Children in the train room?

[CP5415]

I have no problem in letting my 3 year old daughter handling any item I have for my layout, especially since I've taught her to handle stuff carefully.

Gordon

[Anonymous]

No little children of my own - they're all grown up. I never had any problem with my two boys or our grandson (who is now 18!), its other people's kids who have no respect, no control, no nothing that would bother me the most. Some adults seem to have no concern or control over the little buggers, and that irritates me. The don't realise that model trains are not toys for their kids to mess with. The real problem is the parents for not teaching their offspring to behave.

Bob Boudreau

[CP5415]

I see your point Bob!

That's why any child young or old, coming into my train room is given an old Model Power boxcar to handle to see if they are capable of handling other stuff.

Gordon

[Anonymous]

really depends on their age and if I know them and know how they act. I mean yea I'll let my friends daughter near them, but not her son (he's hell on everything).

[SpaceMouse]

In my house, the kids are what the trains are all about.

[1train1]

I have a 6 year old who knows how precious his dad's trains and layout is. He is allowed to touch,operate, and handle. Although he doesn't really grasp the monetary value (but at what age does a kid?) he handles everything with kidgloves. After all...it will be his someday.

[Anonymous]

I have a cousin who turns three this year, she seems fairly harmless around trains. I passed the Brio collection that my brother and I built up as kids on to her, and there's not a single day when it isn't being played with! Considering some of those pieces are 20 years old I think it was a good investment. She'll happily stand and watch my HO layout in action, though I've not let her drive it (yet) - think she's a bit young to cope with the idea of "you have to stop or you'll drive that train off the end of the layout". She's got past the phase of grabbing at models after a few gentle (verbal) explanations of why they need to be handled carefully (amazingly this seems to work - they understand a lot more than most realise!)

The tricky part is when they come into contact with larger-scale trains. LGB locos are very, very solid and will do more damage to anything they hit than to themselves. You have to keep a close eye for anything being "abandoned" on the rails, or feet too close to the line. On the other hand, seeing what it does to obstacles might be a good method of teaching them to be safe around the real thing - "It broke that pencil in half and isn't even scratched"

[timthechef]

I've tried letting my children play with an old Bachman set I have and they quickly proved that they arn't ready!!!

[Javern]

yup..I even let my cats in the train room, but I have learned em to stay off the layout

[Anonymous]

YES !!!

How do you think this hobby will continue if you DON'T ????

Now ... CATS ... I'm not sure about THEM !

And, anyhoo, I thought that cats trained PEOPLE, not the other way 'round !!!!

[Virginian]

My kids I had no problems with at all. But then, my kids minded. Sadly, that seems to have become unfashionable.

[Anonymous]

well i had to go
"I do"
(it would be kind of hard if i didnt) well that is because i am ten and it is me and my dad doing this, i will work on it after school before he is home, so bottlom line
__________________(haha)
i do

[t-whistler]

My layout is built, with a large center area, for my grandchildren to be involved with the
layout. The first lesson they got was .........this is NOT a toy, these are papa's trains.
In fact with three Digitrax controlers I can have the older kids running up to 4 different
trains on the double main line.
At least one of the grandsons will have a layout when he reaches the 6th grade or so.

t-whistler

[Anonymous]

My kids and I share the trainroom
they have their toys and I have mine.
its been ok
but no oher kids are allowed to touch anything
and my layout is 50" off the ground

[gvdobler]

The knowledge level of the 10-14 year olds on this forum, would lead me to ask if they allow grown ups to be in their train room.

I set up an LGB G scale every Christmas, along with a HO, N and 027 in another room to make sure the kids have something to run. The bigger kids (15 to 80) gravitate to the smaller stuff and the little ones like the G scale.

After doing this foe the last 19 years, I finally had a teenager on the controls of the LGB and I wasn't watching. I discovered he like to hit the direction switch at full throttle. So I will be re-gearing that loco.

You should have a few cheap pieces to run for the uneducated company and I think you'll find it rewarding. Other than a few dings now and then, I've had good luck. If a piece is especially valuable, then I would keep it out of reach. But the overall enjoyment by "kids" is well worth a small risk.

Jon - Las Vegas

[countershot]

I do not let people under 7 touch my layout, but it was deffernt at one time.
I let them move the cheaper engines like my gp-38's and some others and I trusted them. until one day when one of them reached up and grabed my 4-8-8-4 big boy and nearly droped it off the table now they can just watch until they gain the trust back. now I have to put all my loco's away at night to protect them from our cats.

[AggroJones]

No kids arounds here. My baby nephew is the only in there, and he must keep his hands down. No touching what-so-ever.

