Introducing trains to my 18 month nephew

I have several Nephews very interested in O-Gauge trains.

These are my youngest Sister's two boys, the oldest I have collecting Santa Fe, the Younger one I have started him collecting Union Pacific.

This is the younger one, a little older, with what was his very First Locomotive, I gave it to him the day he was born, and I don't think that he will ever outgrow the hobby.

This is my other Sister's boy, his Father is originally from New York, so starting him collecting New York Central was a given. He got a Lionel NYC Mikado jr for Christmas this year and his smile was even bigger than when he opened the NYC RS3 pictured above from last year.

The Little guy in the first and second pictures had the transformers figured out by 18 months old, though the CW-80's were easier for him to use. With close supervision he did really well, very young. He will be 6 in March, and can already assemble Bachmann EZ-Track in "N" scale(That broke my heart) they have trains now in N, HO(some of my HO from my younger days), O-Gauge, as it SHOULD BE and some Large scale as well.

"Uncle" Doug

Uncle Doug,

    Nice going, fantastic family traditon making great memories.

PCRR/Dave

Great stories guys. It amazes me how some kids pickup instantly on the trains.

I have to grandkids that could care less. They have no interest at all.

My brother, two friends and I have a layout we stared in 1992 that continually changes as new ideas are introduced.  The layout has about 1500 LF of gargraves track (4 main lines), about 30 curtis hi-rail switches, 2 large classification yards, a large passenger station yard, a 32" turntable and a number of turnouts and the list goes on.  We run legacy and conventional both steam and diesel.

My oldest grandson (12 years old) can run the legacy in his sleep but has no interest. The last time we went to run the trains he sat and watched the Steelers and Bengals game. They both love sports and are really competitive.

It just amazes me.  

It's nothing to be surprised about.  Not every kid is going to keep an interest in trains. 

Way back when the earth was cooling, my parents bought our first Lionel for my older brother, I was a toddler at the time.  Now, he has just a passing interest and I'm the one who remained interested in model railroading and trains in general pretty much since then.  Heck, once I learned how to read, I was always looking up train related things in our encyclopedia set.  (Remember those?  Multiple books, lots of words, some pictures, not a single "app"...)

I bought a Lionel set for my oldest nephew when he was a kid back in the 80's.  He played with it for a few years, then moved on to other interests.  It is the nature of things.

Rusty

Rusty,

   You are so right, not all kids show the engineering aptitude needed for continued interest in this hobby.  In my case building train layouts was just my introduction into a vast engineering world.  Now that I am retired I still engineer my own DCS layouts, it seems I always need to engineer and build something.   My brother has no continued intrest in engineering layouts what so ever, his interests were vastly different than mine, even as kids.

PCRR/Dave