Coxy's N Scale and Railroad Blog

With all three cars collected, 7412 has moved back to the main to cover some miles. The train is approaching east siding switch.

My seven year old daughter Natalie likes to switch occasionally. I make a short switchlist using drawings of the cars and the spurs to make car assigments easy. She calls it a mission and takes it pretty seriously. I work as switchman and help out when she has trouble with strategy. Both Natalie and Mitchel (aged 4) have steady enough control to uncouple truck mounted cars with a bamboo skewer.

Note the simple station made from foam core. It took about 10 minutes to make. The kids interest went up 10-fold once buildings appeared on the layout.