Strollerderby : trains

PBS Launching Dinosaur Train for Science Kids

JeanneSager — Wed, 27 May 2009 16:01:00 GMT

For parents who have fallen in love with Sid the Science Kid (who hasn't?), good news! PBS is going prehistoric this fall with a new show aimed at expanding their offerings for our little scientists.

Dinosaur Train will let our kids hop onboard with Buddy, a young T-Rex adopted by a family of Pterandons

I haven't seen the show yet, but I'm A. loving that there's a show out there for all those dinosaur fans - and we all know there are many and B. digging the fact that there's an adopted kid on TV for adopted kids to relate to . . . even if it is a kid with two giant feet and two teeny hands!

Produced by The Jim Henson Company, the show will feature two eleven-minute segments daily with live-action interestitials featuring paleontologist Scott Sampson (you've seen him on Discovery Channel's Dinosaur Planet) dishing out dino nuggets (with no extra calories). The train alluded to in the name will take Buddy and his family and friends on adventures through time, chugga-chugga-ing to the Triassic, Jurassic and Cretaceous periods.

Can't wait? Set your Tivo for Sept. 7.

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Crush of the Week: Mister Conductor, Shining Time Station

editors — Mon, 13 Apr 2009 14:00:00 GMT

Whoever plays the uniformed, whistle-blowing magic train conductor in the Thomas series, and we're talking Ringo, George Carlin or (in The Great Discovery movie) young Alec Baldwin, is hot. Maybe it's the uniform, maybe it's the authority. Maybe it’s that the Conductor stands out as particularly alive because of the slightly terrifying wide-eyed animatronic trains.

And for that, he is our Crush of the Week --Ada Calhoun

Photo: Areavoices.com

Three-Year-Old Riding Subway Alone Likes Trains

JeanneSager — Thu, 19 Feb 2009 16:35:00 GMT

Remember the shock and furor over the nine-year-old boy riding the subway in New York City all by himself last summer? It could be worse.

A three-year-old who snuck away from his mom in a McDonald's in Queens somehow made it to a subways station, through the turnstiles and onto a train. He made it through seven stations before a passenger alerted police. Ironically, a police detective entering the McDonald's to buy his lunch encountered the boy's mom frantically searching for the child, and the two were able to be reunited within half an hour.

The woman had turned away for a moment to throw out some garbage when her three-year-old made his getaway. Unless you live in a major city, this particular situation isn't likely to crop up.

But it does make a good case for thinking like a child when one goes missing. Little Christian Marquez likes trains, his dad told the New York Times in an interview after the family was reunited. No surprise there - I haven't met a three-year-old who doesn't have an affinity for Thomas and friends. No surprise either that he hopped aboard a train - something he's probably done countless times with Mom and Dad and loves to do.

When your kids run off - in a store or even at home, do you start thinking about their favorite things to do and play with when you look for them? Would you know where to start looking first?

Image: MollyKnight

Police Called on 10-Year-Old Riding Train Alone

Miriam Axel-Lute — Mon, 29 Dec 2008 17:00:00 GMT

The nervous nellies strike again. This time a 10-year-old boy was riding on the Long Island Railroad to see his friend last Friday. His friend's family was going to pick him up at the station. He'd done the ride dozens of times before. LIRR has no policy about what age is too young to ride alone, but his mom had talked to them before his first ride, and they said 10 sounded fine.

But not to one hovering conductor, who not only called the police, but wouldn't talk to the boy's mother when he called her after being harassed. Mr. conductor then held up the train at the station the boy was traveling to and wouldn't let him leave with his friends' parents until the police came and basically told the guy he was overreacting and should chill.

The scary thing is, these days, one could just as easily believe the police taking the conductor's side and charging the parents with negligence or some such nonsense. I've heard of some very scary official reactions to children who were well-trained in safety precautions doing exactly what they were supposed to do with the full knowledge, but not immediate presence, of their parents.

