Cool Download link to track layouts

At my favorite off-the-beaten path train track store, Meskotoys, they have downloadable PDFs of some train track layouts.  Meskotoys is always helpful! Enjoy!

Cool link to a grooved homemade playboard

My kids are old enough that we like to change our train layouts, so this grooved, permanent track wouldn't work for us, but it's still a super neat thing to look at.  Have a look at what this Indonesian mother of two designed for her children: Moshe Things

Layout of the day

My husband says he thinks I'm more into the trains than the boys

My husband accuses me of being more into the trains than the boys.  Maybe he's right.  Being any type of artist or creative person, having a child, the ultimate act of creation, surprising stunts your ability to create anything else!  I'm a singer and a writer, and having all this pent up creativity has opened other interests I wouldn't have pursued.  One is photography.  After taking a bazillion photos of my son, and a lifetime of having taken travel photos, I decided to go whole hog and get a decent SLR.  And having such willing and captive subjects, I went from 0-60 in about 4 months.  Pictures that people complimented originally, make me cringe now!  I eventually went pro, and now when I'm not mommying or singing, I'm taking portraits.

But I can't have a camera every second, and the 3 year old will no longer even look in my direction if he sees one, so my next creative endeavor became train tracks.  My dad had said something once about mechanical engineering as a possible career for me (more based on HIS strengths and the money aspect), but it took me until now to figure out that perhaps he was onto something.  Building things and having to figure out the mysteries of angles and how things to fit together is great.  But somehow, I think I enjoy Thomas the Train more than I would've enjoyed a career in mechanical engineering!

Leave comments below on how and why you got into wooden trains.  I'd love to hear other stories.

Cool DIY Link about making your own train playboard

Found a cute blog while researching how to make a train playboard yourself.  I doubt I'd do it, since I like the rugs that I've found, but the blog looks interesting.

http://idmommy.blogspot.com/2010/09/id-mommy-projects-make-your-own-train.html

Freestyle Layout of the day

Before you try nails of glue, try Suretrack Clips to hold your track together.

When I first considered a train set for my son, the thought of having to put the tracks back together again every twenty seconds was daunting.  I noticed that most of the toy store train sets were glued together or nailed down.  I considered doing that.  Luckily I didn't.  Firstly, your resale value goes out the window.  Genuine Thomas tracks keep a very high percent of their purchase price, and even generic still resells easily.  But if it's glued down, it's even hard to unload on Craigslist. 

Secondly, when your child is very young, say under 2 1/2, a stationary set is great.  But when they get older, closer to 3 1/2, they'll want to build their own sets over and over again.  So before you glue, before you nail, consider SureTrack.

For building spiral layouts, for building elevated layouts, or building anything with a younger sibling,  the Suretrack clips are a Godsend.  They aren't a 100% panacea, but they really help.  I have a 3 year old and a 1 year old. I call the one year old lots of nicknames, among which Mayhem and The Deconstructionist are my favorites.  He loves to destroy whatever we build.  These clips keep things together.  He can still rip the tracks apart, but it slows him down substantially.  What he used to be able to trash in 5 minutes, now would take him a lot longer.  And even then he can only destroy one section at a time.

The only downside is that they are slightly homely.  But for those of us who really need them, the tradeoff is welcome.  They fit best on generic track, like Imaginarium or Orbrium, etc.  Genuine Learning Curve Thomas tracks are slightly wider and thus a little harder to et the clips on.  I've heard that these clips can stretch and become looser over time. I have a feeling that those complaining of this were using Thomas tracks.  I usually start securing the generic pieces first and then do the real Thomas track last.  We bought two packs and that would be plenty for most people, but I think we need one more set if we'd want to secure every single piece in some of our larger layouts.

Beginners Tip: How to avoid mismatched ends

Sometimes it's inevitable.  You build and build and get to the last needed piece and it's two female pieces or two male pieces and you have to get an adapter to convert one of the sides.

But I've finally figured out (duh) that if you start building something from two different ends, say try to build a rounded square and you start the left side and the right side independently, and then try to just bridge the top and bottom of the square together at the last moment, you are guaranteed to get two matching ends which you don't want (I guess you could call them mismatched, as well, right?).

I've done it before, and it's worth it just to undo the second side (after, you've now got them equal lengths and have all the right pieces out, so all isn't lost) and flip the pieces to continue what you're doing from side one and voila, all of a sudden the exact same pieces now end in the correct male/female scenario.

Another common thing that causes mismatched ends is the mountain tunnel bridge that has male ends on both sides of the overpass.  One side is going to need an adapter and the other side will be fine.  You just need to sequence it so that you don't need an adapter on a curve, although I have found curved adapters....but that's another post!

Our first foray into mix and match - Craigslist lady #1

Sometime during the first week, we got braver and wanted more options, realizing what pieces were missing and why they'd be nice.  We had no risers or anything, so I looked on Craigslist, and some lady was selling pieces ala carte at quite reasonable prices.  I went with a budget of $40 and left having spent $60.  That said, the resale prices on just one of the bridges alone made it worthwhile.  We got three stacking risers, which normally could be found for between $20 and $30 total on ebay, for $5 apiece, some other generic risers for perhaps a dollar apiece, a couple of bridges,  the Thomas Mountain tunnel - I'm wigging out on the name right now, I'll come back and fix it with the right name later.  But the risers were precious.  And even better were the adapta-track converters which have ends on that flip to convert to male-male or female-female, for those times when you get stuck and can't use a normal male to female piece. Trying to use the normal block underneath the ascending track pieces is a pain, and with a crawling baby in the way, it was sort of futile.


