Your Children

[simon1966]

Just for kick's I thought I would drag this thread from the distant past as lots of new members have joined and many, (Hi Spacemouse), are getting the kids active in the hobby.

My boys are now 5 and 7. Over the last 4 years model RR has given them so much. They are careful enough that I am happy to let them play on their own in the train room. My 5 year old will go in there on his own and pull a train, using a Walthers work caboose as a stand in locomotive, around the tracks for hours at a time. He would rather do this than "run trains" I worry that trees will get snapped off, but he really takes care. When he tires of that, upstairs he goes and pushes wooden trains around instead. The boys have learned patience, they have learned basic model assembly, they weather their own Athern BB kits and I have found a huge ammount of pleasure in doing things with them that we all enjoy. So one year on, how are things going with your kids and trains?

[Anonymous]

I just got into this after many years because I bought a set for my 4 year old. He's a John Deere freak and WalMart had the Athearns John Deere train set for 30 bucks. I couldn't pass it up. He was ecstatic when we set it up.
I showed him how to use the rerailer and the throttle now he's the engineer while I work on scenery or structures for the layout.
My 15 year old and 14 year old are not so enthusiastic but we're working on them :-)

[Big_Boy_4005]

That's an interesting story Matt, very nice. I'm guessing that when your parents divorced, you spent most of the time with your mother. I recently got divorced after 14 years of marriage, but I see my kids almost every day, and your story is a reminder to me that I'm lucky in that regard. Have fun, it sounds like you have a chance to make up for lost time with your dad.

[Anonymous]

Well I can say My Dad got me into trains at age 7 with a lionel. He had American Flyer and Ho fine scale stuff. At age 9 I taked him into an Ho switch over for me. Then my parent Divorced. My intrest was rekindeled 3 yrs ago when my Dad gave me his AF sets. Bought my daughters a lionel this past X-mas, one's really into it and she's 7. I watched her for about an hour in the hobby store deciding on what to buy with her $ 50.00 gift card. I'm into "S" in the winter "o'" with my daughter and starting this summer Garden railroading" Hopefully" with my Dad I'M BRINGING HIM BACK!!!

Carpenter Matt

[Anonymous]

My son started out much like you describe, except we didn't have a layout. His first two trains, where wooden that you pulled on a string. His next engine was a bump and go, after that Brio, then from there to HO. He is still active in the hobby (in grade 12 now) and works part time at an LHS. He did consider a career in the RR's but gave it a pass. But I know that even if he leaves trains for a while, he'll be back.

[Big_Boy_4005]

QUOTE: Originally posted by Fergus

I noticed that most of you with kids have wee ones

WARNING! If you want to keep them interested in the hobby keep them away from computer and and other video games. These will devoid your childs minds of imagination and accelerate their need for instant gratification. I speek with experience.

I quote Fergie here, because I totally understand, what he's talking about. I have an 11 year old son, and a 9 year old daughter. My "training" with them has been somewhat light up to this point, and my son has started to get into video games, but he has also taken an interest in the Lego trains that we have.

In the meantime they both watch eagerly as I begin to build a dream layout for myself. I want to include them and teach them and get them involved, but I just haven't found the right activity for them yet. Sometimes I am doing something that they are able to help with, but their attention span is shorter than mine, and eventually they wander off.

I figure as they watch the layout progress and take shape, they may pick up more interest and become more active, but I don't want to pu***hem in or out, but rather bait them in. At this point I don't have enough track down to run any trains, but I am making great progress.

Model railroading offers a lot of opportunities for teaching, and I enjoy the teaching aspect of it, but I find it is best done when the student is open to learning.[:)]

P.S. Tony, I don't share your views when it comes to computers and the forum, because they can be excellent teaching tools if used properly. Its the proper use thing that I have sort of been harping on with our younger members of late. One of the best teaching tricks, is to make the lesson so much fun, that the student doesn't notice that they are actually learning.

[krump]

3 kids (8,6,4) - they all say WOW to trains, but my 6 yr old daughter is the only one with any real interest in the model r/r hobby

[SSW9389]

I started my young children with trains when they were very young. They are all grown now. My oldest son is still into it. He and I have quite a fleet of trains. We are starting to get his young son interested. It's a family thing.

One of the side benefits is that you get trains for your birthday and at Christmas for presents.

[Anonymous]

My 3 year old boy and my 1 year old daughter love dads train. I let my boy run the thottle a little. Bought them the Fisher Price Geo Trax for christmas havent been able to put it away yet.

