Once again

Once again, I'm going to suggest the site add a "like" button.

Nice article, M.C.

Like it!

The article rating system strikes me as being MRH's version of the "like" button.

I agree, wonderful article.

Kid Friendly Layout!

What a great article. This is the best way to get new blood into the hobby! I did so of the things with my son and daughters. 

We want to help get the next generation into the hobby

Yes, we want to do something constructive toward getting the next generation into this hobby we love. When we saw M.C's article, we knew we had hit a gold mine.

Whenever you see someone bemoaning the lack of new blood in the hobby, send them to this article and ask them what kids *they* are going to help get involved? Sons, daughters, grandsons, granddaughters, nephews, nieces, the neighbor kids ...

Train Shows

I volunteer for the Minnesota Transportation Museum, and one of my duties is to go to train shows all over the upper mid-west to promote the museum.  Last weekend I was at a two day show in Eagan, Minnesota, and I have never seen so many young families at one of these.  I would estimate that 90-95% of those attending the show were young couples with two to four children each.  The reason for so many potential model railroaders in attendance was the presence of a Twin-Cities personality called "Choo-Choo Bob" and his cohorts.  They put on a TV show for children, sing songs about trains, tell stories, etc.  They performed in Eagan about every 45 minutes.  I have also seen them at the Minnesota State Fair, and they do their show on cable TV and DVD.  These young people are the model railroaders and train enthusiasts of the future, and with people like "Choo-Choo-Bob", and characters like "Thomas the Tank Engine", the future looks bright once again!

I have two nine year old

I have two nine year old daughters who are sometimes involved with trains, and who would probably be even more involved if I wasn't running scales too small for their Barbies. I often jump up and down at meetings of model railroaders saying we need to get more young people involved. I now have some more ideas of just how to do that. Getting kids to pour some rock walls or solder turnouts or whatever is just brilliant. Thanks for the age guide there.

Fugiwara infects kids with train fever.

What an amazing father this man is. He figures out what kids can do and how long they can do it and then breaks down every step of way into something each kid can take part in. Boy if only we had more people like him as teachers in our schools. But how many fathers do we have that truly teach their kids skills in a way to form a strong bond with their children. This is such a big part of raising children, personally teaching the kid and sharing what he personally enjoys with them regardless of each being a boy or girl. I have no idea if his kids will become long time model railroaders, but I can already predict that their kids will love visiting their grand father some day.

kids and mmr

What a fine read! You do have a gold mine in Mr. Fujiwara.

Kids and Model Railroading

Many of you have heard me talk about how my own kids never really got interested in model railroading. They're nor kids anymore so the dye is cast. But I do have grandchildren, 6 to be exact at the moment. There are three girls and three boys but so far only my oldest (a girl at that) seems to be interested. But we'll find out whether stays the same or changes once I get to run trains on my layout which is something I have been meanning to do but haven't gotten around to for various reasons.

This article should be enough to stoke my creative fires since one of the reasons I have given my wife for building a layout is so the grandkids can watch trains run. Getting down to work is something I'll really need to do this summer as I have no plans for doing anything else and not that old that I can sit down and fall asleep. Besides, my doctor says I need to be more active.

Having a layout with trains that actually run might be an excuse to get the grandkids to come here more often.

Irv

Fun to kid...

Thanks, all, for the positive feedback on the article.
I hope it sparks some ideas how to share your love of model railroading with your loved ones.

Just remember: kids' interests come & go, & one day they might be very excited to work with you and the next you can't pull them away from Wii, cartoons, a book, gossiping with mom, etc.
Some days my kids charge out to the garage yelling "How can we help?" and other days they stick their heads out and admonish me with "What? you're playing with your trains again?!?"

But just because they don't look interested doesn't mean they're not carefully noting your interest and enthusiasm, and as long as the door's open and there's ready fun to be had, the more than likely that they'll get more into it.
Mostly because you are into it.

So I was hoping we could use the infinite space below and the infinite typewriters at our fingers to add to the projects in the article (no way I even scratched the surface of possibilites).
I know many of you share your hobby with kids, so perhaps we could share with each other projects and skills that we found work well with the kids.

When proofing my article I thought of another I forgot to include: stained stripwood fences and decks.

--draw an outline / guide on cardstock, tape to workbench / tray
--cut stripwood crossbeams & vertical slats to fit guide, then stain
--tape waxpaper over guide
--place two slim pieces of double-sided tape on waxpaper over edges of guide
--place horizontal crossbeams / stringers over guide so just edges touch double-sided tape (to prevent movement)
--use a toothpick to apply woodglue along stringers (about an 1" at a time)
--use tweezers to place vertical slats on stringers
--use flat weight (preferably metal) to press fence / deck surface flat while drying (for small fences a metal ruler with weights on top work fine, or a Fast Tracks turnout jig)
--carefully pop stringers off double-sided tape
--use CA, white glue or Alieen's tacky glue to "plant" fence on scenery
--use small spoon to apply dirt / foam around base
--soak with booze, then diluted glue
--use a microbrush to re-stain individual slats if you want

If you both build a couple of 3" sections of fence (in N scale), you'll have a foot o' fence when you're done!
There's a fence my daughter & I built on our "Alameda-Belt-in-the-Box" layout we started last year:

I'm sure you all have other good "shared projects" to share.

Looking forward to seeing your great ideas!

Dioramas

My daughter and I built a diorama for a school "art" project a few years back.  I blogged about it a few years ago, but what we discovered in the process is that she doesn't really like tracklaying or wiring or anything of that sort, but she loves doing scenery work.  I'm hoping that within a couple months I will be ready to put some scenery down and that she and my son will join in that effort.  It is a much more rewarding hobby when you do it with someone else, especially your kids.  It doesn't have to be perfect, it just has to be fun.

