Would you be collecting Japanese without the Internet?

[Hobby Dreamer]

Would you be collecting Japanese without the Internet?

 

The internet has not changed my direction except for new vendors, some product (Tomix, Greenmax etc. and great discussion forums like JNS..; even if many US magazines were/are still mainly HO and O scale...

 

How about you?

[keitaro]

i actually started back in 2005 when in japan on impulse buying.

 

I had a interest in modeling in general and railway modeling from being a kid.

 

I saw the set and had to buy (tomix 800 tsubame starter). i bought an e223 at that time from kato.

 

I always played just on the floor but recently with my son loving trains so much i decided to go the next level and now i'm addicted. So's my son always wants to play with the trains and my nscale tomix cars.

[The_Ghan]

No.  I would have either gone back to British theme with either OO or N scale or gone European with a Swiss focus.

 

The British would have been my old favourite - LMS steam, where I started out 30 years ago.  I live in Australia.  OO scale Hornby is one of the most economical routes for a model railway fan. It's widely available here.

 

The Swiss would have been a new wall layout depicting Tasch to Zermatt with appropriate Swiss rolling stock - at around $1000 per consist (from memory).  It was in Switzerland in June 2010 that I decided to get back into model railways.  If I didn't think I could rely on the internet I would have bought up some consists right there and then.

 

As you've probably read, I went to highschool in Japan, so there is a sentimental gravitation towards Japanese rail.  Economics and availability of stock on the internet has reinforced my decision to head in the Japanese direction.  I did a few weeks worth of research before purchasing my first consist.  If the internet didn't exist I would own, at best, 1/10^th of the consists I have now.

 

Cheers

 

The_Ghan

[Guest Closed Account 1]

Internet? They still got that running?

 

 

Probably not, the magazines here are highlighting mostly native locos.

 

Biggest breakthrough for Japanese locos is the E5. So hot everyone wanted to sell them.

[westfalen]

The internet has proven useful not just buying model trains but finding out anything about Japanese railways. When I first went to Japan in 1990 I though all I would see was bullet trains and crowded commuter trains running through equally crowded, polluted cities. I probably wouldn't be buying as much American N scale without the internet either because you pay almost twice as much in hobby shops in Australia.

[KenS]

Well, I learned about Kato's Japanese models through an ad in the back of the British Model Rail magazine, and I could have ordered them from the Kato dealer listed there.  And I did find a couple at hobby shows (a commuter E231 and something else). And one of my LHSs stocks a few Modemo trams (not ones I have any interest in, alas).

 

But my first model was bought online, as were most of the rest.  With the limited selection in U.S. shops (i.e., next to none) I probably wouldn't have gotten started in the first place without the Internet, and without the information available online, and the positive reinforcement of my addiction from this forum  I probably wouldn't have continued if I did start.

 

So, yeah, without the Internet I'd probaly still be doing HO American freight, or c 1900 On30 steam (I spent a couple of years trying to design an On30 shelf layout that would fit along a wall, but never got one I liked).

[Kabutoni]

Before the dawn of the internet boom, I used to look for rail magazines with articles occasionally covering non-Occidental subjects (Continental Modeller, Rail Magazine (Dutch), etc.), plus I used to look for Japanese models when I started in N-gauge due to a lack of space. I was lucky enough to find an ED75 from Kato somewhere on a model train trade fair in the Netherlands. I don't think the internet has been an eye opener, more so a thing of convenience.

[Martijn Meerts]

Hard to say.. Internet made it easier to find Japanese trains at least. I guess if I really wanted to, I would've started without internet as well, after all, I did import some Bachmann stuff way back in the day as well :)

 

I guess without internet, it would've been a lot cheaper though, because it's just too easy to (pre-)order stuff, forget about it, and all of a sudden get a payment notice for many tens of thousands of yen :)

[Lawrence]

No.  I would have either gone back to British theme with either OO or N scale or gone European with a Swiss focus.

 

The British would have been my old favourite - LMS steam, where I started out 30 years ago. 

The_Ghan

 

Pretty much spot on for me too, and would never have got into the Baltimore & Ohio RR either

[marknewton]

Yes, I would. I started buying Japanese trains and books before I had a computer But as others have noted, the hindernet does make it easier, and probably cheaper, too.

 

Cheers,

 

Mark.

[Claude_Dreyfus]

I started collecting in about 1998 before getting access to the internet, when there was a suitable shop in the UK - JR Models. I probably would have stuck with the Japanese theme via MG Sharp, Wellington Models and  Gaugemaster via magazines, or shop visits, however I will admit that it probably would have remained an off-shoot of my UK interest without the internet, and it is thanks to that that I have built up my collection, and have been able to carry out a fair amount of research.

[CaptOblivious]

Without the internet, this hobby would have been a non-starter for me. Believe it or not, I didn't really notice the trains very much (except as a convenient way to get around) while I was in Japan for the first time. It was only a year later when I was poking around on the internet that my interest was sparked at all. I'd have never even gone looking for it otherwise.

[gr8tfuldead]

More than likely not. And that goes for all of my American trains as well. My hobby is funded primarily from items I find to sell on ebay. I make a lot of purchases on "The Bay" as well as from on-line merchants. No ebay, no extra money for trains. No internet, no easy way to be exposed to all the stuff from Japan or items not available in brick and mortar stores.  However, LHS's would probably still be in business and would have decent inventories to choose from.

[Nick_Burman]

Japanese modelling would be impossible for me without the Web, not only for purchasing but more essentially as a source of reference. It would be impossible to do otherwise.

 

 

Cheers NB

[IST]

No. No information is available here about Japanese trains and none of the model shops sell Japanese model trains. My first Japanese n-gauge stuff was a Unitram starter set and without this forum (so the internet) I would have never ever heard about it.

[Tecchan]

I'm sure at 99% that I wouldn't.

 

Of course I would have been really tempted in front of the hobby section of Yodobashi Camera but I'm certain that I wouldn't have dared to spend so much money in a thing I wouldn't know anything about.

 

Internet is of course a way to shop, but first of all it's a way to get informations. And without those informations, I'm sure I would still stand in front of a shop in Japan wondering whether I should buy or not.

[spacecadet]

I go to Japan once a year but without the internet, I would have no idea what to even look for there, or where I could get Japanese stuff in the US.  My first trip to Japan in 2000, I did stop into a couple hobby shops but I just wandered around a bit and then left.  At that time, there was very little info on the net about Japanese model trains for English speakers.  So I'm sure I probably would never have even gotten started without the net.  (Not that I'm even much beyond that now.)

[Mudkip Orange]

Quite possibly no.

 

I never really found Shinkansen all that interesting, from a modeling perspective. It was through spending a bunch of time on railfan.ne.jp in 2002-2003 that I discovered Keihan, Choshi, etc and decided hey, this is cool.

[Nick_Burman]

Quite possibly no.

 

I never really found Shinkansen all that interesting, from a modeling perspective. It was through spending a bunch of time on railfan.ne.jp in 2002-2003 that I discovered Keihan, Choshi, etc and decided hey, this is cool.

 

Finding out that the interuban era is not quite over in Japan won me over. Plus the fact that I'm doing something really off the beaten track, at least as far as Brazil is concerned.

 

Cheers NB