Usage of Model Railroading As A Maker Hub In Schools

[JJ1892]

Hello,

 

In small talk with a customer of mine (a high school network of 150 schools) an opportunity to use model railroading popped-up. 

 

As model rail roading includes the usage of multiple intelligences and abilities, analog & digital experiences, programming and potentially AI, I am reaching out to understand if anyone here did or has know how of Model railroading rooms or projects in schools as a platform for high school teens maker space. 

 

Beyond connecting youngsters to the hobby, building a model train "club" within a school will be used for:

• Maker space techniques and technologies (3D printing, Arduino, etc.).
• Programming (JMRI etc.).
• Arts and crafts (diorama).
• Learning & research (for prototypical dioramas).
• Decision making and team building (running trains together).
• Lean and Agile thinking for project management of building the models. 
• Creative Thinking & Innovation (here I am thinking on non prototypical models with connections to other domains and imaginative high customizations of the scenario and trains).

 

As many people here are from nations (German, British, Japanese and Americans are the immediate suspects) with a long history of model railroading, I wonder if this has been already done and how.   

 

Any links, connections to people or ideas will be highly appreciated,

 

I already dream of closing my business and joining this educational network as VP of Model Railroading... 

 

Thank you in advance for any help,

 

JJ1892  

[Junech]

Germany once had a nationwide event called "Modellbau und Schule" (model building and school), which was held each year. The basic concept was that the organizers sent you two Fremo F96-like module fronts and gave you a norm to follow for the main track and electrics, and the school had to build everything in between that. Then after the due date they built everything together at one convention and let the audience decide the best module and give the schools some price money.

 

Imagine it like each school building T-Track modules and meeting up at a convention to run them and choose the best modules.

 

If I would start it today I would first ask local companies (producing model railway stuff or bigger shops) to support that and choose a local well-established module norm with what I got. Module norms like T-Track, Fremo and so on should work really well with that and are open to the public for everyone to read. A nice side factor would be that if the students decide to build their onw modules they could take part in clubs and groups with the same standard.

Another big point is that you need space AND tools at the schools and remembering the old woodworking space at my high school the tools were way older than the students and not taken care of...

For a "convention" schools may be able to help too with offering the gyms over weekends or other large rooms to build everything up.

[MeTheSwede]

2023 saw model railway clubs from 155 schools participate in the National Model Railway Contest:

 

 

 

 

2024 there were 176 schools represented.

 

 

 

I haven't dwelled into the subject. I presume school clubs for railway modelling operates the same way as other Japanese school clubs, like those for sports, musical activities and so on.

[Junech]

2 hours ago, MeTheSwede said:

I haven't dwelled into the subject. I presume school clubs for railway modelling operates the same way as other Japanese school clubs, like those for sports, musical activities and so on.

 

I would guess the same. Back at my run with "Modellbau und Schule" the teachers (which we needed at least one to sign the participation paper) tried to hide as much as possible and everything was sponsored by my dad on the material side. We kept it quite simple due to that but still managed to win one of the money prizes. Sadly I can't find a picture of the module.

 

So you would need space, a teacher supporting it, and money from somewhere to pay for everything (except the students build their own module that they will take home whenever they decide to do so).

[MeTheSwede]

On second thought, I might remember something about railway modeling activities atleast partly being a part of classes, or counting for extra credits or something of that sort. Don't trust me about anything. It's something I watched or read over a year ago, and I hardly count as even an intermediate learner of Japanese. 😅

[cteno4]

Yes, this would be a wonderful thing to do with schools! I basically fire off your list to people at public events we have the club layout at, encouraging parents that its a good hobby for thier kids, and themselves, to learn a lot of different disciplines and skills and then learn how to weave it all together as well. The integration part really is the big cherry here as few things out there give you that training and have fun at the same time! Its the basic STEAM mantra, which is nothing new, just what good teachers did.

 

Many japanese schools have model train clubs that seem to be quite productive. Kato has done some efforts with contests and such to help. Japanese schools have a history of clubs and the culture has a lot of art, aesthetics, and crafting aspects to it, which helps. Also a lot more group activity in their culture and not as individualistic as ours, so clubs work well.

 

Traditionally model railroading in the us has had some penetration into Boy Scouts and some Girl Scouts. They have a merit badge for it and some troops take it to a troop thing where they will have a tttrak loop and go out and show it off. One of our local troops puts on a model train show every year with about 10 local clubs at a school for just a public layout display [no vendors]. I think it’s been going on 20 years or so.

