kids and model trains.

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Brakie

You're right to a point. Watching a train chase its tail these days is fun for a few minutes, especially if you can relate to the trains somehow. I work for the Coast Guard, and the Christmas I set up a simple Lionel layout in my cube as a Christmas decoration, the guys couldn't keep themselves away from the Coast Guard set with the rotating radar car. But the fascination only lasted a few minutes.

What kept their interest for hours was operating the 362 barrel loader and car I put on the layout. A bunch of electrical engineers couldn't get over the barrels vibrating their way up hill!

Same with my kids (youngest are currently 9 and 11). Watching "Dad's train" chasing its tail around the table got old fast. But if I set up 2 loops, and give each child a train - watch out! Pretty quickly they'll be going in opposite directions, trying to figure out who's train is fastest. And experimenting to find the maximum safe speed for a curve was part of the fun. Next give them a car kit - like an old MDC or Atheran blue box - and the fun and learning begins. The kids will never part with that first kit they built, and they'll run it until the wheels fall off.

Next, clear a section of table and have them lay some sectional and/or flex track in the arrangement of their choice, build a plastic structure, and mount the structure on the layout. Given encouragement, and no criticism of their workmanship, almost every kid going through these steps will have at least a temporary interest in the hobby. More importantly, they'll have a special memory that will likely be revisited sometime when they are an adult.

Fred Wright

[Anonymous]

QUOTE: Originally posted by trainboyH16-44

If you start 'em young, I suppose that there's a chance that they will like trains later in life, so parents: Stock up on thomas the Tank engine! Another good one is "There goes a train" You'll like it too, lots of good footage.
Matthew

thats how i got started, grandpa gave me real trains, and thomas, and now that im a teen, it just started comin back too me. plus my little bro was looking at a toysrus catolog, and now they have thomas engines and track that run, so you could set up a thomas layout for your kid, and a regular layout for yourself, and for when he grows up

[Anonymous]

QUOTE: Originally posted by John Busby



My other one is fantasy war gaming same there not many kids they dont want to take the time to paint the armies and make the terrain pieces and nothing looks worse on the table than an unpainted army.

What do you play. do you play warhammer/warhammer40k? i play 40k, and i agree, nothing looks worse then an umpainted army

[trainboyH16-44]

Nerds!

[Ibflattop]

It only takes one person thats in the Hobby to affect another one. With all of us out there, and if you show people thats not in the hobby what to do, You are giving them a taste of it. My son is 15 now. When he was younger, as soon as he was able to run trains with dad he was down there with me and to this day he still is. Sure there are days when he gets on the PC or the PlayStation, and then there are days when he wants to paint his 40K. But then there are days when he wants to hang with Dad. You just have to have time for them and show them. Just showing them what to do helps them on the right track................. Kevin

[jacon12]

Probably the toughest thing for a kid to do is to NOT be cool and IN. Peer pressure can be enormous and the age old need to 'belong' is a critical factor also. Whenever I'm around my 3 grandkids, it isn't long before one of them (speaking of someone in their school) will say something like, "yes, she's so popular" They don't realize it yet but about the only place that being 'popular' is any big deal is in school. Once you're out and on your own, what really counts is how smart you are, how well you work and what you can contribute to your job. I don't mean that companies don't want you to be well liked, but in general, they could care less how 'popular' you were in school.
I agree that kids have to be brought into the hobby very early in life. Much earlier than 13. It would also be a bit easier to tie the interest in model railroading to the real thing, such as field trips to watch the big ones at work. I also agree that TV and video games are very hard competitors for their attention. Very tough.
You're not going to get them all into it. Many people go through life with no hobby at all. How they do that I haven't a clue. Many get interested in MRing at that crucial early age, drift away, then when they're older and settled with a family of their own, they come back.
Gee fellas, do we really want them all? [swg]
Jarrell

[Anonymous]

QUOTE: Originally posted by trainboyH16-44

Nerds!

Define Nerd. see there's all kinds of nerds. like theres the nerd nerds, who act like nerds, and are abnocious, and do that thing when the suck in their snot with their nose.

or there's the cool nerds like me and my friend chris, were the kind of nerds that are into nerdy things like computers and trains, ect., but everyone knows and is friends with us

[Anonymous]

QUOTE: Originally posted by TA462

My dad was into trains when I was a kid and I liked hanging around with him running trains, going to shows and hobby shops. Once I turned around 14 years old though things changed, I was now into girls and cars. Girls and cars basically ruled me from then on until I got married, then it was just cars and the wife, lol. I didn't get back into trains again until I turned 37. You teenagers think that your friends don't think trains are cool, well most of my friends who are anywhere between 35 and 50 think the same way. I always get a little ribbing(just a little, I'm 6'4", 260lbs) at parties by my friends but when they come over to my house they always want to see how the layout is coming along or what new locomotive I bought. Strange eh?

