Thomas is big with kids with autism because I think, the faces dont change much and are easier to deal with.
As for the technical pars, occasionally they discuss technical things like bumpers, switches, water areas, breaking, and once I remember they showed a train with an automatic sand dispenser to help with a trains traction.
Not to mention that all of them are based on real engines and rolling stock. FWIW, the draw for me has always been the story behind the layout as much as the rolling stock itself. A basic starter set is pretty uninteresting until you add the story of how the engineer was running late and they have to get the cargo there on time because,…etc.
The really big layouts have stories behind them as well, all created from the mind of the people that build it. It’s those details that I find interesting now.
There’s also no body language to interpret- it’s all the faces and the actual dialogue, so it’s a much simpler thing to process, I suspect.
Those who snobbishly look down on railfans and railfandom – considering themselves socialites and cool cats, to a standard at which, such nerdery is utterly beneath them – can be imagined as commenting, “Yes, that figures”. 
And if one is part of a club you build a section of track with landscaping to join with the other members track and then you take that to traveling shows where the clubs trains run on all the sections. So you might build say a circus scene which will sit next to a tornado scene or whatever.
I always thought that was because girls wanted to be the icons of total power, control, and authority while boys used whatever tools were at their disposal to try to keep them from laying waste to the landscape as far as the eye could see.
“Now, you play nice with your sister…!”
I don’t make a special effort to seek out train shows, but I have toured a couple of railroad museums and didn’t die of boredom.
As far as other motorized things, not so much, although I do remember the Christmas my sister and I went apeshit because we got the Hot Wheels Hazard Hill Race Set we had begged our parents for. We played with that thing for hours and hours.
PS- in case I have to say it about my post, Of Course I was kidding.
We had train & car sets growing up. Santa got the boys a Lionel for the tree many years back.
The kids have a Sizzler set from when they re-released them a few years back too.
So maybe that’s why my mom kept giving me dolls at every excuse,when I’d ask for the farm set.
She’d ask what I wanted,I’d tell her and I’d get another damn doll which,like the other 297 would be taken out in the yard and the dog and I would play a rousing game of “Fetch”:mad:
She’d tell me"If you don’t want to play with them,you should put them on a shelf and look at them":smack:
Do you think she wanted dolls so much when she was a child that she was really buying them for herself? Maybe trying to push me into the “girl” mold? Gaaah,I don’t know,but I’ve thought about this a lot ( too much:()
This is along the lines of that old story:
Men view relationships the way women view cars: they stay the same, no need to pay much attention, always run along smoothly as you expect them to.
Women view relationships the way men view cars: you have to listen to them, tune them up, not take them for granted, work on them regularly.
See, that’s me. I want to simply turn the key and have my car go where I want it to, without having to think about alternators or oil pressure or differentials, which interest me not in the slightest. I want to switch on my laptop and have it go to the Dope (or Pornhub, whichever; depends on what sort of wanking I’m in the mood for). I love to look at beautiful cars, but it’s all about the aesthetics for me. And I’m a middle-aged guy.
Very well put. It’s not nearly to the extent that women in stereotypically masculine fields get, but I catch a fair amount of crap about being interested in things like costume history, fountain pens, and calligraphy. As well as a degree of incredulity at not being interested in basketball, guns, or tools.
To me, this seems kind of strange; I find a degree of satisfaction, although not pleasure, in finding the best way to accomplish the task at hand, and that usually entails making sure the machine is well-maintained, and using the appropriate settings to do the best job. My wife just views it as a task to complete, and wants to just hit “Go”, and doesn’t really care about anything other than that it gets done to some minimum standard. Overall, I have less trouble than she does with things like food particles on washed dishes, or soap streaks on laundry, and I attribute it to having read the manual and paying attention to how the machine works versus my wife’s approach of just hitting “Go”.
I don’t have an interested in tinkering for its own sake, but I’ve learned that the machine is most likely to actually work when you push START if you know how to take care of the darned thing. I am probably one of the very few people here who actually reads the manual of any new car I purchase and note maintenance items and schedules.
Basically, yes, I like to just push “go” and have the machine go, but (especially since my aviation days) I tend to be a bit hyperaware of the functioning of the machine, the sounds, the motions, etc. If they the least bit off from normal I notice it. I usually can’t diagnose or fix it, but I can almost always describe the “symptoms” well enough for someone qualified to make a good guess at what’s wrong.
Oh, no question that machines work easier and better if they’re maintained regularly and used correctly; I too read manuals and directions. The difference between you and I, or you and your wife, is that you enjoy understanding the machine; I don’t, and it sounds like your wife doesn’t either. You’re about the process, where I just care about the result. I intellectually understand your enjoyment. I just don’t share it.
Maybe including some of the model train “culture” itself. Last year I was visiting the park down in San Diego with some friends from Iraq (all women), and we wandered into the model railroad club. They were utterly fascinated, (I could hardly get them to leave), but I think a lot of that was because they couldn’t have imagined people going to such lengths. (I also don’t think they were picking up on some of the subtext to the model railroad guy’s discourse–though you can be the judge, with the video here: “There’s a dead man in the trunk.”)
I understand that even very young peers will enforce the stereotypes.
My favorite story of the “full- ongender-bias conspiracy” come from an anthropolgy teacher told a story of a woman who was able to correctly identify the sex of the little bundled newborn babies in the hospital nursery, even without pink/blue cues. If a baby had even 4 hairs on its head, the nurses parted them for boys and ‘swirled’ them for girls. The story is a bit old, I can’t speak for it’s accuracy or currency.
Santa is suppose to bring what is asked for.
No, it’s because girls who loved and always wanted a model train set would never get one because it was seen as a boys toy so their requests would be ignored cause their parents thought playing with trains would make them lesbian or infertile or some bs.
Sooo much to say. Sooo not gonna.
This happened to me with the Erector Set.
I think the trains going 'round are one of the few meditative activities available to men - or have been historically. It’s a lot like fiber arts in that there is a repetitive mindlessness that one can fall into, with occasional bursts of concentrated creativity (making the little towns.)
Pottery is more of a rural man’s field, but less often a suburban man’s hobby, and has some of the same elements. Wood lathing is another one. Guys who get into that are REALLY into it.
Women are more likely to knit, crochet, throw pots, paint, or play an instrument. The divisions in what kinds of pass times are considered appropriate go back hundreds of years, at least. I’m betting Roman little boys had toy soldiers and boats, and little girls had yarn and looms.
You’ve got to be taught.