This particular story was posted over at Free Range Kids, a site devoted to reclaiming kids' rights to move about freely in the world. Lenore Skenazy, the columnist who founded it, writes that at the same time as she was being depicted as a devil in the media for writing about the freedom she gave her son, individuals kept coming up to her and recounting what they'd been able to do as a kid and how much they'd valued it.

It's true for me: I walked alone to the bus stop starting at 6 or 7, school itself at 9, and wandered my block and then my neighborhood freely from around then too. And the world actually hasn't gotten anymore dangerous since then, at least not in any of the ways people cite when they say this is a bad idea. (Of course even when I was a teenager and my mother told me to take a bus to the mall, the people around her reacted as if she'd asked me to go panhandle outside a strip club. But sadly, that was probably at least as much to do with the class difference of who takes short-distance buses vs trains in NJ as with stranger paranoia.)

What about you? Are you more worried about what might happen to your kids (or you) if they are given their freedom, or if they aren't?

Photo by Spring Dew.

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Couple Boards Train and Takes Luggage; Leaves Baby Behind

Karen Murphy — Mon, 31 Dec 2007 19:31:00 GMT

I'd love to be snarky about this, but honestly, I can totally see it happening: you're boarding a train at a busy station, eager to get away from the in-laws after being threatened with never having sex again if you don't go this year without complaining, and you've got the luggage and the tickets, and hello, is there a bar car on this train? and the baby in the stroller, and people are getting on are we going to miss the train? Did you get the bag with all the baby's stuff in it? Okay, I'll get the heavy one and you get that stupid box with the crystal in it that your Uncle Ed insisted on giving us NOW instead of, you know, shipping it, and there's all our bags, count them one, two, three, four, and the box-with-the-crystal, and the baby's bag, and the—OH SHIT! You got the baby, didn't you? I thought you had the baby! You thought I had the baby??! WHERE'S THE BABY???!

So I forget stuff like my keys all the time. I forgot to buckle my son's seat belt once when coming home from taking his two-day-old jaundiced dehydrated sister to the doctor. I forget what people told me, what I said, what I ate last week or sometimes yesterday. So even though a part of me wants to be all judgy like HOW COULD YOU FORGET YOUR FREAKING BABY??, there's another part that totally understands, and both parts are just really really glad nothing bad happened.

So the baby was left strapped into his stroller at a new Brunswick New Jersey train station when both parents boarded thinking the other was getting the baby. Yeah, yeah, total lack of communication (likely they haven't spoken ever since she got pregnant and he saw his life flash before his eyes), but as the train pulled out of the station at least they had the presence of mind to go OH SHIT and tell the conductor who was able to notify police, who then kept an eye on the baby until Dad (clearly never having sex again at this point) could hop off the train at the first stop and take a cab back to the station while Mom silently stewed in her seat all the way home.

End of story, except they'll forever be known as The Couple That Left The Baby Behind.

Photos: commons.wikimedia.org

I'm Going Off The Rails On A Baby Train: Newborn Accidentally Flushed

makeitadouble — Mon, 24 Dec 2007 19:55:00 GMT

When our second child was born my wife wasn’t in a sterilized hospital delivery room surrounded by doctors, nurses, and sweet numbling elixer of a well placed epidural she was squatting over the toilet in our newly renovated upstairs bathroom surrounded by tubes of toothpaste squeezed in the middle, Q-Tips and a can of Lysol. This was not a planned home delivery, but babies come out when they're ready to come out and there’s not a damn thing you can do to stop them or slow them down.

So, when I read about a 36-year old woman who suddenly gave birth in the bathroom of a train traveling from Tai Dong to Tai Pei I immediately felt a connection to her situation. Unlike my wife though who caught our son before he hit the water, this baby was not only dropped into the bowl but was also accidentally flushed.

Amazingly, the newborn was saved by rescue workers but only after spending nearly 2 hours lodged in the pipe leading away from the toilet. The mother, who was nine months pregnant at the time, was hospitalized and both she and the baby are in stable condition.

