How is the Tomix Thomas the Train Set as a starter to use with kids?

[gmat]

I'm looking for something simple and rather kid proof. Has anyone used this set? Anything to watch out for? I haven't played with trains since I was a kid and was sometimes allowed to play with my father's set. I also got a Bandai B Train Shortie and plan to convert it to run on the Thomas set tracks. Or is there another controller that is better suited for kids?

 

Moving to the dark side.

 

Thanks for any advice.

Best wishes,

Grant

[CaptOblivious]

I've heard the Tomix Thomas stuff are some of the best-running N-scale locos out there. Otherwise, I have no experience with it…

[David]

How young is "kids"? And just how kid proof?

 

In the US most N scale/railroad stuff comes with warnings that it is not for children under 12 or 14. All of it uses live power on the rails so a "child" could always hurt themselves or start a fire, since they're basically playing with exposed wires. Personally I think responsible children especially if supervised are at no risk playing with model trains; however they are far from "kid proof", being fragile and expensive little things (even Thomas is more then $50 just for the locomotive with one car, and selection and supply are limited).

 

A different option for younger kids is Tomy Takara Plarail:

• Track is inexpensive and carries no current (trains are battery or kid powered)
  
• Trains and track can take crashes and not break
  
• Big selection of Thomas stuff
  
• In Japan there are lots of "accurate" prototypes available for Plarail
  
• Trains are much less expensive - toy budget instead of model budget
  
• Several wireless remote controls exist, much less expensive then DCC
  

[CaptOblivious]

I second the Pla-Rail stuff. My 2-year old daughter loves her set, and even when her friends are over and playing rough, it holds up quite well. Very durable, and a lot of fun.

 

I also second the age issue. I do sometimes let her play with my n-scale stuff, but only under extremely strict supervision. She understands how to make them go now, and has gotten quite good about getting them on the rails with the rerailer, and even putting them away in the case, but she doesn't yet really understand how to handle things gently. She's just discovered pantagraphs, and I have to keep my wits about me to keep her from extending them pulling them off. Even the neighbor's 7-year old boy, who is very considerate and at least tries to be careful, was far too rough with them for my liking (good thing I only let him play with readily replaceable TomyTec models.) As a result, I won't be comfortable that my daughter won't just blatantly destroy an n-scale train until she's at least 10, perhaps 12.

[gmat]

Thank you for you advice. That's the comments that I need to her, albeit not exactly what I was hoping for. Looks like it will be non powered Shorties on the Bandai tracks. Everything has to be carried in my backpack as I cycle to my student's home. When I had my own classroom, I had some Plarail and Brio and Brio clones, all with unpowered tracks. The Brio a and clones survived the rough handling, much of the Plarail didn't. The students that I am thinking of already have a Thomas Plarail collection.

 

Thanks.

Nice to hear from you, CaptOblivious.

Best wishes,

Grant

[gmat]

Looks like the Thomas the Train Set will still figure prominently in my future. I like the simple control box with the handle control and compared with the Kato controller, lacks of Japanese writing on the box. The latter helps to keep an all English environment in my lesson. I stopped at the Kato Showroom on the way to my student's home and I picked up two 185 series cars and an unpainted dummy ALCO PA-1, all for 500 yen each. I showed these to my student along with the B-train Shorty Odoriko 185 Series 8 car set. He kept picking up on of the trains during the lesson. He couldn't find the model cutters and other tools that I left a long time ago when we built plastic kits so I promised that if he could keep on reading the Star Wars easy readers, (finally found a reason to read and re-read something in English) I'd spend time after class putting together the B-train with him. I took the Kato and Bandai trains home and cut the parts from the sprues and cleaned the burrs off. I assembled one and put the others into separate zip-lock bags and labeled them. I used a nipper to separate the parts from the sprues and an xacto knife to clean it up. Earlier, we had used a nail file/sandpaper stick to remove the burrs from the airplane kit. I'm leary of letting him handle an Xacto knife. He is in the 5th grade, though. His brother is in the 3rd grade and will probably be the one who ends up breaking something. When visited his home, I had opened the shorty kit and had removed a pair of trucks and the pantograph from one of the 183 and fitted one of the trucks onto one of the shorty car's bottom plate. The the older brother saw this and removed the same parts from the other 183. We both had to caution his younger brother when he started to play with the Kato pantograph. He later reattached the trucks and the pantograph and played with three Kato trains. That made me think that he might be ready for the Thomas set. Next week, we'll put together the shorty 183 and I might bring another shorty to let him do all of it by himself. Using the parts from the Kato remainder kits might be slightly cheaper, but it leaves some lonely looking carriages. I'll probably buy the Kato separate trucks and pantographs to refit the shorty kits and perhaps some cheap tracks to runs the trains on by hand. See if they survive a week. Later I'll bring the Thomas set and we can try to run the trains on them. I'll leave the set, but take the power wires with me. Of course, if all of this is OK with the mom.

