This is a story you hope to never read, got a note from my friend out west, his neighbour is a Grandparent with those adorable G/Kids you hear about, well, they visited him and it seems they were left alone in the house while everyone else chatted upstairs, they are @ 4 or 5 years old, they found their way to the basement where Grampy had his train layout, and you guessed right, the 2 of them got up on the layout and proceeded to play big giants and flattened almost the whole layout along with knocking many locomotives on the cement floor, a massive amount of damage was done. I haven’t heard the results of the calamity as yet, but I wonder how Gammy and Gumpy are now feeling? I don’t know what I would do in this situation, probably have to start a new layout, a sad situation in deed.
I knew cats are the scourge of trains, but this is new to me.
Wait a minute here. Yes, I feel sorry for Grampa, but why were little kids left unattended without some adult supervision, especially when they were visiting someones home other than their own. Sad situation, but in my mind the adults bear the major share of the blame. Lets face it, a layout is like a magnet for most kids.
2/3 of my grandchildren are a pair of twin girls, one of whom has already made me a great-grandfather (X 3!). Needless to say, when they visit they are not a problem. (The great-grandsons haven’t visited yet.)
The other 1/3 is an eight year old whose role model is Dennis the Menace. Happily, the layout is located in a room with a double-locked personnel door and a main door that has been bolted shut. Translation - NO unsupervised time in the railroad space.
Depending on the degree of destruction, I might be tempted to change prototype, change scale or simply take up collecting cigar bands. One thing would be certain. I’d be seeing my lawyer about rearranging my will…
Don’t blame the kids because they were playing. Blame the adults for inattentiveness. There seems to be quite a lack of common sense these days. None of my kids were ever out of my sight when they were awake. My grand daughter knows not to touch grampys trains unless grampy gives it to her. Even though she is 2 and a 1/2 she still is very careful and dainty with grampys toys. She loves the trains and watches them for a long time. I let her blow the whistles and ring the bells too. I figure by five she should be switching the yard and industries. Teach children respect for other peoples stuff early and it will translate into good behavior later in life.
Sounds like my nephew when he was that age! He got a hard lesson about messing with the trains when he was five years old. At that time I was living at my parents place as were my older sister and her husband while their house was being built. I was at work on the day this happened. He knocked a loco to the floor (Athearn PA2, cracked the body shell and broke the frame) and spilled paint on three freight cars which all had to be stripped and repainted not to mention pulling out part of the scenery and redoing it. The replacement for the loco came out of his pocket. After that he didn’t go near the layout unless I was there. Even today at almost thirty years old he asks before he touches anything on the layout or in the display rack.
“Training” does have some part in it. Even though my brother wasn’t all that keen to find his 3-year old brother kneeling atop his 4 x 8 American Flyer train table, I was still VERY careful to only push the cars around the layout.
My experience with many Grandparents is Grandkids are to be spoiled , coddled, bragged about, can do no wrong, perfect, precious, and never, never, never discipline the little angels, I really believe they dote far more on their Grandkids than they ever did with their own children, it sounds like they had the run of the Grandparents house as if it was their own. Grandchildren are NOT your children and you share them with an identical pair of Grandparents. 4 adult doting Grandparents, no wonder some children are spoiled.
An accident for sure, no blame anywhere, on with a new layout and I’m sure it will never happen again to him.
While the kids should not have been left unattended, the parents should tan their back sides old school style so they learn never do be so destructive again. The little stinkers need to have the fear of God put in the for this. Damage done yes, but lessons still need to be learned on BOTH sides. Hopefully the parents are not the typical coddling parents that leave the real world to teach the kids about hard knocks rather then them learning them before they are grown up.
My son was running lionel around the christmas tree at age one. Brass locomotives on my layout at age 5 and car-card op sessions at age 7. If you give them attention and responsibility they won’t act like a bunch of maniacs.
If the destruction was wanton and deliberate then this goes beyond kids being kids. I hope as someone mentioned that this was a significant teaching moment for them, including the adults.
I also hope that the parents have the decency to cover the costs of rebuilding.
Finally, I hope the next layout is better than the last and that the kids will be given a chance to run it (supervised of course) if they behave, and not just around the trains.
Obviously, you and I grew up in different times. When I was a kid, a little “hide tanning” was in order. Today, if you even use harsh language on a kid, you can expect a visit from the local constabulary.
I feel the same way Dave, you don’t leave kids of that age unattended let alone in a room with anything fragile without constant supervision. If Mom/Dad don’t understand that then it’s like their Mom/Dad (i.e. the Grandparents) failed to teach them and thus the pattern will continue…