Oh sure I could reference myself silly with mentions like “Hey Thomas be a really useful engine and go tear up some clean sheets and boil some water”, that sounds like shitty childbirth, " Well I guess horns aren’t the only thing Dinah is blowing", Attempted Murder on the Orient Express, and the Illinois central and the southern central freight got to keep on pushing mama cause you know they’re running late …. but I won’t. (Yeah…I know I just did…)

Maybe the holiday spirit has caused my heart to grow three sizes, maybe it’s the spiked eggnog or maybe I’m just getting less cynical in my old age, but being that today is the eve of the holiest of all nights and the celebration of a miracle birth I will simply be thankful that this child miraculously survived the ordeal.

Regardless of whether the mother knew what she was doing or whether this situation was caused by an accidental delivery and a powerful auto-flusher, this child gets a chance to live and, equally important, to be loved; because if you think about it, without love, where would you be now?

Delicious Droolicious: Mr. Rogers' Neighborhood Nostalgia

Rachael Brownell (Redsy) — Tue, 27 Nov 2007 15:46:00 GMT

Posted by Mir

It doesn't matter if your little darling has never seen Mr. Rogers change his shoes or feed the fish; this wooden replica of his famed trolley is made in the USA and comes with a lifetime guarantee. They'll enjoy playing with it, and you'll enjoy the memories. $64.99 at Amazon.

Other pretties at Droolicious:

Stackable arches for nonlinear thinkers
Bookmaking kits
Little cookies for your little cookie

Things Fall Apart: More Crazy Trains Recalled

Kelly Mills — Tue, 21 Aug 2007 21:01:00 GMT

I dream of a day when I can get through a whole hour without reading anything that says "toy recall," "lead paint," and "manufactured in China." That day has not come yet. Now Hampton Direct is recalling about 27,000 magnetic train sets for, you guessed it, excessive lead paint. And the trains were made in, you guessed it, Antarctica. Naw, it's China, I'm just trying to mix it up a little. Kids, be careful, because all your toys have gone bad.

The trains have an alphabet letter on them and they were sold from December 2005 to last month by Johnson Smith Company, The Paragon Gifts Inc., and Starcrest Products of California. If you have one of these trains, dump it and contact Hampton Direct for a replacement train that hopefully isn't loaded with lead. Call Hampton Direct at (800) 208-4050 between 9 a.m. and 4:30 p.m. ET Monday through Friday, or visit the firm�s Web site at www.hamptondirect.com or e-mail trainrecall@hamptondirect.com .

What's the Deal With Little Boys and Trains?

Karen Murphy — Sat, 18 Aug 2007 16:38:00 GMT

My son Nathaniel, now 11, had a thing for trains when he was little. It was anything with wheels, basically, but trains had top priority. It began innocently enough with some wooden Brio trains and a bit of track. We now own miles of track and probably a hundred lead-laden Thomas engines.

But riding ACTUAL trains was always way better than anything he could play with, and on his birthday every year we'd all take the commuter train to a stop not far away and have dinner. It's what he wanted more than anything, even more than playing a summertime game of "Ambulance Train" (don't ask, but it did involve lots of running, falling, and scraped knees).

Apparently Nathaniel is not alone. And judging by the sheer number of items in the various stores around here selling model trains and accessories, it's evident that some kids don't outgrow this fascination with trains. So I loved this essay on CNN.com about a train ride with a dad and his boy.

Those magic moments don't come often, but they last forever, don't they? What magic moments will YOU always remember?

Babble Talk: A Day Out With a Boy and a Train

Alisyn — Fri, 29 Jun 2007 14:55:00 GMT

I have girls, so Thomas the Tank Engine has never really been a part of our lives. Not that girls can't like trains, of course - in fact, my girls love their Brio train tracks and battery operated train engine - but they typically don't go nutso for trains, planes, cars or any other form of transportation, the way their male counterparts do.

