Indoctrinating children

[kevsmiththai]

So Friday I took our Brooklyn up to the Settle and Carlisle line to see the summer charter trains running between Appleby and Skipton. With a Class 47 (47 593) and a Class 37 (37 521) on a rake of Mk III coaches passenger loadings are good and of course the railfans have ben out in droves.

 

We went to Kirkby Stephen first to get the first Skipton -Appleby return train where we found that Brooklyns grandma's camera battery was flat and her camcorder didn't want to play either so I let him have my spare Panasonic and tripod

 

 

Wearing proper Hi-vis of course!

 

 

What we were chasing

 

 

So anyway. After a shaky start he did really well and the resulting edited video footage he shot is here

 

not bad for an eight year old

 

 

 

Kev

[marknewton]

Last weekend our tramway museum opened for the first time since the pandemic lockdown started. I was working, so Harry and I had to wait until today to head down to Loftus so he could continue his training to become a conductor. The car he was assigned to was Melbourne Y1 No.611. While he worked the tram I was in the workshop. The current occupants are Sydney R1 No.2001, being repainted in Sydney green and cream livery, Melbourne cable trailer No.589, having a major rebuild, and Sydney scrubber car No.134s, having some body and equipment repairs.

 

Also in the workshop is a new level crossing signal that we're making to replace one that was destroyed by some idiot who managed to collide with it while travelling backwards...🙄

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

No.589

No.134s

No.2001

 

Cheers,

 

Mark.

 

Edited August 23, 2020 by marknewton

[cteno4]

Man the boy is growing up fast! 
 

jeff

[railsquid]

All aboard the Cow Train!

 

[cteno4]

Going to have to be dropping lette off his name soon.

 

jeff

[JR 500系]

Wow he really is growing up fast! Gotta love those Dr. Yellow shoes!

Glad to see the Cow train is still mmoooooooving ~  😛

 

Is there actually a zoo in Kodomo no Kuni? Couldnt quite get the connection between the place and cows.....  😛

Edited September 14, 2020 by JR 500系

[railsquid]

There is actually some sort of small zoo/petting farm there, though we didn't get that far round, and there's also this: https://www.kodomonokuni-bokujyo.co.jp/

 

There is also a sheep train which we saw stabled at Nagatsuta.

 

Also I didn't realize before getting there, but the location is a former ammunition dump and it's full of closed-off bunker entrances.

Edited September 14, 2020 by railsquid

[James-SNMB]

Here's my (oldest) daughter playing with the Tomytec horses I got for her. We worked together to make the barn out of posterboard, and it was her idea to make the field with the fence.

 

She's been driving the trains since she was two. She's a gentle kid naturally, and a good listener, so it's actually been really easy to trust her with pretty much anything on the layout. She'll come and play at the table by herself when I'm busy working or doing something else. I actually had to build a little shelf extension to the train table so she would have room to play with stuff. Mostly she plays with the Tomytec cars. So much so that I think I've lost the rights to them forever! Darn you Tomytec and your "moving wheels"! Why'd you have to make them so fun to play with? Modelers don't need their cars to move! Well, I guess that's a consequence of Japanese excellence. Actually, she picked most of these out from our local model train flea market, so I sort of knew what I was doing...

 

Oh the adventures those cars have gotten into! So many rescues. It's been a good reminder of how differently I played with trains when I was a kid. Lots of hot wheels driving around my HO scale trains back when scale and realism wasn't such a factor for me. I'm trying to keep that in mind as I build the layout, and keep it fun for her too!

 

The twins just turned one, so it's going to be a while before they can play too, but I'll probably have to get going on some more shelf extensions to make room! They don't seem to be as gentle as their big sister, so they might not have free access for a while...

 

I have no illusions that these kids will grow up and take up the hobby. Maybe they will, but they probably won't. In the meantime it's just nice to have someone to play trains with! And I can take inspiration from them. Kids have cool ideas, and hopefully I can get them engaged with crafting some more paper/posterboard buildings that they dream up and help them build their own worlds. Let their imaginations fuel their creativity, and then they can apply that to whatever else they choose to do in life.

 

Lately she's been helping me put together some building kits. She likes using a toothpick to spread the model glue on the joints. When I suggested we build another train track together, her eyes lit up. Family T-trak may well be in our future, with dinosaur parks, dolphins, and of course lots of animals and Tomytec cars.

[James-SNMB]

@marknewton, one of those Melbourne streetcars made it's way across the ocean to join us in the great white north: http://www.edmonton-radial-railway.ab.ca/streetcars/melbourne_930/

 

Don't worry, they park it inside for winter.

[cteno4]

James,

 

that’s really wonderful! Play like that is just soo good for her and just plain fun! Really fun you guys can do it together and she has learned to be gentle with things so young. Adventure play is good not only to stimulate creativity, but it also leads to good critical thinking as you have to play out the story and figure out consequences.

 

cardstock models are really great idea, going into the third dimension with art like that again just really stretches that little brain! My fondest early play memories were from my grandma letting me pull out (and cut many up!) all her gift boxes. There were hundreds of them as she had them from her work and I would build huge cities, bridges, etc and vehicles traveling all over. I was about 4 or so and it’s one of the few memories I have that far back. My brain was just in another world with those boxes, scissors and scotch tape! 

 

she is going to have some wonderful memories playing with dad when she grows up.

 

jeff

[disturbman]

I bought my daughter a Tomytec bus and a Tomytec tram and she ended up with two buses, one truck, one tram, and a two-car Tomytec train set to play around. She did complained that the wheels of the buses didn't turn well enough. Still, all these are hers now.

