Has anybody have kids to look at the lasyout?

Lasyout! Now that's a New one. I hope my wife doesn't find out about this term

The neighbors have 2 grandsons who live 4 states away.  Every time they visited here, they made sure to come over to see my trains.  They even created artwork to thank me.  But they're teenagers now, and don't give a hoot about the trains.

I have three kids of my own. Ages 1-6 so there are always kids over. No problems so far. I find the 2-4 yr old like them the most.

Down through the years several children have stop with their parents, grand parents and friends to watch our trains. I remember back in 1971 when we started to build or first layout. After I got the layout were I could run a couple of trains, I went outside and got as many of the neighborhod children that I could find told them to follow me I had a big surprise for them. The ones that were to short to see the trains,  I stood on chairs with the older children watching them. Anyways, later that night I received a phone call from one of our neighbors stating her four year old son wouldn't go to bed unless he could see the trains run one more time. At this time his mother didn't know about our trains. I told her that it would be alright to bring Danny to see the trains. So she bundle him up and walked down to our home. After I ran the trains for Danny, he went  home and went right to bed.

My Wife and I have my daughter's friends and kids from work over fairly often. We find having two or three over at a time is best as it gives us the chance to give each one individual attention. We usually explain the ground rules first, i.e. no touching or grabbing as it can "hurt" the trains and rarely do we have a problem. Most of the time I will have one of the kids run a train and that goes smoothly since most of these kids are so use to pressing buttons and playing video games. Also my nine year old daughter likes playing tour guide and is proud to show off the layout. We usually finish off with coffee and cake and for the adults and milk and cookies for the kids.

All the best,

Miketg

Whenever my parents have a party, usually the kids ask to see my trains. I of course do not mind, and I even let them run the trains. What I do is start them out on trains which will not derail, even under full throttle, then work them up to trains which will, just so they get used to the controls.

Using this method, I have only had two kids derail trains, one who I kinda expected it (with his personality), and the other was a two year old, who grabbed the train I was running when it went by.

I think showing it to kids is a HUGE part of the hobby. For many kids, it may be there only exposure to the hobby.

jim,a couple times on the way home from altoona-cresson visits,we stopped at your shop .it was a pleasure to see the layout and all the stock neatly stacked  and accessable to the customers.i know there wasnt much you didnt have!-jim

When my son was younger and into trains I would have his classmates over one or two times a year to run trains.  Always a good time and never had any issues.

--Greg

We are very supportive of having our friends with children visit our layout. We have NEVER had a problem with behavior which probably says more about the parents and how they are bringing up their kids. I guess we must have a good choice of friends.

We have kids every weekend stop in. Occasionally an auto gets moved. We had one young man and his dad stay and run trains for a couple of hours yesterday. We are starting to get quite a number of autistic children and their caregivers. No issues, except it can get crowded.....

I have Scouts come over, and kids from our Church's Youth Group have spent an evening running trains and discussing the bible. My neighbor's grand kids come over about every month or so and enjoy the steam engines the most.

Yes grandkids and friends grandkids.

My son has his buddy's come over, small gang of 5 yr olds, their parents are somewhat shocked by the size 14" X 36" and the extent of the renovations to the basement which were required all for a train set. The kids love it, my wife puts up with it, their parents think I must be a nut ball.

I live in a 55 & older development and have had many neighbor's grand kids as well as family members kids to see the layout. My rule is if you want to see a item up close or hold it you must ask first. Have never had a problem yet & both kids & elders enjoy themself's.

          Joe

Seaboard,

   Through the years many children and their parents have visited our train room,

it started with my Grandfather and became a tradition to have the neighborhood kids in at Christmas time, many of the kids back in that era had rough home lives and my Grandfather always made sure they saw something special at Chrsitmas time.  The tradition was expanded when my Father started the Boys Club in Swissvale, Pa in the old Washington Theater.  One of the things we did was build

a large train layout for the Boys.  Later the Police and Firemen sponsored the

layouts, working with the boys, some of the Policemen got new Jobs in the Penn Hills Police Department, where they still build a train layout each Christmas even today.   Both the Swissvale Boys Club and my Father run their trains in heaven now, but the tradition still moves down the tracks, in many homes thru out western Pa.  Yea you could say we had kids in to play with the train, especially at Christmas time.

PCRR/Dave

Mixerman,

Thank you for your kind words and thoughts pertaining to our store. They are greatly appreciated. Please take care and try and stay warm.

I have a 14' by 30' floor layout. I have 3 neighbor hood kids that are over 5 and under 12 that each come over and run about once a month.  I generally have only one child at a tine. The first  time or two a mother has to come over with the child and can bring another child. Later the child can come over alone and run. Since my floor layout has intricate mountains and cities I can control things so I let them walk into cities to move things and play. If they stop being careful I indicate we need to stop and set up a time when they can come over again. They get the idea that they have to control themselves

I do not  have any serious damage. It is a real joy to have them over and plan runs that keep them interested . The mothers invariably sent over plates of cookies or candy!

stan

We have parents bring their kids by all the time. We also get people who are still kids at heart. Last night, Howard Packer (AGHRHowie) and I were working late on the layout. The Fort MacArthur Military Museum was having their Air Raid re-enactment (artillery included) and some of the visitors came by at 8:00pm last night. We didn't even have trains running. They're coming back next week and bringing the kids and grandkids.