Micro Express Trains
By
James Vinall
Started by a 4 year old rail fan as a way to raise money for those living in extreme poverty, MET builds small (1:1000 scale) rail systems and donates the proceeds to poverty reduction micro-enterprise loans.
$20.00
$16.00
$32.57
$12.90
$40.00
$40.00
$17.00
$9.35
$9.79
About
Our son has a heart for people suffering from poverty. Always full of ideas and rarely discouraged by large tasks, our then four year old rail fan decided one night that he was "going to start making trains, selling them, and giving the money to the poor", so this is his one-child effort to take on global poverty. With some modeling help from Dad, a lot of family dinner time business meetings and the brutally honest design feedback that comes from a pre-school project manager, he would like to announce that his shop, Micro Express Trains is open for business.<br><br>
We've built a 1:1000 scale rail system on interlocking hex bases with an articulated knuckle system hidden within the rails. The system is also designed to easily mount on top of existing blocks such as LEGO (not endorsed or affiliated with LEGO; these just happen to be a compatible size) to give you flexibility in mounting and transporting your own layouts. Our son designed these trains for rail fans and not as toys for young children, so we try our hardest to give you high quality accurate scale modeling whenever possible.<br><br>
So, what happens when you buy a train or track set? After the fine folks at Shapeways work their magic, bring the design to life, and collect their well deserved fee, we take 100% of the money they pass along to us and send it towards poverty reduction. Our son wanted to start with micro-enterprise loans (he explained that he wanted to give money to help the poor start businesses so that they wouldn't be poor anymore), so we've chosen to use existing micro-enterprise organizations (through <a href="http://www.kiva.org/lender/microexpresstrains8009">our Kiva.org account</a>). Every dime Shapeways sends to us will go directly towards poverty reduction, no "overhead" or "administrative" costs on our end.
<br><br>Buy our trains because they are a high quality and fun way to take your passion for the rails to smaller and more portable places. Enjoy them a bit more knowing that you're helping a little entrepreneur in his quest to support other entrepreneurs end the cycle of global poverty.
We've built a 1:1000 scale rail system on interlocking hex bases with an articulated knuckle system hidden within the rails. The system is also designed to easily mount on top of existing blocks such as LEGO (not endorsed or affiliated with LEGO; these just happen to be a compatible size) to give you flexibility in mounting and transporting your own layouts. Our son designed these trains for rail fans and not as toys for young children, so we try our hardest to give you high quality accurate scale modeling whenever possible.<br><br>
So, what happens when you buy a train or track set? After the fine folks at Shapeways work their magic, bring the design to life, and collect their well deserved fee, we take 100% of the money they pass along to us and send it towards poverty reduction. Our son wanted to start with micro-enterprise loans (he explained that he wanted to give money to help the poor start businesses so that they wouldn't be poor anymore), so we've chosen to use existing micro-enterprise organizations (through <a href="http://www.kiva.org/lender/microexpresstrains8009">our Kiva.org account</a>). Every dime Shapeways sends to us will go directly towards poverty reduction, no "overhead" or "administrative" costs on our end.
<br><br>Buy our trains because they are a high quality and fun way to take your passion for the rails to smaller and more portable places. Enjoy them a bit more knowing that you're helping a little entrepreneur in his quest to support other entrepreneurs end the cycle of global poverty.