Here's one of our first layouts made up on our own.

 

The beauty of buying from other people is that you accidentally benefit from someone else's knowledge.  Whether you appreciate how expensive these things are, or what pieces you might need at that moment is sort of irrelevant.  You'll buy it and later think you're genius.  

If you have the budget, I'd even suggest just possibly getting a sub >$100 large lot from ebay.  But I didn't think we'd spend that much.  I didn't know how much we'd like it and how much it all costs and how much things keep resale value.  

Whatever you spend, you're going to get a nice chunk of it back when you sell, especially if it IS the official Learning Curve Thomas brand stuff.  So if you buy genuine Thomas stuff used, when you resell it, you may very well get 100% of your money back.  Think of it as a toy rental!

Our First Train Set

The first set we started out with was a Toys R Us house brand, Imaginarium, figure 8 set.  It was on sale for something ridiculous like 50% off, so we also got the Figure 8 expansion set at the same time.  I think it set us back a whopping (kidding)
$24.99 +
$19.99
---------
$44.98 % 2 = $22.49

$22.49!  That's a steal.  The Thomas oval starter set is $29.99 and just comes with very few pieces.  It DOES, however, now come with Percy and Thomas trains, which is worth something, but if you're like us, you'd rather get the motorized trains anyhow at a later date.

The expansion set gives you more track to work with, several of each of these pieces:

The sets were decent.  The wood is unpolished and raw, a little rough (now that I have other brands for comparison) and while they fit nicely with the Thomas branded pieces, they don't agree with one of our (preferred, glossier) generic brands as well.

We had lots of fun with this from the get go - quickly getting away from the stock figure 8 shape. The box gave us instructions for the first picture below. I was initially so nervous, that I labeled the bottoms (or side for double sided pieces) with the corresponding letters from the diagrams, so that I'd know what was what.  Needless to say, we're way past that now.

Hello, current or future wooden train enthusiast

I am the proud owner of a 3 year old (and a one year old) son, thus my introduction to wooden trains. I have a few friends whose kids are a year older, and seeing these elaborate train sets on train tables falling apart and having to be rebuilt twenty times in a setting made me quite hesitant to enter this realm.

Thus I bought my son this (INSERT PICTURE OF CAR TABLE) Step2 Car table.  Molded plastic tracks, no moving parts, nothing to lose.  Sounded like a great deal. And I was right, for that age.  It still gets played with to this very day. But now that we're into trains, it pales in comparison.

I think the reason that a lot of people get turned off from train sets is that they introduce them to their kids at way too young an age.  Thus the parent spends all day trying to repair the tracks and the kids end up frustrated.

The tracks at stores and play places are usually glued together, so kids love those.  Then you buy them a set, take it home and everything falls apart.

Before you go gluing your pieces down, damaging your Craigslist and destroying your ebay reselling possibilities, consider alternatives like Suretrack train clips.  More on them on my next post.

Also, consider these things for a starter sets:

1. Avoid spirals until your child is fairly old (maybe 3 or 3 1/2 at the youngest) and/or if you don't have a younger sibling around to deconstruct (as we kindly call it in our house.  The younger brother is playfully nicknamed "Mayhem".)
2. Avoid Thomas brand name stuff in the very, very beginning until you get a good enough stash.  I say this because people go out, spend $50 on a simple oval track, full price and they get bored and think that's it.  Simple is good initially, but not TOO simple.  I'd start out with a figure 8 set first, and if you get a non-name brand, like Toys 'R Us-in-store-brand Imaginarium.  Now that I have some other generic pieces, I really don't love the imaginarium wood quality, but I appreciate it for getting us up and started quickly and most of it is still usable and interchangeable.
3. Invest in buying some adapters before you even start.  You're going to need some male to male or female to female adapters, or else you're going to get stuck the first time you freestyle and try to create your own layouts.

The purpose of this blog

Photo courtesy of Patryce Harris Photography © 2012

When I got started with train sets, I scoured the web and was surprised to not find many sites dedicate to, or featuring pictures of freestyle train layouts.  Maybe most people just buy the store bought sets and sticking to the diagrams in the box, or buy a train table with an included set with one stationary layout and never veer.

For those of us who are either easily bored, highly engaged and/or like to mix and match old and new pieces, off-brand and Learning Curve official Thomas tracks, there isn't much guidance or many ideas of how to put things together in an interesting way. People don't seem to TALK about trains much.  I think there are eggheads who build them alone and don't socialize (perhaps) or people who just don't think to share information?  I don't know.  But when I do searches on Google for a particular topic, I find tons of sites hawking their wares, but very few blogs and forums dedicated to wooden trains.  I've come across maybe 5, and it is frustrating.  So in the spirit of "Be The Change", I'm throwing my hat in the ring, and I'll try and use as many keyboards as possible to make searches easy to find my page.

The best site I found was called "Wooden Track Mind" and is a lovely blog, but it only has pictures and it hasn't been updated in awhile.

I want to share whatever I find out with other moms and dads who take the path less taken, thus the birth of this blog.  When I started out, only about 3 or 4 months ago, I didn't know the difference between Battat, Thomas, Chuggington, Brio, Vario, Imaginarium or Kidcraft.  I didn't understand why "made in China" can sometimes be a problem, or the difference between a splitter, an adapter, or between a roundhouse and a shed.

I hope by blathering on about our daily/weekly findings, it shortens your learning curve (pun totally intended - you'll get it later.)