just went out and purchased a thomas the train set, the expansion set, the add on siding track, and the inner passing loop for my nephews b-day. the is quite a set up for a five year old as he knows how to start and stop the train with the power lever and the direction button, plus he knows how the horn works and i think that is his favorite feature thus far besides making the train go in the inner loop. the little engine thomas is a mighty puller which he pulls the 2 cars that came in the set, the 4 in the expansion set plus i gave him 7 of my ore hoppers. which make a total of 13 cars and he hasn’t showed a sign of slowing down. my nephew has been playing with the train set since he has came over today and is none stop at letting it go round and round. as i am getting jealous that he can play with his trains and i haven’t even came close to running one of my trains. so in order for me to play with his train i have to convince him that somethings wrong with it and ask him to let me check it out to make sure it is working properly. i feel bad for doing this but hey i want to play to and he want let me. but i’m happy that he loves trains as much as i do. my other nephew’s b-day is coming up in 2 weeks i will do the same for him with the thomas set. but hopes he lets me play with it. if he doesnt i want mind as long as i have captured another childs mind into the world of toy trains. it made my day just to see a train running and not talking or asking a question about.
Reggie,
Thanks for getting another model train man in the making. Like with hunting, it is a matter of exposing the next generation to a great hobby and letting their imagination grow. I too have been jealous of my son who built his Thomas G gauge and has it running right where my benchwork is going. I do plan to have a loop of G gauge a few inches lower on the outer face of my benchwork so my son can run that while I run the Os. I think at 4, he is still a little young to run Dad’s trains.
Dennis
Good work Reggie !! Maybe later you can add a gondola with some candy in it. I put pretzels in one for some of my Granchildren !! They never forget those little treats !! I kind of like em’ too !! [:D][:D]
Thanks, John
i didnt think about the candy but nice idea. he has left the building train and all headed to his house. i cant wait to go over there and and see how his dad hooked up the track for him. as he was trying to see how i put it together so he could remember how to put it together once they got home. my nephew started to cry as we disassembled it and put in the box. but over all we had a great time and now its time for me to go and get a few steps closer to getting my trains to run or at least get one of them running.
Sounds like a great day for everybody! Very cool present!
I think Lionel had a candycane dump car - maybe you could do M&M’s in a coal dumper or something? That would be cool too.
Thomas is a good puller. We have all the Thomas locomtives and really enjoy running them. Last night we had Thomas pulling several post war gondolas filled with Fischer Price little people. The kids love it! James is due in stores soon. Can’t wait for a Gordon! Jim
Good man Reggie! It’s the kids that make it all worthwhile it really is. I hardly ever play with mine without my 3 yr old its just nowhere near as much fun. She has no concept of scale and insists on plonking massive MegaBlox castles and dragons down into the middle of the loop so we can drive the princess around to admire her kingdom and we build vast tottering Lego towers, tunnels, stations peopled with everything from those ‘homies’ to six inch tall bears and a vast assortment of plastic farm animals. We fill the gondolas up with ‘gold’ (lentils) and deliver it everywhere, I’m telling you, she helps me get more fun out of my stuff than I’d ever have on my own! And thats not the half of it! I had to draw the line at the super soaker war she proposed though…
Great job, Reggie.[:)] Much like you and Thor, I have a four year old who loves stacking all sorts of things on the trains as they go by and helping me at the throttle make them go fast and slow. When he is with me, we run lots of open gons. The only recent caveat I added to this version of the layout was to give him a standing area with plenty of open space to play. In the previous layout, I placed too many things I wished to keep relatively intact within reach - as well as a switch he couldn’t help changing in the middle of a long train [:D] Having buttons to push or things to spin and move within reach are great - I have a few plastic K-Line people, cars, and a few unconnected switches for him to move too. I love the way playing with him works on my heart - helps me listen to him and what he wants to do …
Just the opposite happened in my house thanks to the Chief…a so called “friend”[:(!]
The little one is still a little too small to be hooked yet. He thinks it’s cool and I can see in time he too will be a big fan, but right now it’s the older generation, not the new generation that’s suffering from an addiction he never saw coming.[;)] As with your nephew, it all started innocently enough with little Thomas. Personally I think it’s a big scheme. I think Thomas works for Capital One!!!
aydanspop- your right i think he does work for capital one as he has the wooden thomas train set and thats how he got started both of my nephews.
Hello good job . thomas is a good start my littel gril has a battery opt thomas and freinds and a ton of the blue track we spend more time with hers then my ho layout but thats ok trains are trains right.i know one day i will say lets run em and she will say na can i have the car&money but untill then we runem and we do some railfaning to [:)] keep up the good work frank
Sounds like real fun! Can’t wait 'til my son is old enough to really enjoy trains. I still have a few years to go with him.
I started in a similar way that Pop did. I got my kids a Thomas set for Christmas, and my sister bought them a NYC Flyer set. They greatly enjoy the trains, but I’ve become an addict for this stuff. I buy way too much. Do they put some kind of pheremone in the boxes that make you want to buy more?! Jim
I’m sure they do, Jim. My youngest boy is enjoying one of those low-table setups for his wooden Thomas trains - the only things I’ve carefully cleaned after a few earlier potty-training fiascos…
The boy’s potty training is going remarkably well after a bumpy start. Their success gives me an excuse to reward them with what else, trains. Yeah, I’m addicted, but when I boil it all down, there are only 4 things I really want as far as trains go. 1. A winning lottery ticket 2. A credit card 3. A telephone to place my orders 4. A gigantic warehouse to store all my purchases. Jim
jim- dont we all want whats on your list plus a bigger room to set up a layout.