Removing imagination from model railroading

Model Railroader General Discussion (Model Railroader)
1

While I applaud some of the improvements in technology and modeling techniques over the past 10 years or so I wonder if maybe we have gone too far. Building ultra sophisticated and often delicate layouts which often feature “do not touch” to our children and grandchildren may have the unintended consequence of turning the young off to wanting to pursue this hobby in the future.

Everyone will draw the line at a different point on how much improvement is too much but if we totally eliminate imagination from a young persons mind I believe we do a diservice to their growth as well as to the future growth of our hobby. So where do you draw the line in how much to “improve” your layout? At the present I still run DC, have no antimation, no sound, and no lighting though I do plan to add lights at some point. There are other things that could be mentioned but you get my point. Where do you draw the line in the sand on your layout on sophistication?

2

I think you will find that those of us that have children and grand children don’t build “do not touch” layouts if they want to introduce said little ones to the joys of model railroading. My best friends uncle provided my first intoduction to scale model railroading when I was 8. There have been numerous posts on this forum describing the same interaction today. Recently I have attended operating sessions that involved pre-teen participants without problems.

3

The only line I draw is “Be Careful”, I figure I built it and I can repair it if necessary. I have dozens of grand and great grandkids (ages 3 to 30) and they all love my trains. I always let them (almost) run free around my layout. They know to be careful around my layout and they are. I let them put and remove the locomotive and rolling stock of their choice on the track and run them with a little loving supervision.

Mel

Modeling the early to mid 1950s SP in HO scale since 1951

My Model Railroad
http://melvineperry.blogspot.com/

Bakersfield

4

My kids have been playing with my trains since they were 2 years old. I have lots of old athearn blue box diesels that I turned into “push diesels”. Removed the motors and gearing. The kids love to push these around the layout hooked up to whatever cars they desire. Sometimes they run trains too. Only twice has something taken the plunge, and that was easily fixed with a little super glue. If anything, the working crossing lights and realistic scenery makes it even more fun for them. They also enjoy playing in the town and lego cars and guys often pay a visit [:)]

5

Quite a philosophical discussion on a hot day!

I think there is a point to the issue. Our layouts get more and more sophisticated in the aim of attaining more and more realism in our little model world. It is not only related to the electric and electronics part of our layouts, it´s in the intricate yet frail detail of our locos and rolling stock and our scenery, accessories, structures, figures. What we may end up with are beautiful, realistic looking layouts, but with very little “play” value - not only for our children or grandchildren, but for us.

I am in “this business” for 53 years now and I have built quite a number of layouts, each one meaning another step forward in realism. But in all those years, I have never again found that thrill that I had when playing with my first layout, which was a rather crude affair, Marklin HO scale tin plate track on a table, with scenery painted on, much like the layout shown in the picture below:

This is what your average home layout looked like in the 1950´s and 1960´s and, boy, had we fun with them!

I am not saying we should go back to our roots, but we should not forget that building a layout is not a race nor a contest and that we should draw a line where the fun ends and hassle and toil begins.

A friend of mine has just built a layout, which is so intriguing in its simpicity, yet effective in its atmosphere.

It´s a little 2 by 3 layout built to run is OO9 scale narrow gauge live steam (!) loco.

The layout incorporates nearly all the ingredients for a model railroader´s nightmare - flat MDF benchwork, grass mat scenery, bottle brush trees, no ballast, sharp curves, bulky manual turnout controls, but it shows how little can be so much!

More pictures of this charming, simpl

6

I see nothing wrong with incorporating elements of my childhood into my layout. I use some Child Guidence buildings with some details added on part of my layout and I have a few matchbox semi truck as well as mini Hess tank trucks (farther back as they are a bit small). Makes for a more child friendly and durable layout.

7

I don’t have kids and do not feel a need to have my layout include any features that are intended primarily for the enrichment of young minds. If I had kids as visitors I think I’d be more inclined to haul my boxes of Lionel O-27 upstairs and let them have at it on the living room floor.

