CHOO CHOO!

September 7, 2010 11:35 AM

My son loves little trains! We took him to the model railroad exhibition last winter and he was completely entranced. He's only 2 so heavy museums with lots of stationary artifacts aren't so interesting to him -- he wants to see things moving! But we don't have the space (or frankly the inclination) to maintain a model railroad in our home. Is there a place in or near Seattle where we can see model railroads year-round?
posted by rouftop to Sports, Hobbies, & Recreation (5 answers total)

might be a good place to start
posted by edgeways at 11:42 AM on September 7, 2010

There's a hobby shop in Seattle that does nothing but trains--I don't recall the name, though. Google is your friend.

I've never been in a train-centric hobby shop that didn't have one running in the shop.
posted by Netzapper at 11:42 AM on September 7, 2010

Best answer: Seattle's Train Center. You may find something there. All along the left sidebar are links regarding upcoming shows and exhibits.
posted by routergirl at 11:55 AM on September 7, 2010

A bit of a drive, but the Imagine Children's Museum in Everett has a train setup the kids can play with, as well as a bunch of other cool stuff.
posted by Diddly at 12:16 PM on September 7, 2010

If you're short on space, we picked up a couple of these Thomas sets for our 2 year old. They were pretty cheap on the deal a day site, kids.woot.com. Seems like they come back around every few weeks. They don't take up much room and are easy to assemble and disassemble.
He loves to assemble them himself, though he hasn't quite grasped the concept of linking things together. I'll help him complete a couple of circuits and he'll sit for long stretches of time happily playing and adding tracks. They're the first thing he's ever played with without needing one of us in the same area as him, which is pretty useful for getting stuff done.
posted by IanMorr at 12:50 PM on September 7, 2010