I get the kid thing for sure. My grandkids are very keen on the o scale stuff; we have thrown down tubular every holiday they are around and done some crazy things crossing the entirety of rooms. One year we had o42 and smaller laid out in a weird sort of dog leg with a cross at 90 and a cross at 45, so double crossing itself. They loved that. We did it because it was the only way to get all of the passenger cars on the track due to their length. This year, its the 30" MTH bridge w/ lights + trestles. That has gone over immensely well.
Our daughter thought, is MUCH more keen on things from an engineering point of view. She is dying to go to one of the Steam Days at B&O railroad museum, and wants to check out the real Allegheny up against the not so real but scale sized one we just got (that has yet to see runtime!!!).
We have a TON of n scale stuff from Kato complete with a sound box and chips for the sets we have, all with light and sound. Train stations, passing sections, pretty much everything we see when we go to Japan for family or visit. For her, its a real treat. The grandkids? MEH, break out the big trains. Hah!
