The Euros have a lot of HO train stuff, especially the vintage stuff from W. Germany. You can have a lot of detail in a small area, but you may find you are more 'into-it' than they are. Kids want tablet action games, not toys of the 1960's.
Like many kids who grew-up in the '50's and '60's, I was heavily-involved in slot cars. I had 1/32 at first, but went to 1/87 (HO or "half of "O" gauge," which is 1/43-scale). I had about a quarter of my bedroom devoted to a 4' x 13' landscaped track, and that's where I learned to maintain machinery, basics of electricity, carpentry, soldering skills, and patience.
I have some pics of half-a-century old stuff I still have from those times, balsa-wood buildings I built for the layout, modeled after famous racetracks in Europe, the Aurora Model Motoring HO cars I painted-up like the cars I saw in the Road & Track, Sports Cars Illustrated, Car Life, and other magazines my Dad used to bring-home to me, and the hardware I bought to replace the stock Aurora speed controllers, which were shaped like dashboards w/small steering wheels, where 'turning right' made it speed-up, and 'turning left' made it slow-down.' Those were soon junked for Tower Engineering (Valley Stream NY) proper rheostat thumb-controllers like nearly-all systems used whatever the scale, w/the notable exception of Russkit trigger controls, where you used your index finger to work the rheostat. Wiring those up was my intro to electrical formulas and theory, as you needed the correct impedance for your controller, or you didn't modulate the speed effectively. And there was the constant threat of ozone in the air, which meant your armature you had just experimented with re-winding, has just given up the ghost, sometimes generating enough heat to melt the plastic integrated chassis/motor that the Aurora cars used for their cars. I was in it early-enough to have some AC Aurora cars before the 'Thunderjet' pancake armature cars combined the motor case w/the chassis, in the DC design, which was far-faster.
Here is a pic of some of my cars I still have. Sorry for the poor quality, it's a 'pic of a pic' since my internet server is holding-onto things today instead of immediately posting. They are: '65 Mustang, '64 Buick Riviera, Dino Ferrari, Cobra GT, Ford GT "Breadbox" design, Porsche 904, Chapparal, Ford GT, '58 Thunderbird, a rare 'Model Motoring' motorcycle (they didn't corner very-well, too top-heavy, so they weren't popular, making them more-valuable today; and a Mercedes 190 SL.
It all just sits in a couple of old tackle boxes I've had for 50+ years, and I still have a set of track I bought off ebay, one of my first purchases there after getting rid of my original track in one of my many household moves, but I always held-onto the cars.
Beware there is a train monkey cousin of the VMax ModMonkey!
unk:<<Dave>>