Personally, I find Thomas a little creepy - I think it's his face. It's like a John Wayne Gacy painting or something. And Sir Topham Hatt? What's his deal? I don't even want to know. But I admire Katherine Ozment's whole-hearted attempts to experience, with her train-loving toddler son, the Thomas and friends phenomenon with an open mind and a heart full of love. I can relate to the way she and her husband went round and round about whether or not to introduce William to their local "Day Out With Thomas" event, and in the end, decided "how could we not?", because it reminds me of my own family's ongoing too-young-for-Disneyland? conversation. Unlike the Ozments, we have yet to reach a resolution, but thinking about seeing living, breathing "princesses" through my 4.5 year old has cast on a whole new light on the idea.

You really do get to experience childhood again when you have kids - even if you have to force yourself at first. Being a kid is tough, even the second time around.

Things Fall Apart: The I Always Knew Thomas Trains Were Evil Edition

Karen Murphy — Thu, 14 Jun 2007 12:27:00 GMT

Ever since I saw that freaky little Thomas the Tank Engine's creepy googly eyes I knew something was really off about him. And that James! Have you seen him? So proud of his shiny red coat of paint, always thinking he's better than the other engines...

Well, James gets his comeuppance, that cheeky little twit, 'cause his little red ass is being recalled, along with about 1.5 million of his little red friends. The reason? That shiny red coat of paint is chock-full of toxic lead, and so is the shiny yellow paint on some other pieces. The irony here? I've got a huge basket full of these damn trains, and I know we have at least 5 of those pictured. So maybe you do too. Check the recall site for the models affected, and then you can contact the manufacturer for a replacement.

Decorating Your Kid's Room with a Model Train Set

Jessica Ashley (Sassafrass) — Tue, 15 May 2007 18:28:00 GMT

I wasn't the kind of person who got all amped up to see a backhoe loader or steam locomotive until I had a boy who gets all amped up about these kinds of vehicles (he also loves to wear my bracelets and file his nails with an emory board, so don't go revoking my feminist mama membership card just yet). The change has come on with such furiousness that I looked out the car window the other day and squealed, "Look! A crane!" To this, my husband dryly said, "Ummm, yeah. Dial it down. The kid's not even in the car."

Whether my boy's on board or not, I am also pretty excited about the model railroad decorating tips Geekdad's suggesting for kid's rooms (or mommy's rooms or...wherever). The design is simple -- a shelf-like track up near the ceiling rather than taking up space on the floor or a table -- but the cool part comes in the pass-through tunnel so the train runs in and out of the closet. I got a little giddy thinking how much fun it would be to watch from a lofted bed or even bunks.

I'm pretty sure my landlord won't care if we burrow into the dry wall to build sweet tracks like these through our apartment. You know, for the boy.

Now They're Saying Harry Potter is Responsible for Making Model Trains Popular

Sarah, Goon Squad Sarah — Sun, 04 Mar 2007 16:37:00 GMT

I have read all of the Harry Potter books. I have seen all of the Harry Potter movies. I enjoy J.K. Rowlings writing and I think that anything that encourages children to read is good. I even agree that the popularity of the Potter series has brought on a new wave of fantasy series for children and that the whole thing has been wonderful for getting kids interested in reading novels.

But is Harry Potter responsible for making model trains popular? This Reuters article by Reuven Fenton thinks so. Ever since Lionel trains released "Harry Potter" and "The Polar Express" versions of their model trains their sales have been up almost 40%. That being said, they are also selling them in Target and Macy's stores instead of just hobby shops. If you add that with the huge success of Thomas the Tank Engine and little boy testosterone in general it doesn't surprise me one bit that sales are up, and I don't think it is fair to give Harry Potter any credit for the resurgence in popularity.

My son is totally into trains and he has never seen Harry Potter. I don't even think he's heard of Harry Potter, but in his classroom at school they have some little Thomas and Friends engines and some tracks. Even my daughter likes putting the tracks together. I think Lionel just finally decided to market the winning product they were already making.