Thanks for listening.

 

Best wishes,

Grant

[gmat]

I finally got the Thomas Train set and brought it to my student's house. It is very simple to use and the kids were almost able to set it up and operate it by themselves. I had to advise them to move the control to stop before switching directions or handling the trains on the tracks and show them how to use the re-railer. It's quite useful for putting the trains back onto the tracks. The older brother was able to remember to turn the control arm to stop, but it took a while for the younger brother to remember to do it. They also had a dummy PB-A and some 183 series carriages that I got from the Kato Showroom for 500 yen apiece.

The main problem was that after about five minutes, they began to get 'creative.' First it was to run the train up the re-railer, but not off it, and then it was to place the logs from the Foolish Freight car on the tracks and have Thomas run into it. Then they would do things like put the 183 carriages across the tracks or stand the re-railer next to the tracks and have it fall on the tracks or put the logs or freight car roof on the PB-A as it went round the tracks. Reminders to treat the train set care were temporarily effective at best. They played with the set for about an hour, with no 'accidents.' But I finally stop them as they kept trying to have the train run into something. I left the set but took the wires so they wouldn't be able to use the transformer, but still use the tracks. The mother also said that as she has to prepare to move, she didn't want them playing with the train set all the time and not helping her.

 

 

 

I think that it must be natural for kids, especially boys to want to have the train do the unconventional or crash into things. For most Japanese kids, who may be more responsible with their train sets, I imagine that there must be a more firm parental supervision when first playing with train sets. Or perhaps crashing them into things might not be so damaging. But I do not think that you can let kids play with trains without insuring that they treat the trains with respect.

 

If someone made a train set tough enough to crash into things placed on the tracks, you might have a best seller.

 

Even the younger brother was trying to use rudimentary English phrases as they played.

[CaptOblivious]

I've done the "run the train up the rerailer without having it leap off" thing before. It's actually kind of fun…

 

Since running trains in ovals does get old pretty fast, especially to young boys, have you considered showing them a switching puzzle like Inglenook Sidings? Even my wife enjoys the mental challenge of these kind of games. It might help hold their interest without having them devolve into destruction.

 

Incidentally, just yesterday, my little Acadia finally began to understand that the throttle has to be off before she can switch directions: She began to operate the throttle correctly on her own. So proud!

[David]

This is why I am wary of giving models trains as gifts to children - at that age few will understand what "breakable" and "expensive" mean, even after they break it and have a cry because they don't have it anymore. At that age I had Brio wood trains (sad that I gave them away) which could always stand up to kid handling. The worst that happened was constantly losing the rotating section of the Brio turn table somewhere in the box of train stuff (that and getting bits of yarn tangled in the wheels).

[gmat]

I think that the older brother will help the younger brother treat the trains better. Plus I won't have any expensive stuff around. I'll modify some B-trains for after the next class. I think what is more important is learning to treat things more carefully, rather than about breaking them.

It's more of a loan for a while as I'll take it back and use it with and perhaps loan to my other students later. I have a wooden train set that I used to loan to my students when I had a classroom, and a Lincoln Logs set and several Easy Bake Ovens, but it's pretty hard lugging them around on back of my bicycle.

[westfalen]

I've done the "run the train up the rerailer without having it leap off" thing before. It's actually kind of fun…

More fun is putting two rerailers end to end and running a loco with flywheels over both of them.

