An alternative to Thomas The Tank Engine layout

[Nearholmer]

RJS

 

Before long, I will be accused of being a Playmobil "mole", but there is a very good indeed train set available for under £100, as below. Good for indoors, and outdoors on the patio/lawn, sound, lights, loads of playability, and exceedingly robust. The radio control is the same as that used by "serious" garden railway bods, and has a better-designed handset.

 

00 is pretty small and fiddly for <5 years old.

 

Kevin

[Happy Hippo]

Whenever I've operated my 7/8ths stuff at an exhibition, I'm always pleased to let kids have a go!

 

The locos I let them run can't go very fast and it's all pretty sturdy from having to run in the garden.

 

They are also very interested in tools and the like.   For instance, letting a 6 year old loose with a rivet embosser and a strip of thin brass gives them a real sense of achievement.

[Reorte]

I've mentioned this before but I saw a shunting layout at a show a few years ago where the children were being allowed to have a go, and the ones I saw seemed very engrossed and taking it very seriously. One kid with the controls, another at the end of the layout carefully waving him forward. Apparently they'd been at it for ages trying to solve the puzzle. Who knows, that might've just been those two who were interested amongst hundreds who aren't, but it impressed me.

[BlueLightning]

A Club building a layout specifically for the purpose of encouraging the public to operate it!?!  Whatever next?!?

 

My Club (Uckfield MRC) has an N gauge layout called "Oakley" that has been designed with having kids operate the shunting puzzle on it with one of the operators telling what to get where and then leaving them to it. We normally have huge queues of kids wanting to have a go and it is so kid friendly that my daughter (9yo today) is a part of the exhibition crew!

 

Next exhibition is Hailsham model show on the 9th July and it is out again at Tinkers Park 6th / 7th August. It has some other booking for the year but I couldn't tell you when off the top of my head.

 

Oh and also since Oakley is now getting a bit old the N gauger's currently have a new layout under construction which will require even more kids to operate.

 

Gary

[Ozexpatriate]

I've never been to a train show in the UK. The train shows in the US that I have been to are not to the same standard that I imagine for the UK but I have seen some child-friendly ideas.

 

One that was embraced enthusiastically by the very young was a club that manufactured Brio wooden railway modules. These were low - perhaps 24" high and could be connected in many different ways. (Possibly they were built to these dimensions.) There were a large number of children playing with it.

 

I've also seen larger gauge 'ride on' Thomas set ups in the end corner of the hall. I continue to be less enthusiastic about this idea.

[Nearholmer]

Those Brio tables look like the sort of thing that 2-5 year olds wouldn't be able to resist, and "fixed" Brio layouts are definitely better than fully flexible ones for groups of kids, because altercations tend to erupt when A dismantles the track that B is running his/her train on.

 

Idea filed for future use!

 

K

[Ozexpatriate]

Those Brio tables look like the sort of thing that 2-5 year olds wouldn't be able to resist, and "fixed" Brio layouts are definitely better than fully flexible ones for groups of kids, ...

That's what I observed. These modules were clever. Like serious layout modules everything was on the same pitch for interchangeability. They also had standard heights up and even down that correspond to the Brio ramp geometry - with robust, fixed wooden terrain done in terraces of ply to represent contours.  I remember one module featured a short tunnel.

 

Some of the modules featured an "underground" section embedded in the fascia at the edge.

 

Design was to the 'bowl of spaghetti" principle with lots of track all over the place rather than being 'purposeful'. It was quite evidently fun.

[brianusa]

 

 

]Design was to the 'bowl of spaghetti" principle with lots of track all over the place rather than being 'purposeful'. It was quite evidently fun.

 

Sounds a lot like my layout!

 

Brian.

[John B]

Remembered from childhood, at various "display" model railways (like those that once seemed to exist at many Stately Homes / Seaside Resorts / Amusement Parks (I'm thinking Alton Towers before it got into Super-Roller-Coasterville, Flamingoland, Burton Constable Hall (near Hull), Bourton on the Water, etc - and more recently from the superb Model Railroad layout at the Chicago Museum of Science and Industry - I was fascinated by the "push button" options to make various "Cameo Trains" or Cameo Scenes" work. Examples that I remember from the Chicago exhibit include a "Metro" shuttle on the "Loop", a "Metra / Amtrak" shuttle from Union Station to an outer suburban station, a logging scene, a switcher serving industry, and more.