 

I don't think I've ever heard of a school model train club here in the US, but it’s a very big country! But at least it’s not common enough to have run across it when working in education here in the US or with my modeling and club stuff. I have run across the scout stuff.

 

Over the years our club has talked a lot about doing some sort of a club or program with a school or a set of weekend workshops at a library and we have a couple of very good potential in with a small science/maker center and a japanese school here in DC. Fortunately this makes it a very direct fit and minimal red tape. But the time commitment to really make it happen has blunted us from doing it so far. It’s a big chunk of planning and then just making it happen and doing it. But the idea is still alive and i hope to work on it as i move forward with the mini onetrak stuff as that was designed specially to be a simple and affordable way to get started and perfect for a school club or weekend class concept like this.

 

Over the last decade or two STEM [now STEAM] has brought some of the more shop type stuff back into schools and libraries with robotics and maker spaces, but this really varies by school wealth and staffing. Sadly I think this stuff may take a beating in the current education politics going on. But that is the place to probably focus on getting model trains more on the school radar and clubs. The STEM to STEAM move also will help as may creative/design aspects to model railroading to integrate with the technological. Also in our current culture trying to get kids to do model railroading will be a bit of a tough sell, its not all that cool or common, even when i was a kid it was considered a dorky thing to be into. Trains are also just not a big part of our culture here and seen more as old fashioned or pedestrian. But bringing it in through STEAM will help push away those stigmas some. Once bitten kids will get into it as kids have tons of curiosity and enthusiasm if you can just get past those cultural obstacles and once they break thru it’s amazing to watch them take off!

 

Also check around your local library system as many are doing maker shops and may be into having a club or weekend class that would utilize the maker space to work on specific things like model trains. They could be an alternative if any roadblocks pop up in schools and can be a bit more flexible and are looking for new ways to get folks to libraries like the maker spaces and new ways to use the maker space is a natural fit. There are also some small science, maker, and creative spaces in many cities that have outside funding to do weekend and after school projects. We have one locally that was interested in the idea when I approached them several years ago about doing something with them with model trains. They also may be interested in a partnership with the schools. Most libraries have for along time been a traditional home for many crafting hobbies as a meeting space and I’ve nicely noticed this trending upwards here these days. I’ve been thinking of setting up a group to just run trains on some track on the table to get folks interested and help them move forward and see if the group can grow into more aspects of the hobby.

 

One of the important thing will be finding the leadership needed for a club in the students and/or advisors to move them forward and sustain them. It’s not something that you can do with just supplying some kits and instruction for. Robotics clubs are probably the best example out there. They have an organizer that has gotten things going and keeps it on course and they usually say once going the kids take over al lot of the momentum, but there needs to be someone with interest and knowledge to keep the group on track over the years.

 

One last thing, before dreaming too much down the education path, if you haven’t yet, go volunteer at a local school and help with a teacher, club, or project or in a computer lab or something. It will give you some great incites into schools, kids and how best to set up a club/program like this. Thinking up a lab/assignment/project and getting kids interested in doing it successfully are two very different things! I know I taught college and high school. It also lets you see if it’s a fit for you as well, education can sound good but being in it is a different thing. My head is always swirling around with this stuff as ive been attached to education in one way or another my whole life.

 

Keep us posted!

 

cheers

 

jeff

[JJ1892]

Thank you @Junech for the Fremo link. I did not know this concept.

 

@cteno4 - thank you for the wealth of info. This school network has maker spaces and robotic labs, but find those very gender specific (boys). They are looking for new ways to attract girls into those club and got interested with the model railroading which is practically non-existent here, hence may sound as an innovation. Thing is, this hobby looks from my limited experience looking at forums, videos and trades hows very skewed towards men which with the artistic facets of diorama building and the welcomed increase of interest of girls in STEAM studies, I find strange. 

 

I have a presentation with the management of this network to show the multi faceted nature of this hobby and will roll from there.   

[cteno4]

Sadly the hobby is predominantly male, white, and over 65 in the US. This is one of the main reasons im not so keen at showing at model train shows much anymore. At public events we get a huge cross section of all demographics and the interest is actually skewed opposite the usual model train demographic! So there is potential for interest out there. I have found with JNS we have more women lurking the forums or if posting do so gender neutral, so their demographic may be a bit skewed, but at model train shows its pretty white older male.

