The RR Museum of PA held a railroad daycamp for kids, and they posted a picture on Facebook of the kids learning to assemble model railroad kits. They were using Accurail - made in the USA. Hopefully some of these kids will become the next generation of model railroaders.
–Randy
That is really good to hear!
My kids (3 boys, 1 girl) all in their mid '40s, didn’t want anything to do with their ol man’s MR hobby or kit building. My grandkids are of the same mindset. And their friends are as well.
To hear somewhere kids are being introduced to doing something with their hands (other than button pushing) is totally refreshing!
When my two young grandsons, both under three, come to our house, they toddle downstairs immediately and yell, “Pappaaaaa!!! Train?” They crawl up onto my lap, whereupon I have to ‘save’ my work, minimize, enter my video downloads, and begin to show them steam train videos cribbed from youtube. It could be 10 minutes, it could be 20, but they sit there completely enthralled by the sounds and sights. They both loved my old layout, too. If they don’t come downstairs right away, it is up to the higher level living room where their Thomas setup is. That’s good for a half hour as well.
Yes, Randy, I think Grandpa’s managed to get his hooks into them little varmints. [;)]
Crandell
I’m holding out hope, although I’m also hoping I don’t become a grandpa any time soon. Neither of my boys is much interested although my younger one was briefly intriqued when I set up a simple switching problem for him.
We do try at club shows, when the venue allows, one or two of our guys goes outside and lets the kids take a trip or two around the layout. We operate by signals, so they have to pay attention so as not to run into a train ahead of them, and most of them are very good at it. If anything, they sometimes are too cautios, when they see anything below high green they start going real slow. Most locos on runnign traisn have sound, or at least oen sound unit in the consist, so they get to blow the horn for crossings too.
Plus since we use Digitrax it makes their potential first expsoure to DCC via Digitrax [swg] I’m about to break down and go wireless at home even though I have no real need to, so I can have my own throttle at the club. Since I have both a DT400 and DT402, I can send one back for upgrade without being down.
–Randy