Have any of you been to RR museums, large or small, that also set up a display for young girls, and if so, what were they?

i must admit to be being vexed by the question, despite being the father of 3 daughters who unusually grew up operating M19 motorcars and riding steam engines.

We don't have an operating train yet, which everyone loves, so we are left to the static and interactive displays to capture and hold interest.

Any thoughts/comments appreciated.

Matt Bumgarner

I'm not sure you would need a young girl specific display or location. This is based on, of all things, the experience of Lionel with toy trains in the 1950s.

Toy and model railroads have long had a strong masculine feel, but Lionel was surprised to find market research that indicated girls like to play with trains, too.

So some marketing "genius" at Lionel convinced the management that it was a good idea to market directly to girls. The result was the "Lady Lionel" set, which was infamous for pastel freight cars and a pink locomotive to pull them.

The set was a huge flop; I understand a lot of the sets were returned to Lionel, and at least the locomotives were repainted and resold in traditional black.

Of course, as a result of this fiasco, original "Lady" sets are now quite rare (and thus are valuable to the collector guys).

What Lionel should have remembered, and perhaps we need to remember, too, is that girls like trains for the same reasons boys do--which in the case of steam engines, is because they are big and loud--and seemingly alive.

I used to have a model railroad display at a local heritage days in Martinsburg, W.Va. One of the things that was interesting were the women who came to the display and said they were model railroaders themselves--and that one of the reasons they were so now is that they were frustrated in their childhood, when their fathers and brothers wouldn't let them "play with trains!"

I would say all you would have to do would be to welcome those girls (and their mothers and grandmothers, too).

Start by checking with your Girl Scout troops, and find out what they require for a transportation merit badge. Have an exhibit expressly showing women who are either locomotive engineers, or or who hold posts in the field, where the action is. Talk about the young women who do carpentry and bend wrenches at Strasburg. Provide hands on exhibits using real demo equipment. Provide hard hats, eye protection, and gloves. Allow them to throw a switch. Have them do some simple wiring, with easy to follow instructions (they are kids, right?). Provide a list of jobs they could aspire to in railroading, and not just office work. Girls want to be given a chance to stand on equal footing with boys. They want options.

A railroad exhibit for kids, not just girls will bring schools and troops back in successive years. There are grants available to develop this kind of stuff, and you should make it a goal to get that kind of funding. Involve public school teacher in developing content. A railroad exhibit inclusive of females will change lives.

One bit of advice I've been told from other fields:

You can "outreach" until you're blue in the face to young women, but it'll go right past them unless/until a WOMAN says it to them. Even better if they talk about it as if it's perfectly normal and expected, not like "Oh, you can be scientists/mechanics/athletes, too!" in a barely condescending tone.

My mother, a newspaper editor/publisher, was in demand for "Career Day" in our local schools for that reason.

Just take them to the RR museums and to ride trains whenever you can. I started doing this with my daughter when she was 3 years old. When in college, she would organize trips to the local RR museum for her classmates. She is now 47, a professor, and still loves trains. It's mostly about sharing the experience. Dads have a lot of influence on their daughters. If it's special to you, it'll be special to them.

You cannot force anyone to like much anything. It's all based on what they're exposed to in their childhood. That's how I grew up to like trains. It's a long process that not just one event can change. It can take hours, months, or even years for a girl to like something that a boy can get attached to much more easily. One exhibit for girls unfortunately would be ineffective, as it singled them out in a way. That's why the Lionel set didn't work, and why you don't see exhibits just for girls.


It really doesn't work for other types of museums as well, but since this is a railroad page, I will not address those.

Young girls like playing with railroad toys (brio, geotrax) as much as any boy. They make trolleys, too, so traction museums can take advantage of this as well. They also like playing dress-up, so a rack of clothes such as overalls or even old style poofy dresses modified so that can be buttoned in the back, along with a backdrop for photos would probably be popular.

