How do your young kids/grandkids interact with your trains?

My Dad's neighbor's kid bonded with my Dad from a very young age over toy trains.My Dad left him a large O gauge train collection when he passed on last year.My brother's grandson was also into the toy trains.They were both very careful when playing with the trains.Both kids enjoyed pushing the trains rather than seeing them run.My Dad pulled the motor from the G gauge Thomas engine and a MTH steam engine so the engines could be pushed on the track like the kids wanted.My Dad's neighbor is now 12 and still enjoys pushing the trains around the carpet layout rather than seeing it run on its own.

The seven year old walked in, looked at the controller, picked it up, and in three minutes had it working better than I could run it.

The three year old watched and in one minute had stop, go, go fast, go faster, go slower, and of course WHISTLE.

Neither cared much about crew-talk and wanted the smoke turned off. They did love the audio from the Polar Express movie as we're running the PE gold Berkshire.

My daughter was probably 9 or 10 months old when I let her play with a legacy remote for the first time. All I did was set the speed control so it didnt go flying and let her have at it.... lots of buttons, sliders and a big red knob to play with, to her it probably looked like another toy. Eventually I got her a LC Thomas set, and she plays with that now, supervised, obviously. She's almost 3 now and is more into the wooden ones at the moment, putting track together and taking it apart. 

My now 3 year old Grandson started about a year or so ago before I converted to command control. While in my arms he would toggle the handles of my PW ZW back and forth making the train go forward, stop, reverse, stop, forward... until whenever he was around I would lock the E-unit in forward. When I bought my first TMCC K-line Hudson it didn't take him long to pick up on turning the red knob and pushing the whistle and bell buttons. Once I added Legacy the only change was the slider for the whistle and bell, he picked that up quickly. I kept both the TMCC and Legacy controllers connected because for some reason he really digs the antenna on the CAB-1.  Of course, in command I would only let him run certain engines that I had pre-set the maximum speed so we didn't have any unfortunate events. Of course he loves the whistle and there are times I have to coax him to release it but it's great to watch his joy.

He has learned to control my 213 center span lift bridge too which if I didn't wire the cut off section there would be a disaster from time to time.

I can't wait to see his reaction to my PW Milk cars. There will be milk cans flying.

Mike

They seem to be more interested in repositioning the autos and figures than seeing the trains run.

My son is 2 & my daughter is 5.  Both of them are very good around the trains. Very respectful of them & if told not to touch, they listen.  My son can be a bit rough with things, but when it comes to the trains, he is great. That being said, I still wouldn't leave him alone in the room for a long time lol. We run the trains almost everyday before dinner & he can't get enough!

My 21 month old granddaughter also enjoys picking up the cars. She does try to put them back on the track, but for now isn't too good at it. Several months ago, she picked up my DCS controller and immediately started scrolling the thumbwheel. She had never even seen a DCS handheld!

On my list for York is an inexpensive dummy engine she can push around.

Ecstatic. Our two young cousins (who calls us aunt and uncle) ran back-n-forth from end-to-end of the layout when they first saw it, cheering and wide-eyed all the way. They actually sent me two hand-written Thank You notes afterward.

Here they are having made a pilgrimage to F.A.O. Schwarz, NYC, to the layout I worked on there. The boy on the right has his own layout, now, which he shares with his older brother, on the left.

My wife and I gave him an operating helicopter for last Christmas, which he immediately went about playing with. However, when we, later that day, gave him a PRR passenger coach, he grasped (as we gasped and got-the-chills in reaction to him) the box and held it high above his head and said, "Oh, my, goodness. Wow" and then clutched it to his chest, holding it as if it were a baby. I never saw a smile so big.

Wow, indeed.

FrankM.

My nephew from age 7 all the way up to 12 would not run a train for 5 minutes without stopping and moving cars around and pushing the engine.He just about always quit after about 20 minutes with a big pile of freight cars and the engine hanging precariously somewhere in a simulated wreck.He is 14 now and is bigtime into warfare video games and has no interest in my trains at all.He has always said running trains is boring.

my son loves to do that with the cars!

It’s all part of play.  Kids like buttons and sounds, just watching the train go in circles will no doubt be boring to a child.  For my daughter the big attraction was the whisle and the milk car. 

I don’t know what kind of setup you have, but you may want to build something small just for him, maybe even a layout that he can keep at home.  A cheap 0-27 flyer set would work well, the 4-4-2s/2-4-2s are common and free-wheeling so they can be pushed without damage.  Cars, trucks, and people that can be moved around and played with are a must.  Cows or horses that can be put in a dump car and “dropped off” will be popular in the next couple years for him, too.  Do you have an old set of crossing gates or an automated gateman?  The more that you can set up that is dependent on the train to keep moving will encourage him to let it run longer. Also having several houses or buildings and trees (sturdy, craft store decor kind) off the platform and asking him to help you set up things every time, where he gets to decide where they are placed, will help. 

Most of all I would just try to play WITH him and the trains, in a way where maybe you operate them and make a game out of it.  He can help load them or dump them or whatever.  He's only 2, give him time. 

All 6 of my grandchildren, starting from when they could stand and understand (2+/-??) have run my large layout using DCS.  The thumbwheel and the DIR & Whistle buttons were easy for them to grasp.  The emergency stop button came soon after.

Beauty of DCS is that I can set the max speed.

Youngest is now 8 (oldest 16), and they still like to run Grandpa's trains, even though they have their own.

I did attach a lanyard to one fo the DCS remotes to prevent drops, after having to reassemble one after contact with concrete floor.  Also bnuilt a fenced raised platform alongside the control panel to they could see all.

