Dennis Terpstra

To build interest in model railroading among the younger generation, when a youngster shows interest, we give them a throttle, a few instructions, and let them run a train. When completed, we give them a signed Junior Engineer Certificate for them to take home. We have now had the same young person show up twice over the past two years at the Puyallup show to run trains. This coming January he’ll be ten years old… we’ll see if he shows up again. The idea is to encourage the young person and his family in model railroading. (We require a parent to join if a new member is a minor.)

The 4dNTRAK group is a modular N scale club with more than 50 modules, ranging in size from 6′ or 4′ long by 2′ or 1′ wide that we arrange in different configurations. We and the other modular groups can be seen at various public shows, including the Lynden Fairground and Maple Valley during October, the Washington State History Museum during the Christmas-New Year’s holidays, the Puyallup Fairgrounds during January, and the Monroe Fairgrounds during February. Because of our wide variety of available modules, we have created over 100 different configurations and have never repeated a layout at a show.During our various public shows, we always talk with visitors about the benefits of model railroading: talking with other train enthusiasts, learning a new hobby, improving skills in building and craftsmanship, and having fun running their own trains on a large layout. But we have discovered that sometimes visitors might not want to initially ask questions when walking by or just observing. Additionally, our club members need to be on the visitor’s side of the layout (not “in the pit”) to make visitors feel more comfortable when engaging in a conversation.

Our youngest club member was 9-years-old and now, at age 25, he continues to participate with us in show layouts. We have had several young people join our club this way.

With this in mind, Al Lowe and I created a tri-fold brochure to be displayed on our layout so that visitors can easily pick it up information without engaging us initially. It is printed in full color, with a QR code that links to our website.