[Martijn Meerts]

I've done the "run the train up the rerailer without having it leap off" thing before. It's actually kind of fun…

More fun is putting two rerailers end to end and running a loco with flywheels over both of them.

 

Don't give me any ideas =)

[gmat]

Thank you CaptOblivious, I wasn't familiar with the Inglebrook Siding Puzzle and had to search a few places to get a clear explanation of how to explain it to the kids. I'll have to get the appropriate track first. I asked them at the end which they would rather have, a new train or more track. The older brother said a new train and the younger brother chimed in with more track. With a very limited budget, it'll be motorizing one of the B Shorty trains. The bad thing is that starting with the Thomas set pretty much locks me into Tomix tracks as I could have gotten Kato curved tracks more cheaply from the Kato Showroom which is about 15 minutes by bike from their house. Box of 10 for 1000 yen.

One good thing that I haven't mentioned is that they didn't fight over who would use the controller. Figuring out stuff to run into provided enough of a distraction so that one wouldn't have to sit around and wait until the older brother would say it was time to switch.

[gmat]

A week later and the second time that my student as his younger brother are playing with the Thomas the Train set. I put together a Bandai Shorty 183 series and added the Kato trucks and one motor for the Bandai Shorty kits to motorize the 183. I was teaching the older brother and as the younger brother was waiting for us to finish, I gave him the wires that connect the controller to the tracks and asked him to set it up. He was able to do it all by himself.

 

 

After a while he thought of using a box to make a slope.

 

The motor for the Shorty wasn't up to the task and the 183 kept stalling halfway up the incline.

 

Then a smaller box was substituted.

 

Then a jewelers screwdriver case.

 

Then the shorty's case was removed and just the motor assembly was used. I was asked to remove the casing from the Thomas train too. That's the black one above.

 

 

 

Then other things were substituted.

 

 

Then the younger brother decided to elevate the whole track.

 

Adjustments were made.

 

 

 

A good time was had with limited materials.

 

Best wishes,

Grant

[cteno4]

Grant,

 

Hey great fun! you know how to make your services invaluable, those kids will scream bloody murder if you are not their teacher!

 

it always amazes me and also brings home such a great message that kids can create their own fun with just a few basic elements. I always get into this loop with clients (especially marketing types) that kids require huge amounts of bells and whistles to hold their attention. the only thing going that route does is make them get distracted faster! keep it simple and leave a lot of room for the kids to get creative and explore and bingo you get really involved kids for a long time and they have lots of fun!

 

keep up the great work, im sure its also benefiting their english skills in a great way at the same time! im sure your popularity will really soar with the kids!

 

cheers

 

jeff

[gmat]

An update on my students using the train set. Since the start of the New Year, my students haven't used the set very much with me. Changing schedules has meant that this month, I now start an hour earlier, but that by the time that I finish teaching the older brother at 6:00, the younger brother is away at Kumon and the older brother leaves for Kumon at 7:00. Plus when given the choice, he'd rather watch the new episodes of Star Wars the Clone Wars that I bring over. Since they'll move at the end of this month, I got some new trains and made extra time to let him play with the trains. I've decided to concentrate on B-Train Shorts rather than regular trains as they are a little cheaper and less liable to be broken. I got a 12 box carton of the Kiosk Newsday Part 6 boxes as it includes the 185 series Odoriko/Hometown Tochigi with the green/orange stripe. The downside is that although you will get one of each box, to make a original release complete set, you will have to buy at least an extra carton and then find more center car boxes as you don't need more than two end cars. And the single 101 box only has the front end for the driver car. Although it has the other parts for the center car, it lacks the front end piece. I also picked up a Series 485 Kinugawa 4 car set box which was marked down to 1200 yen at a JR Newsday store at Shinjuku Station. But to make an actual 6 car set, you need to get two boxes, which leaves you with an extra set of end cars. I also got a regular 700 Series Shinkansen 4 car set as the older brother had said that that was what he was interested in earlier. I had debated whether to get just a Shinkansen set along with replacement Kato wheel sets and a motor, but elected to get the Newsday set 6 as I wasn't sure how long it would be around and I wanted the 185 series. I picked up the Kinugawa set at the same time as it was the last one at the Newsday store. So now I have the original Thomas engine with two cars, an assembled 8 car 183 set with a complete set of Kato wheels and a motor, another assembled eight car 185 set no motor and kit wheels plus the new kits. I spent a marathon session from 4:00 to 12:30 assembling the Shinkansen set and all of the Newsday set but not the four 185 series boxes and the Kinugawa set. All that work was not in vain because although I thought that my student would mostly run the Shinkansen, it wasn't more than three minutes before he started to take out the swapped motor and wheels from the 183 set and put it into the 233 Series Shonan-Shinjuku line cars. I would have thought the Akabeko would have been first. The rest of the time was spent swapping wheels and the two motors (He also quickly took the motor out of the Thomas engine) to different sets and running them. The downside was that the Bandai Shorty wheel set broke apart when you tried to take them off and I spent most of the time putting them back together.

