Children's Museum Layout

[hobocash]

The Klamath Rails Railroad Club, Klamath Falls, Oregon is getting involved with the local Children's Museum, the museum is in the development phase. The building and budget are in place many upgrades have taken place and our club has offered to help plan, design and build an operating HO layout for the Museums transportation section. The layout is 17' x 20' with wheelchair access. We hope to encourage children to become more interested in model railroading through this layout. What I need is help from all you model railroaders to offer us suggestions on how to build an operating layout that will keep the children's interest and operate without supervision 80% of the time. We are looking at operating three trains on independent loops with animation and train control with push buttons. Does anyone have any suggestions on any aspect of building, wiring and operating such a layout? Thanks for your input in advance.

[challenger3802]

Operation could be controlled by a computer linked to a DCC system, which could have any number of trains automatically running for as long as you wish. Check out Tony's Train Exchange (www.tonystrains.com) for useful information on this topic area.

Making the layout low enough to be at viewing level for the children would be paramount, with enough buildings and activities associated with a normal street scene to interest them while waiting for the next train to zip past.

A layout I saw that was fully DCC controlled, had a couple of large stations with fully working signals changing correctly for the passage of trains. These stations were a magnet for the children watching the layout. Lots of interest as to which trains were going to stop. I saw quite a number of children simply having fun counting the number of freight cars on a long train, as it went through stations and around bends!

Hope this gives you inspiration for your layout.
Ian