[Anonymous]

Hello Aggro

QUOTE: I play video games sometimes. Model railroading is fantastic and all, but you can have more than one hobby.

Hmm, If I was to get my pen and paper, then write out this note and take it down to the local community centre and pin it to the bulletin board........

Anyone who thinks this forum is not a video game is fooling themselves. If there is a computer involved it's a video game. I'm with Aggro, however my favourite game is called invoicing. I wrote it myself and with a few keystrokes I can give my customers an invoice and they give me money. Compared to what I did before this is definitely a game.

Of course I also waste time with the obligatory Trainsim and I do have a few Atari computers and have been known to Pacman. But I'm way too old for it affect my future.

I don't have any kids but I was just wondering why American kids call trains choo choo's even when they are looking at diesels. Of course this sounds correct to me because steam was all there was where I grew up. In America steam disappeared a couple of generations back didn't it?

[AggroJones]

QUOTE: Originally posted by Sask_Tinplater

QUOTE: Originally posted by Fergus

I noticed that most of you with kids have wee ones

WARNING! If you want to keep them interested in the hobby keep them away from computer and and other video games. These will devoid your childs minds of imagination and accelerate their need for instant gratification. I speek with experience.

That's very good advice indeed. I'm 17, but I have absolutely no interest in video games whatsoever! There's more intelligent thing to spend my time on.

I'm 21 and would have to disagree. I play video games sometimes. Model railroading is fantastic and all, but you can have more than one hobby. Variety is the spice of life.

[CBQ_Guy]

QUOTE: Originally posted by mloik

Hello all,

I have an 18-month old son. I started taking him down to see my basement layout around age 2 months; he is now 18 months and is HOOKED on model railroading!

He insists on operation any time of the day or night (good for the call) that he can possibly convince Daddy and the Dispatcher (i.e. Mommy).

His "sign" to visit the MR is to say, "ch, ch, ch ch".

Has anyone else has this wonderful experience?

Michael in CA

You're a lucky man! Unfortunately, no, I haven't had this wonderful experience. Both my kids are grown and gone, both are girls and neither had any interest in my layout. BUT, there's hope. My daughter doesn't know it yet, but she's getting engaged very soon as her boyfriend of many years came and had THE talk with me last Sunday night. He's a train nut, too, though more of a railfan. That's OK, because there's always...

GRANDCHILDREN!!!

[Anonymous]

I have a 6 month old daughter. She has no interest beyond what she can place in her month and the cat!! I do plan on building her a caboose (playhouse) outside in the backyard.

Her mother is wonderful and support my wishes of applying my hooby to my daughter. If not the trains are all mine!!!!

[88gta350]

I have a 5 year old son, and while I don't have an operating layout at the moment, he has a couple inexpensive Life-Like sets that he loves to run. Since I don't have room for a layout at the moment, I like to do a lot of railfanning, and my son gets a huge kick out of watching the trains thunder by. The house we're looking at buying buts up against a branch line that carries cocoa beans to Hershey Foods. It sees 1-2 trains a day, so it would be great for me.

[lupo]

I have 1 son, just got 7, who at the age of 2 became a train-nut after his first encounter with a train at a railway-crossing.
At first he liked to wach Thomas the Train all day (videotaped) and all episodes on trains from Discovery channel (video taped) pushing a black plastic steam locomotive around the house he called BigBoy, he played with his BRIO trains and tracks, we kitbashed some loco's and cars to look like his favorite yellow trains (NS),
He had 4 sets of big plastic american Christmas trains he pushed around the house not on tracks, and put he together trains: locoos, tenders, freightcars caboose, and watched these lying with his head on the floor to get the best real live perspective,
His first computer-game was Lego Loco, a layout construction game with an option to send trains from 1 computer to another, delivering messages,
At 2 he got Lego duplo: trains,and at 4 he started with normal LEGO, so he now has his own Lego train and tracks, still kitbashing where he can get his fingers on.
he builds locomotives from pictures that he finds in magazines or asks me to make pictures when we go railfanning around holland.
Even all his drawings were trains and trains and trains, all kinds; SANTA FÉ, AMTRAK, Nederlandse Spoorwegen, Big german steam engines

All these trains around the house and a trip to the States 3 years ago (Barstow Durango, a BigBoy in Dallas) made me decide to pick up my old railmodelling hobby again by starting to collect american UP locomotives, ( Big Boys are my sons favorite locomotives) and now he is seven, I made him a small 4 x 8 layout we both use, and when the house is finished this summer I am going to put together all the stuff I gathered over the last years into my own layout, we will enjoy together I hope.

