Gentlemen,
I did have a play area on the big layout where the kids could play with the cars and people, along with a push train. It's not the kids that cause the destructive problems, most times it's the parents who do not teach their kids respect for other people's property that really cause the problems. I learned to judge the parents before I let their kids near my multi level O Gauge home Train layout. Never really had a problem even with the Deaf kids, who really play rough with their toys. Once you know how liberal the parents are with their teaching & discipline, you know which kids you can safely let near your layout. Also having a Deaf Daughter taught me a lot about hands on kids, the teachers at the Deaf school (WPSD) were amazed at how the Deaf kids respected the big O Gauge Train layouts at Christmas time, because I taught and allowed them to play with & run the layouts. The Christmas Trains at the Deaf school were for everyone to play with, and if a child broke something the child was to bring it to me immediately. Few things ever got broken, and nobody was allowed to play Gomez Adams, unless their parents were willing to pay for all the damages, the Deaf School in that era was expensive enough without adding additional cost. Granted this was all done in the early 70's when we did have better more disciplined parenting, the liberal crazies of the Dr Spock era hand not fully arrived yet.
PCRR/Dave