With traction tires, I always enforced the rule that they were not to push by hands.

The grandchildren like to hang out in the Train Room.

     One will stand at the top of the stairs to the train room and point down the stairs and say trains.

Gary - Cheers from The Detroit and Mackinac Railway

  Click photo to enlarge.

I only had one Grandkid that was really into trains. When he was very young, he enjoyed pushing them back and forth more than running them. You could do that with my postwar Lionel engines.

I got the LionChief Thomas engines for my 2 year old (now almost 3) to give him as gifts.  He has Percy and Diesel right now.  He picks Percy to play with.  Right now since seeing my green NYC caboose, he has to have Percy and the green caboose together as his train (No other cars.) and runs them.  The bell is always on (He LOVES bells.) and he drives it for 5-10 min, then hands me the remote and runs off.  Sure, it's not as long as I would want him to stay and play, but he's there for a bit and it's always there when he wants, so I call it a win.  When I first had gotten Percy, I had a little O36 loop on the floor.  One morning my wife came out of her bedroom after feeding our newborn to find him playing with the train.  He had plugged the power strip in the wall and turned it on, raised the lever on the CW-80 to power the track, turned the LC remote on, and was busy driving Percy around.  Too bad Percy doesn't smoke, he'd love that.

My kids, 2 yrs old and 4yrs old have been running the trains since they could crawl over to the transformer.  I was amazed the first time the then 8 month old did it!  He would crawl over, raise the handle, sit and watch with a big smile on his face... even work the whistle.  They both love the bell and whistle.  If it doesn't make noise, it is no good to them. 

Currently they both prefer to push trains around the track, rearrange the cars, fill the cars with their hotwheels, dinosaurs, "scrap metal" aluminum foil balls...

There is a lot of rearranging and playing and very little running.  I'm ok with that.  They are having a great time.

When they do run the trains, they want them to go FAST! They are good about keeping them on the track after a few launchings to the moon, but they still prefer super speed to scale speed.

They are usually good with the trains and careful with them. Work hard to get them coupled correctly and on the track.  They recently witnessed me lube up and engine and replaced a 9v battery requiring removal of the body with a screw driver... and I found that they have since "fixed" an engine for me and it is a bit worse for wear.  They will do anything they see you do.  Teach them well! Give them things they can work on and learn. 

I have some $5 and less cars and two $5 marx engines from train shows that are "the boys' trains". 

Younger kids are much better at railing fixed wheel engines and cars such as the Marx 490 and the cheap Marx cars or the cars that come with the newer lionel "junction" sets.

They also love the manual accessories: hand crank crane, hand crank culvert unloader, etc.   I have a couple of dump cars and thought they would love pulling up to the operating track and dumping the load.  They love dumping the load by hand wherever they want to dump the load.   Lionel 3469 dump cars can take a lot of abuse.

If you want the kids / grandkids to be involved, let them touch the trains. Anything you can't live without, don't let them touch. Accidents happen.

My 4 1/2 year old grandson loves trains.  He enjoys using a soft brush and placing cars in cradle to "clean" them.  My layout is operated by DCS and he is very knowledgeable of how to operate the remote.  I have a Santa Fe GP9 set up on an inside track and he claims that as his train.  He will sit on the stool and run it for an hour or so before wanting to move on.  He's been helping me for a couple of years.  

These 9 year-old grandchildren twins don't visit often but when they do they have enjoyed being "engineers".  As you can see, I'm just getting started with this layout--I wanted to test out the plan before I decided on /started on the benchwork.  Since I'm using MTH Realtrax it was fairly easy to arrange the track and switches on the vinyl tile floor.

The video doesn't have super sharp detail but gives the idea.

[and, BTW, the kids don't mind at all that an MTH ES44AC (you remember that railroad, right?) is pulling UP passengers cars)]

My grandson, now 10, likes to get the trains running at a fairly slow speed and then play with the cars, figures, wood blocks and buildings while they are running. He also likes to add loads to the box cars, under the coal loads and put people on the engine catwalks. He has always been very careful with the trains. He has never wrecked any of them or damaged anything, but he thinks it's pretty funny when I crash them occasionally from setting a switch wrong or failing to stop in time. I have a few of the new Lionel accessories on order (like the gantry crane) that I think (and hope) he will really like. He has loved construction equipment since he was old enough to know what it was.

MY 5 GRANDKIDS could care less about my trains.  Neigbor kids love them.

Brent

THAT'S the way for kids to have fun with trains, eh?

My 3 year old grandson loves to go to the basement and run trains.  His first words when he comes over (after giving a nice hug) is "You want to run trains?"  Of course!  We'll spend over an hour before Peg Plus Cat comes on.  He loves pushing cars around.

This was take a few weeks ago, and now he wants to put trucks and autos in the hopper.  We've also begun to run trains, and he knows that to get them going he has to say "Highball!".  Lately, he's taken to arranging cars and buildings on the little layout I saved from when his dad was about the same age.  The action accessories are some of his favorites.  He calls them playing logs, lumber and barrels.

I let him operate the FlyerChief control of the Polar Express locomotive on my layout (minus the passenger cars), which pulls a consist of freight cars.  Like another little guy, he especially likes the bell sounds.  Not so much the voices. 

Whether or not he'll continue with trains, is unknown.  His dad and uncles aren't too interested yet, but who knows?  Grandpa and Sam are having a blast!  And isn't this what it's all about?

It must be, he seems to enjoy it. He also likes to take movies of the trains running, he tells me what to have them do while he takes the video. He is pretty good at it too, much better than I am.