Over the summer I observed a group of kids climbing all over some railroad equipment and getting into everything on a display locomotive. While the locomotive was open to the public there were still signs telling people not to climb on the equipment. The kids even managed to break a lock on one of the locomotive doors. This caused a lot of grumbling by volenteers about no good hooleagans. But as we all know familys with kids are what bring in the money. At the SFTM we have a kids area with two model trains you activate by holding down a button a telegraph and a push around wooden train set and some coloring stuff, which does a good job keeping the young ones occupied (sometimes it works too well and the kids have to be dragged away by mom and dad kicking and screaming.) how does your organization handle keeping kids out of trouble keeping them occupied?

Last year at the Mt. Rainier Scenic Railroad in Mineral, WA, we began the transformation of our restoration facility into a logging museum and destination for all of our excursion trains. We opened the facility (which includes two buildings that house our steam locomotive collection) last June and immediately had to deal with wayward folks. While we put signs on everything asking folks not to climb on the equipment, they were ignored by a lot of people (both kids and adults). Very soon afterwards, though, two volunteers completed the cosmetic restoration of our 1889 H.K. Porter 0-4-0T (Satsop R.R. #1). The Porter has a very roomy cab that is very low to the ground making it easily accessible to the public. We encourage kids of all ages to play with the various levers and valves, ring the bell, etc.. Not only has the Porter become a wonderful "Kodak moment" for the public, but it has done wonders to stop folks from climbing on the other locomotives. It apparently alleviates the urge to climb on something. We still get the occasional parent who ignores the signage on the other locomotives and places their toddler into the cabs for a photo, but the occurrences are few and far between.

Brian Wise
General Manager
Mt. Rainier Scenic Railroad

I've seen museums who have a cab cut from a locomotive (or a full mockup of one) for 'photo ops' and a place for the kids of all ages to climb around. Good idea!

And you are never, EVER going to get that to go away. A pal of mine at the Air & Space museum annex at Dulles says he's constantly having to shoo parents away from putting their toddlers onto aiplanes well behind that barriers.
He once said that one of the primary reasons they hung the Wright Brother's first airplane up in the main museum gallery because people used to try to climb all over the thing many years back...

You know, if you want to create a display that probably won't hurt anybody, or a valuable historic locomotive, there's all kinds of orphan loco cabs laying around Larry's that might be for sale. Leave it at ground level, put a walkway around it, and let the kids pose in the cab as the engineer. If you were ambitious, you could put it up against the wall of an equipment barn and paint a tunnel portal around it to make it look like it was emerging with a train.

The Workshops Railway Museum in Ipswich (Australia) is government-funded and very well laid out. They have an old diesel loco cab set up with Train Sim and there's nearly always a queue of kids of all ages to "drive a train".
I think we all realise the need to have hands-on experiences at museums and this one works really well.
It probably wouldn't cost that much to set up as long as you have a loco cab lying about.
Cheers, Bob

I've yet to see a better kids area than the one at the RRMofPA. From wooden toys and LEGOs to a huge G scale switching game, a youngster can spend hours in there. I humbly suggest that it is a model for larger museums to follow.

Rob