 

Applying this to a portable style exhibition layout, one could have (say) push-button operated shuttle systems for the younger kids, on a separate track to the "shunting puzzle" for those of a more serious bent, and some continuous running fun for those that like to wang 'em round in circles. Which, I'd venture, many of us secretly like to do on occasion when we take the hair shirts of stoatery off..

[peach james]

 

 

One that was embraced enthusiastically by the very young was a club that manufactured Brio wooden railway modules. These were low - perhaps 24" high and could be connected in many different ways. (Possibly they were built to these dimensions.) There were a large number of children playing with it.

 

 

 

Seeing where  you are, that's who it would have been.  He's brought the setup up here to Victoria, and it is a quite nice layout to play with.  Lots of fun for when you are overstressed how the lego layout isn't working like the previous version did :

 

M4H02861 by Peach James, on Flickr

 

James

[Ozexpatriate]

The LEGO layouts at local train shows draw more attention that the 'real' layouts - particularly from children but parents are particularly engaged as well.
 
With the huge variety of easy cameos and scenes possible with LEGO (a bit like the Richard Scarry books - I'm thinking "What Do People Do All Day?" or "Where's Wally?" // "Where's Gandalf?*" to having superheroes fighting villains in the streets) It's a great crossover between fun and railway modelling. While I wouldn't ever call it finescale, what people accomplish in LEGO railway models is fantastic**.  I'd happily call it "funscale".

 

Besides, who wouldn't want a layout with a haunted house being visited by either the Ghostbusters or Scooby Doo and the gang?
 

* Other minifigures can be substituted.

** Excepting of course the monstrosity that is set 4841 (Harry Potter: Hogwarts Express).  Whenever I look at the set belonging to my son's fiancée I want to rebuild it "properly" as a 4-6-0.

[Zomboid]

** Excepting of course the monstrosity that is set 4841 (Harry Potter: Hogwarts Express). Whenever I look at the set belonging to my son's fiancée I want to rebuild it "properly" as a 4-6-0.

I haven't read the books, but I doubt JK specified that the loco was a red painted generic GWR 4-6-0. For all we know she could have been thinking of a kriegslok, or an EAR Garrett...

[phil-b259]

I haven't read the books, but I doubt JK specified that the loco was a red painted generic GWR 4-6-0. For all we know she could have been thinking of a kriegslok, or an EAR Garrett...

 

I have a copy of the 1st book to hand and can assure you that JK Rolling wrote:-

 

"....he opened his eyes. A scarlet steam engine was waiting next to a platform packed with people. A sign overhead said Hogwarts Express, 11 o'clock."

 

So a Generic GWR 4-6-0 no, but definitely red - and given JK Rowling is not a railway enthusiast a GWR 4-6-0 is probably not that dissimilar to what was going through her mind when she penned those words. You should also recall that the director of the 1st film (also not a railway enthusiast) rejected a West Country pacific as 'too modern looking' - which is how Olton Hall got the job - it fitted the idea of what the loco should look like in the directors mind.

[Ozexpatriate]

So a Generic GWR 4-6-0 no, but definitely red - and given JK Rowling is not a railway enthusiast a GWR 4-6-0 is probably not that dissimilar to what was going through her mind when she penned those words.

One of young Mr. Stanier's Halls (I mean Jubilees of course) in LMS Crimson Lake would have been quite an accurate choice for a trip to somewhere approximating Cumbria or the Scottish Marches.  A maroon Hall is not too far off.

 

See link.

The Hogwarts Express was originally built by the Muggle engineers at Crewe, in Cheshire, England, in the early-to-mid 19th century.

 

In 1827, Ottaline Gambol rose to the office of Minister for Magic, and she made a daring and controversial suggestion to solve the ages-old problem of how to transport hundreds of students to and from Hogwarts Castle every school year without attracting the Muggles' attention: intrigued by the Muggle technology, the Minister saw the potential of using a train as a secure and comfortable alternative to Portkeys or to unregulated means of travel. The Ministry of Magic conducted a large-scale operation involving one hundred and sixty-seven Memory Charms, as well as the biggest Concealment Charm ever performed in Britain, in order to acquire the locomotive. The morning after this operation, the residents of Hogsmeade awoke to find the gleaming red Hogwarts Express and a Hogsmeade railway station that had not been there previously, and the Muggle railway employees in Crewe had the feeling they had misplaced something, which stayed with them for the rest of the year. There was initial resistance from pure-blood families against using a Muggle-built device for wizard transportation (which, they claimed, was "unsafe, insanitary and demeaning"), until the Ministry decreed that students would arrive to school on the train or not attend at all.

