I have a small 3'x7' layout that I show at some of the shows. My problem is equipment being knocked over by children (a and lot of FATHERS)!!! I have a chain set up, but they move it up or go under it. Any ideas???? Thanks MopHead
Too involved,but a related solution,,Get a big dog,and train him to think it's his.. Seriously,other than a boundary 5 feet away that you can't physically cross,no hope..I've had a 14 year old niece come in my train room.I said,"whatever you do,don't pick up ANYTHING..Just to be a smarta$$,she GRABBED a custom painted Reading GP35 off a running train,looks me right in the eye with this snotty look on her face and said:"You mean Like this"?? I grabbed her phone out of her hand,and tossed it in the toilet..:"No,more like this.." Haven't seen her since..[Hmmm..Wonder why?]
Well there is always the touch it and break it and you bought sign that deters a few. Lexan strips around the accessible sides of the layout at least keeps things from hitting the floor. And of course the suggested electric fence, plus cattle prod, stun gun and pepper spray.
A 4-6" high cover of clear 1/4" acrylic, fastened with cabinet latches on all four sides. This way your viewers have full visibility, but their fingers are kept out of reach. The downside is having to clean it every few hours.
My club has several modular layouts that we take to shows. We do not use any barricades around them and we occasionally have children try to touch the moving trains and sometimes derail them. Usually we have enough manpower to patrol around to thwart evildoers. One of our members who has a nicely detailed N scale 3' X 5' layout that sits on a table, uses thin plexiglass to protect it and this does work. It does impede close up viewing and photography. With our T-Trak layout we try to set the modules back from the edge so little viewers can rest their arms on the tables and not touch the modules and this does work too, but there are always the unruly ones who never listen to their parents or us not to touch. We have a rope barricade for the HO layout but it is not that effective.
I have a small portable layout I take to the Bedford show, have done it for four years. It's more by accident than by choice, but because the control panel is on the front, I have to sit in FRONT of the layout, on a chair, to operate it, and I'm the guard dog. Instead of behind it like most modular layouts I see. There are tables to the left and right, so there's no way anybody is getting in behind it either. I've had some wonderful interactions with kids, actually. I'm not sure what it is, but being in front of it seems to both enforce respect and stimulate conversation. One thing I have handy at all times are a couple 'scrap' cars, and couple of pieces of track, to hand to little ones that just have to touch something. Here, you can touch this. I've had to gently intercept fingers a couple times, sure, but in four years the only damage I've taken has been my own ham-handedness. The layout also has a full plywood cover box that fits around it, so if I have to leave, I can slide the cover on in moments.
This is what the clubs I have been in try to do. It's better to be out there talking to the public and interacting anyway.
How about a rotating beacon and a siren ! If ya see someone reaching...hit a button ! The flashing beacon and siren would probably make most adults and kids run screaming from the building...LOL. :teeth:
You could try clear acrylic sides that come up 8-10" above the railroad or top of fascia. It wouldn't exactly be a cheap endeavor. It would give it more a display case type look. A sign might deter one or two people, but not the masses. Plus it could come across as unfriendly. In the end, it's a public display so anything can and usually does happen. Not sure you can really deter it. Dave
Best solution is to raise the level of the layout so the kids have to stand on a chair. Have some chairs around (provided by the set up location) so the parents can grab one. It is either that or the parents have to hold the child. Just be sure that the chair is away from the layout.
l have many horror stories to tell but mainly we just keep a vigilant eye on the barrier crashers. The event that really got me was the time that a college student (we were set up in the rotunda at the Bush Presidential Library in College Station, Texas) stretched the stanchion chains and leaned over to start throwing switches and revving up the throttles on our NTRAK layout. It caused a bunch of derailments. He claimed that the controls should not be in reach of the public when he had to really stretch to reach them. I was about to strangle him when the library security came up and one at each arm literally lifted him off the ground and carried him out the front door. His parents following meekly behind. The guards had been watching the whole event from the beginning and move in quickly to settle things.
Make a 'peashooter' out of an old BIC pen or straw. Not only gets their attention...but easily worth hours of fun...LOL. Ahhhhhhhhh 'spitwads" !! Funny I can remember the fun times from my school days...but still have a hard time grasping math...roflmao :teeth:
John Sing took a good shot: http://www.pbase.com/atsf_arizona/image/137618526 18x36", and now there is a second module 21x42" that was down to Bedford this year. The height thing works too. I have a friend with a layout with height set at 52", and he set up a 'viewing island' in the aisle so that kids could climb up and see everything, but it was out of reach. Worked well when both our kids were little.
Ironically, even with my T-Trak modules, I have not had any trouble with kids. Parents on the other hand, I could write a book about. The most recent was a short coal train on the outer edge of the curve when a 50 something woman pointed "look at the long choo choo!" and of course as she pointed she derailed it with her fake manicured nails. Her 6 year old girl looks at me with a stunned look, but I knew it was the mom/grandmother that did it. The woman starts ranting, "the Train fell off, I didn't touch it!, I was just watching!" Hands in the air, making a big scene. I quietly re-railed the coal train and ignored her. Now if she had blamed the child, I would have given the woman a piece of my mind. My latest endeavor are six 18-inch X 4-foot modules in an L shape for a switching layout to be taken to shows. The legs are at 54" high, right in what some here call "I hate children" realm. Sorry, even at my towering 5' 4", I like to see my trains at this realistic level.