 

With kids we get equal interest in the ttrak setups from boys and girls. While i dont have kids, im uncle jeff to all my friends kids [and now grandkids] and have spent a lot of time playing with them and also sharing my trains with them and really no difference in interest between boys and girls ive noticed if given access and encouragement. I see it as a purely cultural thing. Ive actually had parents come up to the layout with a boy and a girl and say “you're brother will like this” when the little girl has run over and is rapt with the layout! I dont think folks realize they do it, it’s cultural reflex. Friends remark to me that i bought their little girls boys toys but they love them, like it’s something strange. Again it feels just like its reflex.

 

There was the recent video on nhk a few months back [sadly 404 now anyone with better Google-fu for Japanese students compete in model railway design] about the nation wide school model train contest [i think it was ttrak[ where a team of 3 girls team won and went onto a big show in europe where their model took high awards there. 

 

There are aspects of design and aesthetics running all thru the hobby and it is a part of about every facet/skill when you think about it. Art in STEAM is a very broad term. Just think about layout design to begin with. A lot of that is thinking thru what your imaginary world will be, how it will function and how the trains will function in it. Then what will the scenery be in various areas and how will that affect the plan. Simple things like finishing the module edges to have a nice finish that presents well, setting up scene stories with figures and such to make them come alive, animation of scene elements, wiring paths, etc, design just keeps being a part of every step.

 

The really easy thing is this is a perfect fit for STEAM and there is potential for interest in both boys and girls in doing model railroading.

 

The hard part is having folks that can work with the kids to get them started and walk thru the process with them in the maker labs. These folks need to be creatives, not just technicians. They need to help things along where need and know when to stand back when the kids take off on their own. This is a highly different thing kid to kid when they are working on creative stuff. I worked for a year full time back in my old High School teaching multimedia and running our lab while working with teachers to get the kids doing more of their assignments in more interesting ways [llike instead of doing the 2 page paper on a genetic disease to having to do a trifold brochure for a non profit supporting work on that disease]. My job with the kids was some basic teaching on software packages, but mainly to help stimulate them to be creative in their design of their projects. It was super highly individualistic with the kids to help them along and constantly changing so you couldn't just divide the class easily into those needing help and those taking off on their own. Super fun job but super dynamic range needed. The guy hired the year before with super great qualifications turned out to not be able to do this and insisted it was all just lectures and that was all the kids needed. Didn’t work. I came in for a year and reset it all and we searched and found a great permanent teacher for the position to then take over and the program was a huge hit.

 

Your challenge here will be getting someone at each site that can help be this kind of a facilitator and have some ideas on model railroading. I guess you could try to do some training with folks running maker labs on how to integrate model railroading, but that would be a whole program in itself. I also fear if they dont have a great interest in model trains the kids wont get the proper help and encouragement. This is the hardest question i have to answer all the time at public events when talking to folks interested in getting started in model railroading is how/where will they get help. Of course there are plenty of digital places to point folks to, but most really want some human interaction if possible and ask if our club has meetings were we could help them. Sadly we just have no clubhouse or easy place to do this and the time needed from our small group is just not there. Each lab here is going to need some sort of model train mentor if it’s not the lab person. Some can come digitally, but this strips away a lot of the fun of the hobby working with others and watching them do something and interacting personally. So its going to be finding those 150 mentors. Local clubs may be some help, but its a lot of work. Also may be past what you can expect forks to volunteer to do and you do usually have some sort of clearances to be done if they come onto school grounds and even potentially digitally [ive had to give my ssn for felon background check in the past when doing digital presentations to schools]. Some clubs are very resistant to younger members, which i find a bit repugnant, but its their club [one newer ttrak club has a minimum age of 25!]. We have always welcomed younger members, but with kids comes some issues like them being left without parent supervision at events that always needs some attention. This just to say not every model train person is going to want to help or be a mentor, cant just expect it. Also just cant expect them to volunteer huge amounts of time since its a school.

 

Big thing you dont want is to have this bomb as it’s a turn off to those kids and admin. Political environment right now may be tricky as well with this kind of project, even well thought out good stuff is being maligned if it can make headlines or points somewhere. Not saying its a reason not to do it, just something that will need a lot of thought that was a big issue in the past.

 

I’d propose see if you could find one or two labs run by folks that are model railroaders and see how well it all works in practice and if so work out the detail and lesson plans, resources and such. Great ideas like this dont always pan out in reality or you find some big humps here and there not expected you have to get over. 

