WAIT TIL THE TYKES FIGURE OUT HOW TO SWITCH UP THE MINE.

Pajamas Media's Ed Driscoll marvels at the latest way to combine information technology and railroading.

Intelino is a new endeavor, by Innokind, a California start-up, to bring kids’ love of trains into the 21st century and add some extra magic. It’s also a sly way to teach them the basics of computer programming. But more about that later.

The basic set ships in an attractive 10.7 x 5.6 x 4.5-inch box. Inside are: twenty pieces of track, including straights, curves, and switches; colorful “action tabs” that program what the trains will do; a locomotive and a passenger car; plus stickers to apply colorful stripes to the rolling stock; and a USB charging cable for the locomotive’s built-in Lithium Polymer battery. The overall feel is bright and colorful. More a futuristic light-rail commuter train than a nostalgic early 20^th century Thomas the Tank approach to make railroading accessible to modern young tikes.

The existence of new-style train toys makes me less pessimistic about the future of the model railroading hobby. Between 3-D printing and computer programming in this manner and dead rail, I suspect we'll be OK.

As far as the computer magic on the rails, it's more mid-20th century than you'd suspect.

For older kids (and adults), there is also a free downloadable app for the iPad, iPhone, and Android, that can also control the locomotive via Bluetooth, overriding the action tabs and allowing users to play the locomotive’s whistle and bell, along with a speedometer and other features.

But the app isn’t necessary to get started as the action tabs, read by an optical sensor at the bottom of the locomotive, program the train to speed up, slow down, stop, reverse, and decouple, depending on the combination and order of the tiles. It’s almost like magic.

For example, if you put a white tile and two green tiles on the track, the train will speed up. If you put a white tile and three green tiles, the train goes even faster (and what kid isn’t going to do that?) But if you reverse the train’s direction so the optical reader sees green-green-white… nothing happens. And like magic, a three-year-old not only learns the commands faster, but also that you have to put your commands on the track in the right order.

Yes, exactly like the attempts at remotely controlling the speed and the routing of rapid transit trains in the years after the War, but you no longer have to put a large magnetized key near the motorman's cab to set the routing.

As the Intelino rolling stock will couple with the traditional Brio cars, it is just a matter of time until some kid, or perhaps some kid's parent, will figure out that the programming can include stopping, changing directions, and switching.  (The website makes reference to "steering.") Not only that, somebody researching improvements on those applications will discover that the same sort of Bluetooth technology, I think it's called Blue Rail, can be used to control more traditional model railroad locomotives moving what look more like freight or passenger cars.