When I gave her the tram, she insisted to have a "real" train to play with and an oval of tracks to fingerpush he train around.

[cteno4]

Nice! She knows how to get what she wants from dad! Soon it will be power mechs for the trams and busses! You’re already halfway down the slippery slope! 😜

 

cherrs,

 

jeff

[marknewton]

On 8/24/2020 at 3:30 PM, cteno4 said:

Man the boy is growing up fast! 

He certainly is, Jeff. He's taller than his mother now, and only an inch or so shorter than me. I used to joke with a mate of mine about how glad I was I didn't have to feed his teenage son. Joke's on me now... 😂

All the best,

 

Mark.

[marknewton]

On 10/4/2020 at 1:15 AM, James-SNMB said:

@marknewton, one of those Melbourne streetcars made it's way across the ocean to join us in the great white north: http://www.edmonton-radial-railway.ab.ca/streetcars/melbourne_930/

Thanks James, great to see another W car going to a good home. That's an interesting collection you have there. If I ever make it across to Canada it would be worth a visit for sure.

 

All the best,

 

Mark.

[marknewton]

Since the Tramway museum reopened it's been surprisingly busy on Sundays. On the 27th we had to put an extra car into service to cope with the crowd, so the call went out for extra crews. Harry and cousin Sebastian were down there like a shot!
 

The boys with our Melbourne Z car No.111.

 

With Sydney R1 No.1979.

 

The structure behind the boys is the waiting shed and signal box from Railway Square in the Sydney CBD. The museum dismantled the building and relocated to Loftus when it was replaced in the 1980s.

 

Me with Uncle Dave. I reckoned that since I was taking Harry down to the museum I might as well put some work clothes on and do something useful. 
 

All the best,

 

Mark.

[cteno4]

32 minutes ago, marknewton said:

He certainly is, Jeff. He's taller than his mother now, and only an inch or so shorter than me. I used to joke with a mate of mine about how glad I was I didn't have to feed his teenage son. Joke's on me now... 😂

All the best,

 

Mark.

LOL! He will be turning you upsidedown and shaking the car keys out of you very soon here! Kiss good by a nicely stocked frig, now it will look like the locus have been thru it w.in a half hour of restocking it.

 

jeff

[marknewton]

Half the time the fridge doesn't get restocked. The stuff gets eaten straight from the shopping bags on the kitchen bench.  
 

As for the car keys, I'm safe there. He's already got his own set of wheels! 😂

 

 

All the best,

 

Mark.

[cteno4]

3 minutes ago, marknewton said:

Half the time the fridge doesn't get restocked. The stuff gets eaten straight from the shopping bags on the kitchen bench.  
 

As for the car keys, I'm safe there. He's already got his own set of wheels! 😂

 

 

All the best,

 

Mark.

LOL mugged on the way in! 
 

I fear you will soon be driving this one and him the big one! Can’t get a girl in there with that set of wheels.
 

I can just see your mates at work ripping on you when you show up at the depot in this and Harry is off with The car with his mates or on a date!

 

jeff

[serotta1972]

Been a while since I ran any trains and my daughter requested that we run some trains this weekend and so we did.  On her Christmas wish list for Santa she put down Toy Trains and a controller and I told her she already had some trains but looks like we'll be adding to the Thomas collection.  I think I had just as much fun as she did.  Need to get back to my temporary setups and get my trains out of their boxes and stretch out their wheels.  

[Madsing]

What a wonderful smile 😀 

[serotta1972]

Thanks, she's actually been the one holding the train torch lately and keeps asking me about my trains.  I've been pre-occupied with another hobby lately but with her reminding and urging me to run trains - I will be setting up some tracks more often.  I think I done good indoctrinating her into model trains. 🙂

[disturbman]

6 hours ago, serotta1972 said:

I've been pre-occupied with another hobby lately.

Heresy!

[Yugamu Tsuki]

Heading off to late family Christmas tomorrow to celebrate with my folks and sister's family. Bringing a bunch of train fun for the nephews and brother in law. Wondering if I have room to back my engineer hat and gloves...

[kevsmiththai]

Just before Christmas, when I had finished for the holiday period,  and the grandkids had finished school, I kept my promise to Brooklyn to let him have a go at assembling his first plastic kit. In the loft I still have some original Airfix kits he could have a go at. When he has been playing with my 1.32nd first world war stuff he has been really careful (although I did tense up every time he picked up the Whippet tank!) so I reckoned he was ready.

 

We picked the Aston Martin DB5. This is very old tooling and the mouldings I had dated back to 1989 so I was expecting some distortions and lots of flash on the mould lines

 

 

I'm teaching him to be patient so we used Revell Conecta cement and only did a couple of pieces a day. he painted the seats, wheel, bumpers etc. He cut everything off the sprues and we didn't tel his mum h had been using a scalpel!  The only time we came unstuck was when he had a go at painting the finished chassis black with an aerosol. Still a bit young i suppose so I sprayed the body for him. The bodyshell was a bit distorted around the A piilars so we had to use the glazing to try and straighten them up which resulted in a couple of odd gaps but all in all we are both pleased with it

 

 

 

Hi Mom and Dad have bought him some Hornby 00 for christmas so his home layout is going to be that size so I'll get him some Dapol 00 building kits to have a go at next (station signalbox etc)

 

Kev

[Peter Osborne]

My 4 year old has a vast collection of playra all Japanese trains no Thomas At all, I find the track construction can be educational he often builds tracks all over the lounge and in his room, I don’t mind as long as he doesn’t use his sound 323 or 225 units when I want some quiet!