 

Take a look at what i presented in the mini onetrak as a potential starting point. Basically i came up with that in frustration with limitations with ttrak scene design and cost and a way to make things smaller and more accessible to beginners. It uses simple wooden canvases for the bases that are available economically everywhere. Just put 3 screws in the bottom to raise the base height up to 1” as not all are made to the same thicknesses [around 3/4”]. Does not require any wood cutting or major assembly at the very first step. Of course bases could be traditionally, laser, or cnc cut out and assembled [but every place may not have access to this kind of equipment or everyone want to actually fiddle with that part]. The idea is to turn the current ttrak design process on its head. Usually you have a scene idea and you have to then just kind of smush that into the few usual rectangle spaces available on a 1x or 2x module and the tracks are always the same place on the scene. With the mini onetrak the idea is to turn this on its head and dream up a scene, then choose a base size and shape to fit that scene and put the single track in the scene where it fits best. Don’t worry if the track hangs over a big as separating the small modules helps split up the scenes better [this is a problem with the public and ttrak as disparate to similar scene are butt up against each other and folks do get confused why that is thinking it is all one layout scene]. This freedom helps open up a lot more creativity and freedom as well as allow the creation of much more complex layout shapes on a table with only one track, tighter radiuses possible [its meant for small, but no necessarily tiny trains], and smaller modules. Small pieces of track can be added between modules to finish a loop. This makes setting up a loop a lot more fun and creative than the standard ttrak loops. The Kato mini diorama sort of goes down this alley but its scenery area is so small you cant do much and no real building scenes and like Ttrak always has the track in the same place. Using a standard like ttrak or fremo may allow more ability to play with others but also gets more expensive and complicated and also limits some of the creativity. Luckily in this situation you have the potential for each school to have their own internal play then play between schoools.

 

Cheers,

 

jeff

[JJ1892]

I was initially imagining a big layout with team work but the mini track/ttrack is a good pointer for such a project. Having each student his own mini track cube has lots of benefits:

- Allows each kid to have his own space.
- Rube Goldberg like activity that necessitates interfacing between the plates.
- Flexibility in combining layouts to keep it interesting.
- I could cap a cost per student -> easier to get funding.
- Kids could take their plate home.
- Bottom up vs top down design.
- scalable growth. We can start with a few kids. Low commitment. 
- Easier to store 
 

On 3/25/2025 at 10:41 PM, cteno4 said:

Political environment right now may be tricky as well with this kind of project, even well thought out good stuff is being maligned if it can make headlines or points somewhere

Don't really follow what you mean, but I guess this is USA specific. I do concur that politics ruin the good stuff as a general rule (-:

 

Much appreciated 🙏

[cteno4]

Yeah a layout would be grand at a school, but schools are about constant turn over so that may pose some challenges to a layout in the long run. But layouts then do get higher order stuff happening that modules only touch on. Layouts also require a long term home/space which may be tough at some locations.

 

I’d thinking starting with smaller and simpler to work things out and slowly build up as you suss out how it all works out in reality. Modules are much more containable as a project and less mentorship needed as well until you have a good mentor system set up to do more complicated things like a layout.

 

modules give you a lot of flexibility in the learning, start with a simple one and then make more with more and more complex elements. Also lets students self select a lot more in the kinds of things they do and how complex/deep into they want to get. This is very important with a room of students, while you will find maybe half are sort of on the same page, the other half will be all over the map! This is the big challenge in teaching and what makes a good teacher [they can teach to the easy similarly half while at the same time motivating and reaching all the disparate types in the other half].

 

No reason with time many formats from mini modules to full layouts could not be part of this whole program once things are really rolling. Again, my experience in projects like this is to start with soemthing small and flexible as a proof of concept and use it to work out and feel out what works and what does not, learn the environment, learn the participants, etc, then expand once that intel is found. Ive been on a few projects early on [not that wise yet to things and smaller player in the game] that did a lot of up front thinking and research but nothing practical on the ground before launching big projects and they immediately ran into issues that were stuff with people, environments, and situations that their upfront planning just didn't see. Looking back, yes some seemed obvious but then things often look different looking back than forward! 

 

easy to do inter school competitions, public events, and big layouts, display easily in display cabinets here and there to show things off.

 

Sorry i had it in my head you were in the us, sadly education, science and technology is currently in a really chaotic state right now.

 

Best of luck with this!

 

cheers

 

Jeff

[Junech]

Whatever module system you choose, I think the school should have at least enough modules to run a train in a circle. Then, the students' modules will just expand on that circle. That way, you won't run into problems of combining the current students' modules if none of them chose a corner piece.

 

I think Hex-Track would be a nice module system to start with. The individual tiles are tiny and just a bit of track. That will also keep the costs relatively low since there also won't be that much scenery needed.