[Anonymous]

QUOTE: Originally posted by TA462

My dad was into trains when I was a kid and I liked hanging around with him running trains, going to shows and hobby shops. Once I turned around 14 years old though things changed, I was now into girls and cars. Girls and cars basically ruled me from then on until I got married, then it was just cars and the wife, lol. I didn't get back into trains again until I turned 37. You teenagers think that your friends don't think trains are cool, well most of my friends who are anywhere between 35 and 50 think the same way. I always get a little ribbing(just a little, I'm 6'4", 260lbs) at parties by my friends but when they come over to my house they always want to see how the layout is coming along or what new locomotive I bought. Strange eh?

Dave I laughed when I read this, its very similar to my situation, no matter what age people who dont understand the hobby and the enjoyment you get, think your a little weid......but there eyes always light up when they see that its not playing with toys your realy modeling accurate trains.

I love it becouse it keeps the kid alive in me...........

[trainboyH16-44]

I didn't say being a nerd was a bad thing...I used to hang out in the same place as the nerds. Watching them play warhammer and other games like that.....You're just lucky that you can be popular AND become something later in life.......me, can I do either? LOL
Matthew

[oldno9]

My step father hooked me at age 7 and I admit I am an adict. I love model railroading - railfaning - collecting railroadiana.

My son is now 2 and I've got him hooked on models and Thomas. I am so proud of myself! I just hope he stays interested.

Working on my brother-in-law now. He's been watching me construct a few n-trak modules and can see the many sides of the hobby. Took him to the local GATS (or whatever is now) show a couple weeks ago and it really got his attention. He seems to be interested in Lionel...not my choice, but whatever...trains is trains! I know what he's getting for x-mas.

Share the hobby with everyone! Its cool if you can get them to understand it's not about playing with toys.

[Anonymous]

all the people i know who play warhammer are kids like me and chris, were cool, but we do nerdy things, and i hang around places like hobbytown too. thats one of my favorite stores besde trainmaster, its fun, plus my mentor and idol in warhammer Patrick works there, the dude is an amazing painter, you could give him any type of model, warhammer, mrr, model car/plain, anything, and he will paint it flawlessly.

[trainboyH16-44]

Could he custom paint one of my engines?
Let's get this back on topic now.....

[Anonymous]

QUOTE: Originally posted by prr67

all the people i know who play warhammer are kids like me and chris, were cool, but we do nerdy things, and i hang around places like hobbytown too. thats one of my favorite stores besde trainmaster, its fun, plus my mentor and idol in warhammer Patrick works there, the dude is an amazing painter, you could give him any type of model, warhammer, mrr, model car/plain, anything, and he will paint it flawlessly.

My baby brother (he's 35) paints an collects medieval & fantasy wargame figures. I don't know what he plays not but he started with D&D. My own nerd roots go back to before the term was coined. Reading Edgar Rice Burroughs in the 60's and 70's. Panzer Blitz and Squad Leader in the 70's. Writing my own programs in Basic for my TI 99-4a and recording them on a cassette player. And of course model railroading. Any body play Harpoon?

[Anonymous]

QUOTE: Originally posted by trainboyH16-44

Could he custom paint one of my engines?
Let's get this back on topic now.....

doubt it, i dont think he does jobs, plus he probably wont do a mrr engine, cause warhammer is his specialty

[Anonymous]

QUOTE: Originally posted by loathar

Maybe if we can get the ignorant parents to stop buying their kids cell phones, video games,bling bling, and home entertainment centers for their rooms,kids would gravitate towards trains instead of prisons or cemetaries.

Gee loathar, what a radical concept :)

I called my cell phone company for some support a few weeks ago. Their parting gesture was to try and sell me on a phone for my 5 year old!

We go into the video store, to get to the kids videos which now seem to be buried in the middle of the store, we have to go past all the X-Box and PS/2 games. Not to mention running the gauntlet of the candy to get out of the store!

Somebody else posted inthis thread pondering if what kids are exposed to has an effect on them. The answer is, of course it does. Whatever we might think about kids, they will be influenced disproportionately by the influence we attempt to exert over them.

As an example - why did my 5 year old get up this morning and ask if I would come and play trains with her? She gets to do it with dad. I never say no to anything reasonable. She has her own layout, her own loco's (currently inexpensive LifeLike sets of GP38 A+B and a caboose which cost maybe $25 new on eBay) and rolling stock (mostly a set of 12 Industrial brand for $20 on eBay). She can, within reason do what she likes with it.