Teenage girls, good luck there. You have to hope their father/grandfather/boyfriend brings them along. Twenty one and over just offer alcohol and they'll show up.

Rachel is featured right on the front page of our website website and in this video:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=lmurB5geAtk

There are a few of our lady volunteers in group photos and materials that are a part of our marketing, too.

In recent years, formerly gender neutral toys have been very intensely "gender-typed" by managements who think they need to do that I guess. It's had a big social effect. Here's a video that describes it. https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=rZn_lJoN6PI
She also has a 2-part video going deeper into the genderizing of Lego specifically... and it's surprising.

Anyway that's what we're up against.

Anita's messages and others have started to have an effect on manufacturers and retailers, nothing will get changed overnight of course.

Let us not forget that whatever you think of her politics, Rachel Maddow is a huge supporter of passenger rail service, infrastructure improvement and Amtrak. She got that from somewhere.

Fixed that for you.

And, yes, she "got" that from "somewhere" as well. But that's not quite on topic.

The opposite is true.

If you sell products, you will *not* try to put your ideological agenda on your customers, but you take care of your customers' needs. Anybody who sells products knows that. How many commercials do you know where the girl loses and the man wins? It's the other way round, as the companies know most products are being bought by women, even if men usually work harder and thus make more money.

In reaching customers (or girls in this case), rather listening to scientists than to feminist video blogs may help. Science says that the differences between boys and girls are determined before birth.

Amongst bursting other bubbles, this video explains how and why the differences between boys and girls are as they are.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=p5LRdW8xw70

The journalist Harald Eia visits scientists worldwide and finds out things like new born babys behaving gender-specific on the first day of their life - without any alleged "gender-typing". You find this here.

As to girls liking trains this may be worth citing from professor Simon Baron-Cohen in the documentary:

"Its a genetic condition where you produce too much testosterone" (-in the womb, before birth-) . "And girls with this condition show a very masculine pattern of toy preferences".


All the RR associations are male dominated and founded by men. Most of the money put in the upkeep comes from men.

Every "girls only" action taken by a museum or association may turn off boys nowadays. Boys are already being discriminated on in kindergartens, schools, universities and so on. If you make them feel second choice even in their leisure time, they may leave. I don't think it is worth giving gender privileges to win one girl if you lose (or don't win) ten boys instead.

I don't go for the "girls are being discriminated upon"-mantra anyway. We are not living in the 50's anymore. I don't know anybody in the RR scene who hinders girls/women he knows to get into RRing. Rather the opposite, as lots of women in the RR associations are the partners of active male members.

The declining interest in RRs in sight, we should rather be glad for every new member no matter where he comes from. And I believe we are not in the position to select by gender.

Brought up on another forum:

Currently on television:

https://www.ispot.tv/ad/AHFZ/lincoln-wi ... tmas-train

Commercial for a Lincoln Navigator featuring a girl, toy trains becoming real (drool, PRR fans!), and her becoming an engineer.

Another reason to move forward on K4s #1361. If only for our daughters sake?

I have to say over the past 16 years I have been involved with my local RR museum, and during our times carrying the flag to other venues and especially the Amhearst RR Show in Springfield, Ma, there has been an explosion over the last 7-10 years of females at the shows. These are more than the Moms bringing their young boys to the shows, they are the single females (usually in small flocks of 2-5), mothers/grandmothers/aunts with daughters or fathers/grandfathers/uncles with daughters visiting the shows, booths all the while carrying light step ladders or buckets so they can see over the layouts.

I think if we could get the parents to stop over scheduling the lives of the kids we would see more visitors, especially at the smaller lower priced museums, but how do you do that?

Also during the same time period we have had more females volunteering or expressing interest in volunteering at the museum, albeit they are still a small group, but a growing group. It seems to also help brake the ice with the young gals having a few active female volunteers to talk to, for those that are a bit on the shyer side, even if they are in passing, the docent or during the tour.

Rich C.