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Kids and trains, it does not get any better then that! its great to hear from everyone who is sharing their trains with the youngsters. This hobby can offer so much to them.
I have 2 grandsons and they are night and day. Both good boys, just different. The younger one (4) has always been conservative and careful the older one (5) well he just likes to see what will happen when he does... what ever he happens to be thinking at the time.
Individually with supervision either of them can be trusted with anything I own.
My boys like to be independent and do things for themselves, Lionel O was the answer for their age now. As they get older they may become interested in the advantages of HO or even N and when or if they do I will do my best to nourish that too. They did not start with Lionel, first they had wooden and magnetic toy trains.
Each child is different and the individual child will be the determining factor for how the hobby can progress for them.
Yes, it is great Louis. The way I get Breydon to play gentle is I say "careful!" As he is reaching for the models. Then I grab them being overly gentle to show him how to handle them. He has managed to get a few of my models off of my desk when I wasn't looking and luckily he hasn't hurt one yet.
Thanks again guys for the suggestions. Yes, my son does well with our HO stuff. He has a G scale Polar Express remote set that he likes, but not as much as the HO trains. I never had any interest in trains, but my son is obsessed, which in turn makes me want to build him a layout.
As for my thread title, "what would you do?", I know there are a lot of ways to go about doing this. But I really want to know your personal thought processes. What would be your exact steps if you had some extra cash around and decided you were going to build a layout? Think back to when you built or started building your layouts, what were the FIRST things you did?
What would be your exact steps if you had some extra cash around and decided you were going to build a layout? Think back to when you built or started building your layouts, what were the FIRST things you did?
The first thing I did was to buy Linn Wescott's 101 Track Plans. Then I decided how much space I was going to dedicate for my layout....I set aside 1 part of our 3 car garage...the layout itself is 13 1/2 feet by 6 feet or so. Then I found the track plan that would fit within that space and allow for some long runs and interesting over/under ups and downs along with a nice yard area and interesting/somewhat complex track work. It was fun looking at all of those plans and deciding which one I wanted to build.
Then I bought a book/magazine on how to build the bench work for the layout I'd selected. Then I started to build it! Find my thread in Scale specific discussions: N scale ..."Here's my layout so far..." and you'll have an idea of what I am working on. The first photo there is just after I completed the bench work and was preparing to lay the cork roadbed and track.
After I laid the track, I bought a book/magazine on how to wire a railroad with DCC power and got all the wiring in place. Now that everything is running through all of the switches, curves and everywhere else perfectly, I'm ready to do the scenery/landscaping. Oh yeah, I forgot to mention that I started purchasing rolling stock just after my track was in place. I'm still acquiring rolling stock and you'll see a lot of what I have in that thread's yard view photos.
It's a long process, as you can see but I'll tell you what... It's worth every minute of time that I've put into this. Seeing those trains in action is what it's all about and for me, it's a lot of fun...still at the age of 62...I'm lovin' it. You could teach your son some basic carpentry skills along with all the other things that go into building a real model train layout.