[Anonymous]

QUOTE: Originally posted by Fergus

I noticed that most of you with kids have wee ones

WARNING! If you want to keep them interested in the hobby keep them away from computer and and other video games. These will devoid your childs minds of imagination and accelerate their need for instant gratification. I speek with experience.

That's very good advice indeed. I'm 17, but I have absolutely no interest in video games whatsoever! There's more intelligent thing to spend my time on. I did once have a very, very old Nintendo that my uncle found and gave me. I was addicted for about a week and then lost interest. It sat in a box somewhere for a few years until I sold it to a friend of mine last year for $10.

I know this one kid who's in grade 5 now that loves trains. His parents are divorced and he lives with his mom, so I've helped him with a layout, doing repairs and even given him some trains. However, while he still loves trains very much, he's very much into video games and stuff like that and hasn't been doing a lot with his trains lately. I hope that he doesn't lose his interest as he gets older. Hopefully he may get more involved in the hobby once he's an adult.

[Anonymous]

I noticed that most of you with kids have wee ones

WARNING! If you want to keep them interested in the hobby keep them away from computer and and other video games. These will devoid your childs minds of imagination and accelerate their need for instant gratification. I speek with experience.

[dknelson]

Some years ago on an NMRA national convention layout tour we visited a really nice HO scale layout near Stevens Point WI where the owner's little boy had his Lionel layout underneath. IT too was very nicely done, in a figure 8 with grass and buildings. What was really cute -- the father had a visitor's register where we would sign our name, address and NMRA number. The little boy had his own register that he had us sign.
Dave Nelson

[Jetrock]

I have no kids and don't plan on having any but I am busily trying to corrupt my nephews and my friends' kids by giving them toy-train or model railroad stuff as gifts. My layout isn't quite visitor-ready but one nephew is already asking me about it...

[orsonroy]

No kids yet, but I've got my two nephews (both 2-ish) hooked on trains. I make sure to get them battery powered sngines and stuff for gifts, just to keep the flame alive!

[Anonymous]

This is part of the Reason I am building two layouts. One layout is an outdoor G scale layout, and the other is an N scale switching layout. My son, who is eleven months old now, I hope to introduce to trains with the G scale layout. As he gets older, I may let him operate on my N scale layout.
--C. Alan

[CP5415]

I have a two year old daughter.
I can't take her to my local hobby shop without her picking every Athearn box off the shelf
saying "Daddy, choo choo!"
I let her at the controls on the layout & she loves to go really fast then jamb on the brakes.
I'm thinking she'll make a great bus driver [;)]

Gordon

[Hawks05]

haha i'm 17 and i have to split time between my PS2 and train stuff.

[Anonymous]

My son is 3 1/2, and loves to go down and play with the trains. He loves to run the throttle...surprisingly he doesn't always have to have it at max. Sometimes he slows down, but he is the most excited when it is blasting away at warp speed.

Enjoy your time, while you can!

[pbjwilson]

I've got two sons, 5 and 8 years old. They both grew up with trains in the house. The Thomas wooden train sets are great for kids when tey're young. You have to remember kids up till they are about 5 or six years want to touuch and push and cra***heir toys. My older son was running Lionels at about 4 yrs. old. It took him awhile to figure out the forward-neutral-reverse units, but by age 5 he was running them on his own. The other thing with the Lionels is they are easy to get on the tracks. Although it's amazing that both my kids had a fascination with N gauge trains and were actually able to put the engine and cars on the tracks at about age 4. It really made them concentrate and was like a puzzle to them.
Anyway enjoy it while you can because trains can't compete with the evil Gamecube and video games. Trains have now taken a back seat, hopefully just for the time being.

Paul the Painter

[AggroJones]

I have a three year old nephew who displays a facination with railroads. Everytime he visits to our house he comes to me and says, "I wanna see Mallet!"

[Anonymous]

I have a 2 month old son. I'm building a layout now for the both of us, I can't wait for him to get Hooked!

[timthechef]

I have a 17 month old and you can't take him into the basement without running the trains. He also loves to go to the local RR museum

[Hawks05]

being 17 i don't have any kids so i don't have to worry about that yet. don't plan on having any for a few more years. so hopefully by then i'll be settled down and have a wife and place to put all my trains.