If I did have young kids and wanted them to really expand their imaginations via model trains, I think I’d be exploring these Lego trains. While they are not scale models, I have seen some jaw dropping Lego layouts at Milwaukee’s Trainfest and other shows, including the NMRA national train show. The structures are incredible and the trains themselves seem like fun and run very well. In term of imagination, the Lego system combines the best features of toy trains, Lincoln Logs, Erector sets, the Kenner sets of plastic structural beams (anybody else remember that?) and the white plastic brick set that I loved as a kid.

Dave Nelson

8

Even though I’m currently using my Genesis SCL GP7 and my higher detail cars on my ISL I still have my “want to run it?” Policy. If they say yes then I explain the momentum,braking and start voltage as well as the panic stop button. If they’re concern about the settings then I easily convert back to DC by a simple push of a button on my Tech 6 and use a DC engine but,the majority is happy as a two headed woodpecker in a bucket of worms as they run the engine back and forth ringing the bell and blowing the horn.

My oldest nephew liked my Bachmann DCC/Sound Alco S4 so much he built a DCC/Sound 4x8’ layout.Of course he always had a small interest in model trains and never failed to look at my ISL and run a engine whenever he dropped by…He started with a Bachmann DCC/Sound GP7 and now has a Atlas DCC/Sound MP15DC lettered for Stockton Terminal.

Of course my son and my Grand kids was always welcome to run my trains.

9

My daughter is grown and out of the house now, and she never had much interest in the trains anyway, so I’ve been happy to add details to the extent that I can. Generally, I run the train and anyone else can watch. One of these days, maybe I’ll try operations, but so far I just enjoy running them and watching the scenery.

If I had grandchildren, I suppose I’d have a different viewpoint, though.

10

At age five, we bought our son bunkbeds, and I built him a LIONEL layout on the lower bunk…

My five year old grandson has his own Thomas and Chuggington stuff, and is learning about pops trains.

That said, I don’t give much thought to this idea of getting young people into the hobby, they will choose it, or not.

As for the high tech, high detail aspects of the hobby, I imbrace some of it, and reject others…my DC control system with radio throttles, progresive walk around control, and CTC/signaling is more complex than most DCC setups.

Sheldon

11

You said something about imagination in your post title, but then the thread went off in a different direction about allowing cats (or grandchildren) to touch and or operate the railroad.

LION has no grandchildren, and the cat will no come indoors let alone up to the train room eaxept with screaming and clawing.

Be that as it may, and as sufistikated as railroad of LION migh (or not) be, imagination does have a place on my layout. LION will install a Baobab Tree at the head end of the 242nd Street Station. A tree may grow in Brooklyn, but a Baobab Tree in the Bronx would be quite spectacular.

Next Comes Hogwarts Castle. It will be in Brooklyn with turrets and banners but I will not have room for a Quiddich patch so will will just have to believe that it really is on the other side of the castle.

Now it seems I have some extra space where the Leonx Station is, and I will put track 9 3/4 in there. This is good, because leaving this station the train passes through the SECRET TUNNEL only to reappear at Nevins Street. But I have always planned to make this an enchanted tunnel with black lights and glowing figures. Besides, they will only be seen by the rail-fan web-cam on the front of the train, and not by bystanders in the room. Secret Tunnels must remain secret, ewe know.

THAT is what the LION thinks of when him ads immagination to a Railroad.

ROAR

12

It totally depends on what you are in the hobby for. If you are trying to preach the “gospel” of model railroading and get converts, then you may want to keep things more kid friendly and whatever that entails, which I would think includes sound and some animation cause that would excite youngsters, and of course use of small finger friendly models.

Many however choose to model something as close to the prototype as possible and which may involve a lot of highly detailed and fragile models.

IMO, we have definitely not gone “too far”. No way. I often find some modelers trying to make an argument that this is best or that is best. I disagree with the OP that there is a right answer. This hobby has plenty of room for many ways to enjoy it, and there is no way which is right or wro

13

Seems to be the norm for this forum since our hosts permit philosophical and whimsical discusions which often focus one thing peripherially related to trains.

14

I think everyone has to find the answer for himself/herself.

Luckily, I don´t have the means to go “too far”

15

Me neither. I suppose the OP can ask that question for himself, but I don’t think many others will agree, and if anything some may say we can go even further! Those people have pretty good imaginations and can dream up things not available yet, and we’ll probably seem some new cool thing in the future as a result.

16

Those are the specific questions the OP asked.