[Ozexpatriate]

** Excepting of course the monstrosity that is set 4841 (Harry Potter: Hogwarts Express).  Whenever I look at the set belonging to my son's fiancée I want to rebuild it "properly" as a 4-6-0

I haven't read the books, but I doubt JK specified that the loco was a red painted generic GWR 4-6-0.

My primary objection to set 4841 is that the locomotive body sits on two coach bogies. It has no driving wheels at all and does not, in consequence, look like "a scarlet steam engine" - at least below the footplate.

 

LEGO can do better with 4-6-0s.

[MarkSG]

My primary objection to set 4841 is that the locomotive body sits on two coach bogies. It has no driving wheels at all and does not, in consequence, look like "a scarlet steam engine" - at least below the footplate.

Yes, that's wrong on far too many different levels!

[Ozexpatriate]

Yes, that's wrong on far too many different levels!

It does at least have a separately fitted smoke box dart!

[brianusa]

Re. Olton Hall.  Will this poor loco ever lose its HP disguise and get repainted into proper colours - even get back on the main line again?

 

Brian.

[Clearwater]

My son has asked that I paint the 94xx I've been building in LMS red like Olton Hall. If he persists, I'm going to have to disinherit him....

 

David

[PaulRhB]

Surely a better ambassador for railways as it is when there are several other Halls running? I'm surprised they haven't actually asked to do promo tours with it, you'd think with the publicity and fan base there would be opportunities to run a Hogwarts Express to various major locations bit like the Cathedrals Express

[Ozexpatriate]

I'm surprised they haven't actually asked to do promo tours with it, you'd think with the publicity and fan base there would be opportunities to run a Hogwarts Express to various major locations ...

Surely they would take it to Hogsmeade* departing KX at 11:00am on September 1?

 

* Goathland on the NYMR

 

Not that the NYMR can, or would want to, afford the licensing fees for a "Harry Potter" Day.

[Zomboid]

Re. Olton Hall. Will this poor loco ever lose its HP disguise and get repainted into proper colours - even get back on the main line again?

 

Brian.

Probably not for as long as the HP attraction where it now lives is popular.

In a way it's better off there - could be some kind of inspiration to children into railways (unlikely, but...), and at least it's in the warm & dry. I don't believe there's a massive shortage of other preserved Halls, though I'm ready to be corrected on that.

[MarkSG]

Surely a better ambassador for railways as it is when there are several other Halls running? I'm surprised they haven't actually asked to do promo tours with it, you'd think with the publicity and fan base there would be opportunities to run a Hogwarts Express to various major locations bit like the Cathedrals Express

 

It was used that way before the HP exhibition opened. In fact, for quite some time it alternated between HP related work and normal preservation duties. But the opening of the exhibition means that the loco is, currently, too important a part of it to be allowed elsewhere.

[PatB]

I was at WA's once a year show last weekend (which was a lot less disappointing than it sometimes has been) and was interested to note the presence of no fewer than four "audience operated" layouts. Two were Inglenooks. Neither seemed to be short of kids having a go, especially the 0 gauge one.

[phil-b259]

It was used that way before the HP exhibition opened. In fact, for quite some time it alternated between HP related work and normal preservation duties. But the opening of the exhibition means that the loco is, currently, too important a part of it to be allowed elsewhere.

(1) The loco boiler certificate has expired and it needs a full overhaul - so it's not as if 'going elsewhere' is going to help. As has been pointed out the loco's owners are being paid a nice little earner to keep it in the warm and dry at Leavesden - why give that up just so it can be dumped on static display elsewhere.

 

(2) The loco remains the property of the original owning group and the hire agreement with WB is only for a couple of years or so. If enough funds can be raised to find the necessary overhaul, there is nothing to stop the owners removing the loco and returning it to operational condition.