 

Concerning motivation, since the older brother loves Star Wars, when I got a few level one Star Wars readers, I stumbled upon a motivator for him to read. This was after many frustrating years on very limited progress. He has made very good progress in the past four months and it's easy for him to do the reading homework. I also heard from his mother that after we read the first Star Wars book together, he would read it again and again and even explained the book to his brother. But there are only a few level one or two readers. We recently added reading The Weekly Reader, which is like Scholastic News, a four or six page reader published for school children in North America. I had asked him to read his latest issue of The Weekly Reader to his brother. Since I stopped teaching the brother it was a good way to help his brother and if he explains it to his brother, a good way to sharpen and reinforce his understanding. When I asked if he did it, he said that his brother was 'away.' The Mom said that when she reminded him to read to his brother, both of them ran away. Since he did read the Weekly Reader by himself and could read much of it quite well, I was pleased. I waited until the younger brother appeared and showed him the new trains and said that because he didn't sit with his brother to read the WR, he couldn't play with trains that week. Then he went off to Kumon. I later discussed with his mother about finding time to have him play with the train set with his brother and she said that it depended on how long it took him to finish at Kumon. She said that sometime it took him up to three hours to complete his worksheets. I often don't see him before I leave at around seven. Today he came back about 6:30. Since I said that he couldn't play this week, I reminded him about that , but then asked the older brother to read one page to his brother. The older brother is good in that he did that without any fuss, even though it would cut into his train time. Listening to him read while I put back those Bandai wheel units together, I could see the problems with what I had asked him to do. First, he read too slowly and it was still often at the reading without understanding what you are reading stage. You can tell when students can understand what they are reading as if they stumble on a word, they will reread the word again more correctly. I also think that when I stop the lesson part and play games, sometimes the students, adults included, revert back to thinking in Japanese and this might be why he didn't read as well as before. Te  are  using the Japanese side of the brain, so to speak. The younger brother tended to be passive but one time tried to say a word that the older brother was trying to read. I said that that was good. At the end I read it again for them and explained some parts and words. I said to read shorter portions next time, just a short paragraph and to explain things. I'll try it again next week.

I told the Mom, "Did you notice about the younger brother?" and she said yes, "He came home quickly today." I said that I wonder what the Kumon teacher would say if he or she knew why he finished so quickly today.

Next week, I'll continue letting him play with the trains after his brother has to leave. I think that playing and doing things under his big brother may stifle his initiative and motivation.

 

I asked the older brother if he would rather I get the 700 Series Shinkansen center cars set, more wheel sets or a motor. He said another motor. So that's what I'll do. It's hard to build a train set on a very limited budget, but it's working for the better as he's using the train parts he that does have creatively. The younger brother is not at that stage, but given more time to sate his interest in just running the trains, he might become more creative, but most likely only when big brother isn't around to tell him what not to do.

 

His mother said that I should come up to Sendai to visit. They'll have an extra room for me. She said that I can go to the bay which has many islands and that maybe my wife will like to visit. I was thinking that I or a parent together could ride and take photos of trains with the older brother.

 

That's all for now.

 

Best wishes,

Grant