Kids w/Autism who Love Trains - NY Times article

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Just read this article about kids having fun at the New York Transit Museum.

http://www.nytimes.com/2011/08/14/nyreg ... train.html

The article quotes Simon Baron Cohen, who found that the ability to recognize emotions increased in young kids w/autism who watched videos featuring vehicles with human faces.

Thomas the Tank Engine was also mentioned. My youngest child was a fan of Thomas and Friends from the ages of two to four or so. Once we actually got to meet Thomas "in person" and we were even able to ride in a train that "he" pulled for a mile or two up and down the track. It was actually a full-size train, that tours the US (and I'm sure elsewhere too) via the existing railroad system, making public appearances at train stations along the way.

i had a train set when we were kids but it wasn't a special interest. my parents ended up selling it.

star wars on the other hand.. oo boy, that i couldn't tear myself away from

This brings back wonderful memories of me collecting subway maps. The main reason why they like trains is that to them it represents routine. Schedules bring them routine.

I was more interested in The Dukes of Hazard than I was in trains when I was a kid.

I lived near a very seldom-used freight train track when I was little, and I would tend to go watch when a train came, but I wasn't totally into trains as I understand others are. That track was anything BUT routine, as it only had a locomotive pulling one or two lumber cars maybe once a week. It was the dying end of the old Southern Pacific lines, which served one lumber yard in Santa Monica, CA by the 1970s. (gone; tracks torn out during the 80s).

For me, when I was a toddler, the schedule things I'd want to watch were the trash truck Tuesday mornings, the street sweeper Wednesday at lunch time, and the air raid sirens to blow on the last Friday of the month at 10:00. Those were my routine excitements/comforts. I'd be VERY VERY upset if I missed any of those.

Charles

I found trains boring when I was a kid...still do. I perfered animals.

Thomas the Tank Engine creeped me out so much as a kid because of the Uncanny Valley effect. To this day mannequins make me a little nervous.

I was more interested in Hot Wheels, Spongebob, Dragonball Z and rock collections when I was younger. Nothing too unusual for a young boy, so my parents didn't think much of it.

I'm obsessed with smaller scaled trains. I also like the sound of them. I don't own any though. I like a lot of miniature stuff including small city type things.

Oh jeez, I used to be obsessed with subway trains and city buses, and transit maps when I was little. I don't know why anyways. My parents thought that it was a strange obsession for me to have.

When I was a kid, instead of going to church every Sunday, I went to go for a 5 minute ride on a replica steam locomotive.

I also was obsessed with Thomas the Tank Engine until about the time I started school. Shining Time Station was one of the only TV shows that I would actually watch back then.

I remember going to some sort of model train convention one day. I was amazed at all the cool stuff that I saw, and disappointed because spending money on that sort of stuff was financially unacceptable back then.

I did have a few model trains back then though, and with that, I learned a lot about how electricity works on my own at such a young age. I would watch the train go around in circles, carefully analyzing the way it worked. The rotational motion of the wheels fascinated me the most. While most train cars are lined up from heaviest first to prevent problems going around curves, the thought of it bothered me. I would always put the smaller train cars in front, with the bigger ones in the back because it just didn't look right any other way.

I was such an aspie as a kid it's almost ridiculous.

I'm starting to become interested in trains once again, but this time for different reasons. Because they can be used as a fast, effective, 100% environmentally friendly solution to many transportation problems. Spending money on an transcontinental magnetic bullet train system would be one of the best decisions the US government can make.

Whaddya know, I'm not the only one with a closet train obsession here.

Well, I wouldn't say obsession but at least an interest. Interested enough that I've found and watched Youtube videos of various metro systems around the world, including uploading my own videos to Youtube on a new line in our metro system that opened a couple of years ago now.

My interest in trains was a lot more apparent when I was a kid, though.

Trains were one of my interests since I was a child, though I don't know where's that point beyond which it could be regarded as a "special interest". I was also amazed by cool model trains, I still have all the model train stuff I ever was given as a child or collected later during the decades of my life. I was fascinated by trams and metro cars too, and enjoyed very much taking a trip on a narrow-gauge passenger train into the nearby mountains every time we visited our relatives there. Rediscovering long-forgotten torn out tracks was exciting experience to me.

I can recognize most of the locomotive types used here by their numbering and nickname. I also have some books on trains.

My 5yr old daughter loves Thomas. For our holiday in April this year, we decided to stay somewhere within a short drive of Thomasland, so that we could go for a day trip.