So this morning she cut up some pieces of construction paper to make an engine shed. Decorated it with crayon and sticky-taped it together. You should hear the chuckle as she backs a loco in and out of the shed! She wanted a passenger car that she could put people in. So we got a flat-car and put some blobs of plasticine on it, A set of (as it happens) HO scale people from the LHS now get picked up at the passenger station, made from plastic drinking straws, scraps of cardboard and construction paper, and sat in the plasticine!

And you should see the dinoasur theme park!

She knows it is okay to play trains, whetgher it is her little N scale layout or the wooden trains she has had since she was about 9 months old. And even more amazing is to here her when her friends want to play trains. "you have to be careful", "dont make it go too fast", "don't try picking them up, they are hard to get back on the rails", "if you break it then I have to save up out of my allowance to replace it". So she gets two boys, 8 & 5, who are known as the "four legged demolition derby" amngst many other parents, to place nicely for as much as 3 hours at a time with narry a thing getting broken, dropped, thrown or kicked.

If you let kids be kids and encourage them to use their own imagination then they will turn out to be very different.

John

[trainboyH16-44]

I agree that without technology, us kids would do a lot more MRR'ing. Take yesterday, for instance. I was on trains.com for a long time, meaning to go to the LHS to pick up some flextrack, but by the time I was ready to go, the LHS closes in an hour and a half, and my parents didn't want to take me, as they had booked tickets to a show a couple hundred kilomateres west of here. And it's closed today. I'll try to go on a bike ride, though.
Matthew

[Anonymous]

wish i could ride my bike to a hobby shop, my closest one(hobbytown usa, and mine doesnt have a big train selection, but im goin to try to get a job there and expand the train section cause they dont have any employ's that know anything about trains) is like 15-30 minutes away depending on traffic

[trainboyH16-44]

My closest one is really not a train place at all, but they do have some things, and they're only 3KM away.

[Anonymous]

Interesting topic - I do wonder if the problem is that the average person has very little exposure to the real thing now. In my daily life I may see two or three, but I'm looking for them carefully. While wandering around campus I sometimes hear a steam whistle (the little tourist line that runs from here) but I seem to be the only one who notices - my friends wonder why I've just gone silent and smiled!

I think the best way to get the hobby back into the "cool" category is to start them young - my cousin knew a lot of rail-related terms before she turned three, now my G scale collection is one of the most popular things (after a few explanations of how to switch without ramming the track bumpers) and she's covered half her parents house with Brio. If this is still the status quo when she reaches school, we'll have another hobbyist in a few years time. I can't really say I blame TV and computers either - she has free access to both (with supervision, obviously) and will watch a programme that interests her (usually Bob the Builder, though introducing her to the Discovery channel has proved popular too - Scrapheap Challenge and Salvage Squad are particularly well recieved) then switch off and do something else (usually involving leaving a trail of toy construction equipment across the floor - Lofty the crane has had a few near misses...). No rocket science here - she's just around adults who will talk intelligently with her, involve her in activities such as basic DIY (flat pack furniture goes down well), and generally encourage her to be inquisitive and intelligent while also having a good quantity of common sense to stay out of trouble.

[dinwitty]

MS Train Simulator...Trainz...

been at it since a kid here...so I know...

[TrainFreak409]

What I think is the coolest when it comes to kids and model trains is this;

Most younger railfans like diesels over steam (or turbines) because that's what they grow up around. But, I've been around little kids, maybe 3 or 4, at the train store where I used to work that liked steam better. On the layout, they see the steamers, and go, "Look! A real train!"[:D] I loved it! They didn't think that diesels were "real" trains, steamers are real to them.[tup] They have good tastes.[;)]

Well, I'm a teen, and am very proud to be in this hobby. This is a great way to express creativity and to stay out of trouble. (Not that I would be in trouble without my hobby...) If we had more teens in model railroading, there would be fewer doing drugs, smoking, et cetera, et cetera. But we don't, so yes, the big question is WHY AREN'T KIDS ATTRACTED TO THIS HOBBY?

I must go with the reasoning that today's kids aren't exposed to it. Cars are everywhere, so what happens? Everyone wants to get a car, deck it out, and race it, leading to danger. Movies show drugs and sex, so what do kids want? Yep, you guessed it...

