My two grandsons, ages two and three, came up for a visit. I set up two loops of track on the living room floor, hooked up a postwar ZW with the ‘A’ and ‘D’ handles connected to the loops. I set up a postwar train on each track. The three-year old learned quickly how to run the train without going too fast. The two-year old had no concept of how to control the train at slower speeds so I had to use my hand as a throttle stop to prevent him from going warp speed with the train. All was well and they were having a great time.
Something came up requiring me to leave the room. I unplugged the ZW to prevent the two-year old from launching the train while I was out of the room. When I came back, both boys were pushing the trains around the track by hand. I offered to plug in the ZW but they no longer wanted to run the trains with the ZW. They just wanted to push the trains. Go figure…
Earl – excellent story and pic! You have a couple of future engineers there and it’s pretty hard to beat a simple circle. Wise decision on pulling the plug [tup] Our granddaughter, who is now 3 1/2, loves to run Thomas upstairs on the carpet and I feel secure leaving it plugged in even though she’s so young. She was running the transformer with ease before her 3rd birthday which just goes to show you that the kids will be just fine in spite of us! What I really like about the Thomas set is that the tops of the passenger cars come off and she enjoys putting little people in there and taking them for a ride – she’s not much interested in Grandpa’s big layout downstairs [:D]
Young kids like toys they can touch rather than just watch. I have a Santa Fe F-3 with the wheels worn off on one side from some kid pushing it around on the concrete. It still runs OK on the track, so I haven’t bothered to replace the wheels. It is somewhat beat up, also, so it’s a runner not a show piece.
My Grandson, up to age 4, got more enjoyment from pushing my postwar engines on a length of track than running them (which he could do). The wheels on many postwar Lionel turn freely. Now, at 5, he has little interest in toy trains…but he loves to sit in the cab of the real steam locomotive at the PRR Railroad Museum in Strasburg, PA and pretend he’s “driving” it.
My grandson, age 10, likes running the trains, be he also likes playing with cars & planes on the layout. Scale isn’t very important, either. He wants to be a cop when he grows up, so a lot of his play involves speeding tickets and wrecks. He also likes to build scaffolding & often closes part of the track for ‘repairs’ due to car wrecks. I maintain he is a ‘Grand Theft Auto’ type and I am ‘Mayberry, RFD’ type. We have about 20 policemen on the layout where I think two would be plenty.
He and his older sister just helped build some Woodland Scenic trees for the layout, too.
As long as he likes to come play with the trains, other toys, and me, I’m happy.
in this day and age if your two grandchildren preferred to push the trains means they want to use there imaginations and brain to create their own imaginary world something thats been lost on a lot of other generations before them. encourage them to create their own mind to amuse themselves it will pay off for them down the road. in 5 years the trains will be flying under the hands of one or both mean time enjoy granddad as our own kids did they grow up in a blink of an eye that seemed like a moment in suspended animation.
My two year old grandson likes to watch the trains run on our layout and I think he would like to run them too. He can blow the whistle and he is always touching something on the remote or walking around the layout. Sometimes we spend a couple of hours operating and I am always ready to quit before him. I just love it.
