hobby for older generations, oftentimes fuelling their hobby off retirement funds and the 15% senior discount from the local supermarket. This seemed to change around the 2000s, when a little something called YouTube came along and revolutionized how people used the internet. You may have heard about it, you might not have. The internet’s concept of model railroading was completely flipped on its head in the sense that you didn’t need to have a massive basement empire, in fact you didn’t even have to participate in train shows or even leave your house – you could just watch videos to see what others were doing. Creating an account merely requires an email, so one could easily participate and collaborate with others already on the platform. 

 

As time went on, fresh blood was becoming readily available, so a new crowd strolled into the party; younger people. Young adults and teens have been entering the hobby since technology has evolved to something they were most familiar with. Amidst other things, YouTube seems to have revived youth’s interest in model railroading. There are thousands of channels actively uploading videos; hobby shop hauls, watching model trains run the loop, reviews of new releases from model manufacturers, cleaning and replacing parts, how-tos and instructions for kits, you name it and YouTube will have some account with the video posted. These channels typically have a smaller following than most mainstream channels, it is a bit of a niche hobby, but that’s not a bad thing. There’s actual people behind the camera, holding the model, turning up the throttle and watching it travel around the loop. It’s not some fake personality, giving away $100,000 to some random guy on the corner or being obnoxiously loud and unfunny while playing some trending game. 

 

How does one know about all of this? Well, as mentioned earlier, it’s rather easy to participate. I’ve been doing this sort of content since 2018/9, and it’s brought me from a personal account used for music to just under 190 subscribers and a bit under 8000 views as of writing this article. I started with brief videos, maybe half a minute each, just showing trains going by on the same 4 by 8 board I’ve used for over a decade now. The same handful of people choose to keep coming back every Sunday for a video week after week and leave a little comment telling me they enjoyed whatever I did that week. I really only do it for fun, as should everyone, and it’s actually quite satisfying to release a video and see people watch it. A bonus is you get to say you worked on two things instead of one, both a model and a video for the week. 

 

The process is rather simple, in fact I can usually crank out a video in 24 hours if I really focused on it. Filming usually takes an hour or so, however I’ve timed myself doing a bit over 30 minutes. Editing is typically the hardest part for me, mostly because I have to constantly watch the clips and size them down to be a reasonably long video. I typically make my own thumbnails as well, that takes about a half hour. Then comes uploading, which takes around 10 minutes. Because YouTube lets you disable videos from public viewing, I try to upload the video first and let it sit until Sunday, most likely I’ll have thumbnail and proper description ready before my once a week upload schedule. Other people have their ways of doing things, but this way (usually) works best for me.

 

There are people who seem to do it for fame or for views, but I’d rather not worry about that at the moment. Once a hobby becomes a competition, it isn’t much fun anymore. As much as I would love to make an extra buck out of this, I think I’d rather stick to normal business. I only do this casually, in fact sometimes I choose to not make a video and stick to something else due to the extent of the project. Some things just can’t be documented simuataneously, which is unfortunate but alas I’d need to completely revamp how I work – currently impossible to achieve but isn’t out of the question. 

 

Model railroading has always been a semi popular hobby, however the evolutions in technology has turned it from what everyone’s grandfather is doing into what everyone is doing. Of course model railroading isn’t the first thing that the internet revolutionized, but it definitely isn’t the last and will most likely continue to prosper from staying on the internet.