Kids-friendly industry

[BRJN]

What industries do children find to be interesting? Why? Do they like to just watch? Do they get into planning the shipments in/out? Any experiences you have had will be welcome.

My thought:

Candy factory.
# Get to use the neat "Hershey's Chocolate" billboard car
# family field trip: can photograph and use on the layout a real billboard from across town: "Home of the BUN bar" with a picture of the candy bar.
# get the child to read the ingredient list from a real candy bar, and try to guess - or research - how those things would be moved to the factory. (Peanuts, caramel, corn syrup, chocolate, riboflavin, flour, milk, red coloring #6, &c)

[Wdlgln005]

You could also go with the cereal industry. Take your pick of Kellog's, General Mills, etc. You sttill have all the ingredients, + sugar & different grains. The GT shipped them out on cereal boxcars. Cut out any of the cereal box characters to decorate the outside of the factory. Be worth a trip to Battle Creek if the factory tour is back on.

for a model, I'd adapt one of the Walthers kits where the grain cars unload into mill bins, and the outgoing boxcars are spotted under the buiulding, protected from the weather.

[dwRavenstar]

You could ask the kids and then build the business they want to "own". Give the business their name, ie Billy Smith Corporation, ship and receive goods as they see fit, maybe even paint some box cars or whatever rolling stock would fit their needs with that corporate name and logo emblazoned on the sides.

I'm only suggesting this from personal experience. My neice's 8 year old son has been chattering for weeks about the proposed business that will carry his moniker on our under construction layout.

dwRavenstar

[chutton01]

I hate to admit it, but as a kid of 8 or 9 I liked the Tyco operating accessories a lot - had 4 or 5 to rotate among so I wouldn't get bored (the lumber mill and dump, the tractor trailer lifter, the coal loader, and the pipe unloader - why any industry would unload concrete pipe by pushing it off a flat car with a funky forklift I don't know, but I loved it (and still have the flat car and pipes - car upgraded with Kadees #5s no less).
Also, this time being the mid-70s and consequently the period of D-I-Y Velvet art, which my Dad was into (you glued crushed stones, sequins, and gilded rope to form a scene, like an underwater treasure chest) - well, my handful of B&M and Pennsy Hoppers and Gondolas carried lots of leftover quartz and silver and gold (the gondolas full of gold required Lionel army flatcars with various weapons to defend themselves).

OK, ok, you want realistic ideas, I know.
So besides asking the kid what he/she likes (perhaps a whole research game - NOT A PROJECT, AS PROJECTS ARE NO FUN!), as suggested above, I'd vote for the bakery, as you can make the roof removable, and (here it comes), place some fresh baked cookies or muffins inside to get a prototypical aroma (when I attended Manhattan College, I could often smell the aroma from Stella D'Oro waffing about - I understand this is true of many bakeries).
One last suggestion - if you have some cash, Circus modeling - there are of course at least 2 circus trains around in the US, and in the past there were many more - they can do lots of research here, and still be somewhat amused. And everyone pretty much loves a circus model, including me...

[BRJN]

QUOTE: Originally posted by dwRavenstar

You could even paint some box cars or whatever rolling stock would fit their needs with that corporate name and logo emblazoned on the sides.

Oooh, home-made billboard cars, what fun! I know because I tried to paint one of my own in my youth, even though I knew about nothing about paint and used something so thick the doors could not be opened over the coating of paint. I did some hand-drawn graphics, too. The impressionist corn plant worked, but trying to freehand "Bills Seeds" did NOT.

I found a picture of a local-billboard stock car for "Ft Wayne Horse and Mule Auction" which included the street address and auction times. How anybody could read that small print on a moving car is beyond me, though...

[BRJN]

QUOTE: Originally posted by chutton01
I'd vote for the bakery, as you can make the roof removable, and (here it comes), place some fresh baked cookies or muffins inside to get a prototypical aroma.

I model in HO, but maybe in O and definitely in bigger scales you could put an actual bread machine inside the factory (no roof) so the aroma will be for real. [;)][8D] Yum.

Re: [:o)] Sorry, I don't have that much space or money.

[simon1966]

I have a coal mine, well at least the place it is going to be....My boys set up delivery of M and M's in coal hoppers and gondolas. I give them a list of cars in order and they have to switch them in the yard and dispatch a train to deliver to the mine. (I know its backwards, but it works for them) Makes them think and they get a reward at the delivery point.

[trolleyboy]

You could go with a toy factory most kids will like that.I like giving goofey names to industries my niees and nephew's love to see thre wierd little details on layouts. Their currant fav on my layout is the IP Freely Bath Fixtures con that i kitbashed from the Helgian Brewery. Rob

[TurboOne]

This is the one part that O gauge has that HO just misses out at.

O gauge has all those cool, animated buildings. I even saw a talking McDonalds, a car wash, a greyhound bus terminal, a diner with smoke coming out the pipes, and lionel has a train store with running trains inside.
Makes me ask, if Walmart can make all these talking toys that say things with a push of a button for $9.99, why can't we have the same inside of HO buildings. Might be a project I want to add to my layout when the carnival goes up.

Tim