Terrific Trains

SCIENTIFIC TRAINS  

	How Trains Work has great illustrated (and reader-friendly) information on the history and science of trains, with a helpful resource list.
	Are hydrogen-fueled trains the wave of the future?
	Train Tracks is a hands-on experiment that demonstrates how trains go around corners. It’s harder than you might think.
	Build a Levitating Train using magnets, similar in concept to the phenomenal Maglev trains now being used in Europe and Japan.
	See this Anti-Gravity Maglev kit for ages 8 and up.

  RAILROAD SONGS AND POEMS  

	From Smithsonian Folkways, Classic Railroad Songs (2006) is a collection of 29 traditional songs by various musicians, among them “Jay Gould’s Daughter,” “Rock Island Line,” “John Henry,” “Casey Jones,” and “Wabash Cannonball.” Available for purchase either as a CD or download.
	One of the best known of all American railroad songs is I’ve Been Working on the Railroad. Turns out it’s got a complicated history.
	Robert Louis Stevenson’s poem From a Railway Carriage has a wonderful beat like a speeding train: “Faster than fairies, faster than witches,/Bridges and houses, hedges and ditches;/And charging along like troops in a battle/All through the meadows the horses and cattle…”
	In W.H. Auden’s Night Mail, a train carries the mail: “This is the night mail crossing the Border/Bringing the cheque and the postal order/Letters for the rich, letters for the poor/The shop at the corner, the girl next door…”
	From T.S. Eliot’s Old Possum’s Book of Practical Cats (Harcourt Children’s Books, 2009), Skimbleshanks: The Railway Cat is the cat without whom the Night Mail just can’t go.
	Edna St. Vincent Millay’s Travel evokes all the romance of train travel: “My heart is warm with friends I make/And better friends I’ll not be knowing;/Yet there isn’t a train I wouldn’t take/No matter where it’s going.”
	Edited by Peter Ashley, Railway Rhymes (Everyman’s Library, 2007) is a priceless collection of poems celebrating trains and train travel. For teenagers and adults.

ARTS, CRAFTS, AND ACTIVITIES

	From Preschool Express, Trains is a collection of simple train-based art projects and games for little kids.
	Printable Train Craft has nice templates for engine, cars, and caboose, to color and assemble.
	From First Palette, Circus Train is a great papercraft project in which kids assemble a terrific circus train, complete with animals. Included are printable templates, but kids may have more fun making their own.
	From Artists Helping Children, Train Crafts for Kids has a long list of projects, among them cardboard box trains, an egg-carton train, a recycled train (save tin cans), a crocheted train, and more.
	From Melissa & Doug, the Decorate Your Own Train kit includes a chunky unpainted wooden locomotive with instructions, paints, and decals.
	Ed Emberley’s Drawing Book of Trucks and Trains (Little, Brown, 2005) is a step-by-step instruction book in which simple shapes are combined to turn out a series of fantastic trains and trucks. For artists ages 7-10.
	From Days of Wonder, Ticket to Ride is a cool train card game, in which players collect illustrated train cards and use them to complete routes between cities (while avoiding train robbers).  The game includes 96 train cards, 46 destination cards, and a rules booklet. For 2-4 players ages 8 and up.

MODEL TRAINS

	From Chicago’s Museum of Science and Industry, the Great Train Story is an account of the museum’s famous model railroad exhibit (20 trains, 1400 feet of track). Check out the video.
	Lionel, still the primo name in model trains, sells dozens of train sets and accoutrements for beginners on up.
	Visit Hobbylinc for dozens of train sets, including wooden train sets and tracks for younger train fans.
	The Jensen Dry Fuel Steam Engine is a terrific little working replica of an 18th-century steam engine, of the sort used to propel early locomotives. The engine comes in pieces, which must be assembled using a few basic tools (hammer, screwdriver, and pliers); once completed, it’s about eight inches tall, equipped with nickel-plated boiler, throttle valve, ear-piercing whistle, water gauge, and safety valve. The engine runs on dry fuel pellets, which are safe and simple to use. This is one marvelous little machine. Unfortunately it’s also expensive – prices range around $100 – but a worthwhile investment for a truly enthusiastic family of budding engineers.
	The National Toy Train Museum has information on getting started with model railroads (for younger kids and teens), sources for model railroad supplies, activities, and reading lists.