I think that we should strap a few people down, and force them to watch Thomas the Tank Engine for a day straight, and see what happens...[}:)]

[Anonymous]

Not true train freak, they acquire wisdom as they get older! so they like diseals better! Think I shall have to get my little sister (5) her own train set for chirstmas! She loves my n stuff, and handles it carefully. Danny

[Anonymous]

I tell you why trains don't seem cool to most kids, For starters schools(which dictates alot of what kids think of nowadays) only depict the train as an old relic, & claim roads built the USA. Also this thomas thing stinks because he is a locomotive barney, once they turn 7 thomas (many times trains in general) go out. we need something to keep teens 'like me"(no worry i cant stop loving trains if I wanted to) in.

Ps steam or large noisy diesels (not F-7's{SD-80macs)leaves more of an impression on us than the local sounder, coaster, or metrolink.

[red p]

well every spring there is a group here that puts on a train show at a local church.
The one thing they do is the make "make and take" program its not just for kids but anybody thinking about getting into the hobby.
I took my boys a couple of years ago (ages 6&8). and they got to make a athearn blue box kit. it only cost 3.00 each. The thing is the 3.00 is paid at the door to get in.
They left there proud of the project that they actually did.
They have tables set up with all the tools ,paint,ect. needed to fini***he project.
Even adults can participate in this program. And they leave with their item and the confidance to know they can do it because they just did. Let them build something and take it home and they are in.
This years "make and take" was a 1 sq. ft. peice of foam board that we glued a piece of sectional track to. Then some paint was added, then a little ballast.
This has got to be the best program for getting new people in the hobby that I have ever seen. It also has a very high success rate.

[cwclark]

Here's what I do to pu***he hobby...i'm a "Railroading Merit Badge" councilor with the Boy Scouts...If a kid wants to participate, he can come over and do the requirements necessary to complete the merit badge....since we're talking about kids in this hobby ...something else i've found ...it's going to depend on the kid himself...i've had some boys complete the merit badge with flying colors because it was in them to really enjoy the hobby and they found it fascinating ...then there were others that just went through the motions so they could add another merit badge to their list but they never really enjoyed it...it's going to depend on the person himself wither he wants to be involved in this hobby or not...some kids fall in love with the hobby after one visit to a layout or thumbing through the pages of their first MRR magazine while others wouldn't give a hoot about the hobby...It's a good thing to advertise it and get kids interested in the hobby if they find it enjoyable but still there are others that could care less about it..different strokes for different folks ...chuck

[FCnota]

MY son is 7. He seems to go theough periods when all he wants to do are video games, then leggo's, then hot wheels, then trains, then dinosaurs! He keeps going round and round with different things. I let him have his space, and when he see's me working on something in the "train room" he ALWAYS stops by and more often then not, stays awhile. Kids need to decide for themselves what they like. I NEVER push anything on him, neither sports, trains or whatever. I think thats the key!

[Anonymous]

Hey,
I would take trains anyday over vedio games, trains is so much more fun and helpes build useful, yes, I said useful skills unlike vedio games.
Jay

[Anonymous]

IM A 14 YEAR OLD MODEL RAILROADER WITH 1 FRIEND THAT DOESNT EVEN GO TO MY SKOOL AND IM PROUD!!!!

anywayse, thats the truth. im not even one of those nerdy computer geeks. im more of a Rat-Fink muscele car geek. (gearhead)

if anyone out there is reading this and the name JOSH ROONEY means anything to you and you go to Grasso Teck in CT you can find me outside rm. 203 before homeroom . (wearing a black sweatshirt as normal)(the kid that doesnt talk to anyone)

none of you "typical" model railroaders would look at my pointy hair, dark colored clothing, low pants or wallet chain, and think i was a model railroader. most swichmen are surprised that i dont pull out a spray can or lighter, but start asking questions when i go down to the tracks. my parents dont like my style, and socoity doesnt like my hobby.i dont care tho. you can spit thru your teeth and call me a punk or a geek. screw you i like muscele cars and trains.

GEARHEAD426
[8]

[Anonymous]

QUOTE: Originally posted by trainfreek92

well I LOVE trains!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! I am 13 and am starting my second layout. Now i also love girls and cars. My parents and i have a rv that we travel around on the weekends[:D] I also play grand theft auto but i am not stupid enough to go out in the real world and murder somone!!! But yes parents get you kids involved in trains. It is only human nature for boys to go out and like chicks, cars etc. Now if they are like me they no how to balance the 2. so parents do what i do And if you are mad at your son for abandoning you and the layout get him intrested again and just be glad its girls hes intrested in!!! [:D] Tim

i agree with you. i play GTA, listen to punk rock and death metal and industurial techno.

i have trouble getting my dad to take me to train shows. somethings rong here....

when i get a car, im probably gonna race. alot. but then ill take the winning $ and but train stuff. see my other post if you go to Grasso teck....

i have no hope with the girls. [;)][8]