Beside that it is very

Beside that it is very interesting to read how the writer involves his kids in his hobby let's not forget that it is a beautiful, well detailed lay-out. A very inspiring lay-out. 

Train Show Contest

    We at the Amherst Railway Society & Amherst Railway Society Railroad Hobby Show are trying to get more kid into the hobby by The Second annual U16 layout building contest.

Kids (16 & under) have to design and build a layout up to 32 sq. ft. any configuration, any scale and must operational. Should be 90% complete and have a write up on how they designed and built the layout.

Each entry gets a $50 gift certificate to a local hobby store and the winner gets a $500 gift certificate to a local hobby store.

We are trying to get more sponsors to get involved with the contest.

See the link above to see last years winner.

Amherst Railway Society Railroad Hobby Show

January 26 & 27 2013

Eastern States Exposition Fairgrounds

West Springfield, Ma

THE TALENT OF OUR CHILDREN EXPOSED

With guidance and direction these children demonstrate they are allot more talent out their than we want to give credit for.  We have to be willing to take the time and patients to help them bring it out.

Beginners

MC's tips on 'managing' model railroad beginners are going to come in handy with the newbies at the club, too. Though I expect kids learn more quickly.

Kids keep us grounded

I think one benefit of having our kids work with us on our trains is that they keep us from taking ourselves too seriously. I think we all can get a little too wrapped up in the pursuit of perfection in our modeling sometimes. Kids are a little more carefree about things  than us "serious adult modelers" and that's a good thing! On more than one occasion my ten year old daughter has gently reminded me, "Your hobby is supposed to be fun Daddy!"

MC mentioned tree modeling as one activity and I think that's a great one. When I was still doing N scale, I enlisted the help of my son and daughter one rainy Saturday afternoon  and we whipped up a huge batch of  "furnace filter trees" The way layouts eat trees, if I never decided to get my kids to do anything else, tree making is fun for them and helps me immensely.

Michael

Alameda Belt Line

To: M.C. Fujiwara

I'm just starting to plan my own switching layout based on the Alameda Belt Line (and, yes, I hope to have my grandchildren involved as well - thanks for your very helpful article). But information about the ABL seems to be quite sparse.

So far, I've found J.C. Hammonds article at page 42 in the August 1941 Trains, Barry Woods' article at page 80 in the April 1980 MR, John Wetzork's note about the Enginehouse fire at page 20 in the July 1980 MR, Byron Henderson's "Folding Belt Line" article at page 54 in the 2005 MRP, and some general stats on the Bay Area Rail History yahoo group and the Rail-Marine Information Group.

Do you have any additional sources on the ABL that you might be able to point me to?

And, could you share a little bit about your own ABL layout plan and operations scheme?

MDJ

Cheers

Kids do like the tactile gooey mushy hands on artsyfartsy stuff a lot.
Even my "old" ten-year-old liked the Sculptamold she tried out on a diorama for a school project last week.
(And it seemed as though the Sculptamold was easier for the kids to work with than plaster-dipped paper towels).

As for the Alameda Belt Line, you can check out my construction thread here.

One way to get more info on the ABL is to google specific industries, like  the Del Monte Cannery.
That link has a map that includes rail lines.

Western Rails has a bunch of loco photos.

Byron Henderson has more info on Oakland and Alameda on  his Oakland Harbor Belt webpage.

If you live in California, a public library will have Sanborn Fire Insurance maps of Alameda.
If you live outside of California or don't have access to Sanborns, email me & I'll help you get them.

Hope this helps, and looking forward to seeing your version of the ABL, especially working with your grandkids!

Very Nice

All I want to know is...can I borrow the kids?

This article works for New Blood too!

I loved this article,  because it did explain things pretty simply.  My girlfriend constantly expresses interest in helping with the train hobby, but is often afraid she'll "break something",  which is really not a problem with some of the more basic things.  

This might have been about children, but its lessons can be applied to bringing anyone new into the hobby.  

The only thing I think is a shame though, is that the way some of these models are costing lately,  it doesn't necessarily look like kids can break into the hobby themselves that easy.   I'm not sure how I did it,  but I know the prices are killing me now. 

I don't know how many of the old "shake the box" kits.

Every train show I've gone to recently has vendors with large inventories of the old Athearn blue box kits.  Some vendors tried to "jack up" prices when Athearn first announced that they were discontinuing kits, but they seem to have realized that the kits are not "collectors items" or at least not something collectors are interested in, so prices have come back down to @ $5.00 each now.  Accurail still makes reasonably priced kits, and Tichy kits are not all that expensive but a little more of a challenge than the Athearn blue box or Accurail to build. 

A little more of a challenge?

I bought some Tichy boxcar kits not realizing what I was really getting.   I can and will build them but I've got to get a better work space set up. They are not something you can throw together at the kitchen table like an Athearn blue box! My ten year old daughter would do fine with a blue box kit but I would not even consider giving her a Tichy kit. I think saying they are "little" more of a challenge is a bit of an understatement.

Michael

Alameda Belt Line

To: M.C. Fujiwara -

Thank's for the pointers!

I'm in Illinois and thus can't access the Sanborns for Alameda. I would indeed appreciate your help in getting them. What is involved?

MDJ

Proto 2000 kits also!

If kids like to build models and after they have built a few Blue Box kits, turn them loose on and older P2K kit.  Swap meets in my area seem to have quite a few of those and reasonably priced at under 10 bucks.  They are a good challenge even for me.