[betsy662]

I don't because I have no small children living at home, my grandbaby was just born a couple of months ago, so he won't be touching my trains for a long time............[8D][8D][8D]

[Anonymous]

WE have 10 grand-children and they are always welcome

[Anonymous]

i'm 12 and the reason my dad is in the hobby is because im there to help him


DRew

[Anonymous]

I don't when I am not there. But I do have open house when I there and some others are

[ben10ben]

Today a lady at church asked my mother if her son(3 years old) could come over some time and see my trains. My answer to that was that I would be more than happy for him to. That's my answer all the time, unless I know that I know that I'm going to be dealing with some particularly troublesome people.

I'm 17 years old, and I've been in the hobby in some way, shape or form most of those 17 years. Keeping younger people out of my train room, to me, at least, would be almost as bad as telling myself that I can't play with my trains. And, yes, I do play with my trains...

[BRAKIE]

But,of course!! I wouldn't have a 15 year old Grandson into model railroading if I didn't..Sadly it didn't take on his brother.But,I will settle for 1 out of 2.[:D]

[leonardbrand]

Only twice have I had any problems, once was a niece who wanted to see a switch engine up close, and accidentally dropped it, with minor damage, the other was with my cat, which back when he was with me came into my train room and jumped up on my layout for me to pet him, Having a AHM AC12 cab forward siting on the tract just a few feet from him , I moved it up too where he was and started to bump him with it, after about a minute he had enough and turned around and swatted it clean across the train room, took over six months to get it repaired, no I did not kill the cat, he died years later of old age.and It was all my fault I should have not P*** him off. and no! I no longer have the cab Forward either a friend wanted it bad enouth to make me an offer as they say I could not refuse.

[Anonymous]

All of the kids in my family are too little yet to handle or appreciate anything fragile, but I do allow them to run the trains because if they happen to goose them up a little too much I'm standing right there to slow them back down.
My brother in law had to get out of the hobby because his son (my nephew) would cry and get him in trouble with my sister because he wouldn't let him handle or run his trains. I would have given something up alright, but it wouldn't have been my trains!... Now you know one of the reasons why I'm happily single (divorced).

[Anonymous]

Nope. But then again all my Friends are over 10. AND if leave the room so do they.

[robengland]

When supervised they can be good from a very early age, say 5 for some kids, such as my son. Others are hopeless at any age.

And ALL are hopeless if unsupervised. A bunch of kids left unattended will eventually degenerate into some stupid game involving crashes, speeding, physically wrestling with the trains or a combination of all three (guess how I know this).

The main thing is to understand their physical limitations. My son knows not to lift locos because he sometimes drops things, and not to use sharp tools etc

But you can't have a blanket rule. My nephews are idiots: I don't trust them with anything and I never will[V]

[Anonymous]

I do, in fact it was my daughters fault for coming back to the hobby. At 3 and a 1/2 (her age) we set up a temp layout to keep her entertained (N scale) it sat out on the coffee table for month's and she could run it and handle them anytime she wanted. It is now taken down because she got interested in making tree's and rocks in prep for the big layout upstairs. Now she's been learning to paint the backdrop. She really is a sweet heart and gentle to boot. Now when she start's having friends over I don't know what I'll do then???
hmmm?

Chris

[cwclark]

I built my benchwork high enough so that small kids can't reach the trains which in turn, I let them stand on a step stool so that they can see the trains in one spot and then they can't roam around the room touching stuff...a lot of kids like to see the layout by handling everything...not good on trees and many small plastic parts...I will let them run the trains, but i'm in the room with them when i do let them...i don't have any kids at home, but a lot of the neighborhood kids come over to see the trains...some are good at running the trains, but others i have to watch...it's a scale prototype layout...not a race track to see how fast the trains will go...Chuck

[Anonymous]

I am 34 years old, and built my first layout this past winter (well, I should say "building" my first layout - who ever really finishes one????)

The only reason I built one is because my Grandpa and my Dad got together before I was born (when they knew I was coming along) and decided to build me a layout... don't know why they chose this, but I'm glad they did. They built a 20x20 full layout in Grandpa's basement... The train was for ME and my sister when she came along... We were taught how to handle the trains, how to pop up in the scuttle holes to re-rail trains, etc. etc...

I built a layout for my kids, who are 8 and 4 years old, and have taught them the same things that I was taught, and they are no problem around the trains.

They know that if their friends want to see the trains, they need to get me to teach their friends about the trains.

If we don't let the kids come and run the trains, handle them, and even help build the layouts, where will model railroading be in another 20 years?