TCA Kids Club: Your “Whistle Stop” for Fun!

Attention parents and guardians of train enthusiasts under age 13:

Are you looking for a free club where your kids can learn all about toy trains and how the collecting hobby works? You’ve come to the right place!

The TCA Kids Club offers kids under age 13 a fantastic way to meet new friends while they enjoy looking at and operating toy trains—and even assembling train layouts with complicated wiring and design and computer controls!

Apply to Join

What Do You Get When You Join TCA Kids?

When you join, you will receive a membership certificate, member card, and more. Provide your email address, and you’ll be added to our mailing list to receive our exclusive “Keeping Track” newsletter, which is jam-packed with age-appropriate activities.

But that’s not all. Every TCA Kids Club member receives free admission whenever they visit the National Toy Train Museum in Strasburg, PA! Make a plan to come out and see our huge collection of trains—and run them, too!

Visit the Museum

Download Our Past Newsletters

Missed an issue?
You can check out all of our Kids Club newsletters online now.

Join the TCA Kids Club Now

Please fill out our secure web form to sign your kids up for TCA Kids Club. Upon receipt of your application, your young train enthusiast will be sent a new Kids Club member packet in the mail!

Are you Applying for:

TCA Kids Club (Under Age 13)

TCA Teens Club (Ages 13-18)

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Parental/Guardian approval to join and for use of child photos taken at TCA events.(Required)

Parental or guardian approval is required as is approval to use photos of child if taken at TCA events.

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Getting Started with Toy Trains

Parents often wonder how to get started the right way for the youngest toy train enthusiasts and kids who are just beginning to express an interest in the collecting hobby. Our “First Steps” resource page is an excellent introduction with links to special activities and suggested reading about trains. Check it out!

Get to Know Toy Trains

Need More Information?

Reach Out to Our Club Coordinators Across the USA. The Train Collectors Association is divided into local Divisions for different regions of the United States. Within those Divisions, dedicated Kids Club Coordinators are responsible for programming and are happy to provide information about membership benefits and more. You can find a contact listing on the landing page linked below.

Contact Our Club Coordinators

Shop Amazon and Help TCA

TCA members who shop at Amazon.com can have each of their normal purchases generate a modest payment to TCA! And it won’t cost you anything!

The Train Collectors Association is now a participant with AmazonSmile, which is a special website operated by Amazon that lets customers enjoy the same wide selection of products, low prices and convenient shopping features as on Amazon.com.

The difference is that when customers shop at AmazonSmile (smile.amazon.com), the AmazonSmile Foundation donates 0.5% of the price of eligible purchases to the charitable organizations selected by customers.

The process is simple. Just search for and select Train Collectors Association when you sign up and shop at smile.amazon.com.

You use your regular Amazon.com username and password, but when you log in to smile.amazon.com, you’ll see that you are supporting TCA with your purchases:

Note that if you just log in to the regular amazon.com, this benefit does not operate.

There are no costs to either you or TCA, but TCA benefits!

This is a great way for TCA to earn extra cash to offset costs, so sign up today to help support TCA.

* Note: TCA is not a party to any of your Amazon transactions, and does not endorse any products or vendors.

Helping TCA with your ebay purchases when you use PayPal

If you’re an ebay user and have a PayPal account you use to make payments, you can designate a donation for TCA when you’re checking out — any amount, small or large.
If you’re a regular seller on ebay, you can pre-designate a percentage of your sales to be donated automatically in your name to TCA as long as the purchaser pays with their PayPal account.

In both cases, you will receive a donation receipt from the PayPal Giving Fund, and enjoy applicable tax advantages.

How to do it:

Click on the image above, or use this link. This will take you to ebay, where you will see the following page (log in to ebay if you are not already):

This offers TCA as an option. Click on the “Add to My Charities” button where indicated with the red arrow. Thereafter, when you make a purchase, at checkout you will be offered the option to make a donation to TCA in any amount of your choosing. Small amounts add up, larger ones are great! It’s always up to you!

The option will appear at the lower part of your checkout page, something like this:

If you’re a regular seller on ebay, you can allocate a portion of your sales proceeds to be donated to TCA. Look at the green arrow marked “Optional” above to see how to do it. Details on how ebay calculates the donation may be read here. This is a wonderful way to share the financial benefits of your hobby with the organization that promotes it!

An added benefit to TCA is that these donations are not subject to normal processing fees, so that makes your donation work harder!

* Note. TCA is not a party to any of your eBay transactions, and does not endorse any products or vendors. PayPal issues the receipts to you for your donation, not TCA.