My answer:

My railroad is built for me. And I have been seeking “realism” since I went from my Lionel trains to HO. So the line would be drawn about where the payoff was smaller than the energy it takes to pull things off. As a possible example, that might be full working CTC.

But there were also comments about kids and fostering imagination.

Whenever kids have been around my trains, I evaluate them (the kids AND the trains) and try to match up skill levels. They may get to watch trains. Or they may get to run trains. If they’re co-ordinated enough, they may get to put equipment on the track. If they brought their own trains (never happened), they would very likely get to put them on the track and run them. Kids who think trains are for crashing (yeah, I’ve met one) DO NOT get to run trains. At least not until there’s been some deep re-education.

Imagination: kids will or won’t do that on their own. It’s kind of an innate human thing. But I do think it’s important to encourage and sorta channel it, rather than squash it down and ridicule it. So, uh, do that.

My kids and grandkids just kinda looked at trains and said “That’s nice” and wandered off. I recall my son being far more interested in Hot Wheels than trains. Yeah, I was disappointed. Tough. I thought his Hot Wheel layout was pretty cool. And said so. And helped out when asked. Which wasn’t that often, really. He pretty much knew where he wanted to go.

Ed

17

I think age is a significant factor in determining how a child will use their imagination.

Young kids love to get their hands on stuff (ever taken a young child grocery shopping?). While they may be willing to watch your layout for a while and even run a train back and forth, I think they would get much more out of something like a Brio or Lego train set where they can do almost anything they want.

However, older kids would get more from operating a built up layout. Having their own locomotives and cars certainly would add to that.

Dave

18

Ed,

In answer to those two specific questions, the last sentence in my post adresses that I think in practical terms:

“What draws the line for many of us is how much we can afford to spend, or how much time we have or perhaps our skill level.”

As for kids, there have been a few times I exposed kids to trains and it seems to me, if a kid isn’t interested, then I no big deal. Trains aren’t for everyone. It seems if a kid is going to be interested in trains, they will let you know or they will gravitate naturally - it was that way for me. I’ve always been interested in trains as far back as my memory goes. So I suppose if someones “mission” is to pass on trains to the younger generations, then they will need to recognize that it’s going to be a lot of effort and an up hill battle because trains don’t click for the majority.

19

So this entire thread can be summed up with, “But what about the children?”

Here’s an idea: give the children train toys like Lionel, American Flyer, Brio, or Thomas by Bachmann. Let them develop their own layouts based on their own imagination. Meanwhile, as adults, we’ll do our model railroad hobby the way we want without worrying about the children. Most of us don’t play with toys; instead we participate in an adult hobby for mature people, and we do it for our own enjoyment, not for entertaining children.

Look, my father has been a model railroader since the 1950’s, starting with Lionel and switching to HO around 1960. My mother, as an only child, had Marx trains as a kid. Each of my parents have kept their trains, and I played with the Lionel, the Marx and the HO layout as a kid. I really didn’t get into the hobby seriously until I was 15 and my father and I visited an HO club where we saw high quality (for us) model railroading. Kadee couplers, scheduled operations, car cards & waybills, superdetailed brass models, trains that didn’t derail when backing up, trains that didn’t stop constantly where one had to bang the table to get it to move, etc., was all news to me.

That’s what got me out of toy trains and into model railroading; the idea that it could have a purpose, could look great, and frustations like balky engines and derailments could be (mostly) eliminated. It was the quality layout with quality equipment that really got me into the hobby.

If I had gone to a choo-choo toy train layout instead, I probably would have picked another hobby like flying model airplanes.

20

Ah but,there is my friend and you even said it when you said: “This hobby has plenty of room for many ways to enjoy it, and there is no way which is right or wrong. What draws the line for many of us is how much we can afford to spend, or how much time we have or perhaps our skill level”.

And that is indeed the correct answer that we all know and model by.

Like I said on the old Atlas forum,I model to please me and for my own enjoyment not to please others. You’ll recall the flack I got when I said I don’t notice the details or car types since I’m to busy reading the numbers. I still think that comment about using a block of wood with numbers was ridiculously ignorant and arrogant…

Now I often said I’m not inspired by anybodies modeling and that’s because their layout style or modeling philosophies may not interest me one iota.