# My daughter's Thomas layout



## guitar man (Dec 28, 2009)

Hi,

this is the start of a Thomas layout I built for my daughter this Christmas . It's a combination big 'ol toy chest and layout board. We needed a place to keep her mountain of toys and the layout was going to take up a 4'x6' space anyway so I incorporated the toy chest in to consolidate space .

As far as what gets added to the layout, my 4 year old daughter is in the drivers seat so it should be interesting to see what springs from the mind of a 4 year old child. Who knows, she may wind up teaching us all something.


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## tworail (Apr 13, 2006)

Great project, she looks happy 

I love the Thomas stuff, Marklin makes a set but it can only be bought from Germany at ridiculous prices.


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## shaygetz (Sep 23, 2007)

Sweet...if you have a local Hobby Lobby, check out the clearance isle every couple months...the cars usually show up at around $8 apiece...


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## vtecnturbo (Dec 24, 2009)

nice work it looks amazing


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## tankist (Jun 11, 2009)

good start. :thumbsup:
lets see what the little one crafts for this one


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## guitar man (Dec 28, 2009)

Thanks for all the replies and encouragement. We've been snowed in here since Christmas eve so we have been using anything and everything we can find around the house. I think she likes it better that way anyway. Here's a few things she has cooked up so far and I have helped her with. One thing that is obvious is, she's not interested in copying things, she wants to cook up and create her versions and visions of how she wants it. 

So here's a few things she's come up with so far...remember, she's only 4

her version of Tidmouth Sheds










She wanted a tunnel really bad, so she rummaged around and brought me a Maxwell House plastic coffee can and asked me to cut it in half, we're still kicking around how to paint it. 










and here's a prototype tree, she found part of our old artificial Christmas tree in the storage room and asked me if we could cut it into pieces to make trees, the stand is a two litre soda bottle cap, will be painted green or brown










it was hard to get her wound down and off to bed tonight, the gears in her little head are really turning


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## ts250girl (Dec 29, 2009)

This is so awesome! I love the creativity you guys have... I would have never thought to make my own stuff but now I feel inspired .


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## guitar man (Dec 28, 2009)

ts250girl said:


> This is so awesome! I love the creativity you guys have... I would have never thought to make my own stuff but now I feel inspired .


Thanks 

I wasn't sure what or how much we were going to make until she started getting wound up about it, she loves her arts and crafts and making things. The red barn is a craft kit we did last year, long before the train. It is nowhere near scale but who cares, we tossed it on there anyway. The cool thing about Thomas is that he's a fictional, whimsical little cartoon-ish character so it doesn't matter if he has an ultra-realistic modeled layout of a particular railroad or town etc. We can pretty much create whatever we want around him. 

The important thing right now is that she is having fun building things up to play with on her board. If she sticks with the hobby, she will probably do the serious modeling thing later on down the line. If she doesn't, I'll have a 4x6 layout board and some HO track etc. For my own railroad


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## Reckers (Oct 11, 2009)

Absolutely terrific! Thanks for sharing the pics!


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## T-Man (May 16, 2008)

Love IT! You can do wonders with a glue gun.

If you paint the tunnel, Ed will probably by it.


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## Big Ed (Jun 16, 2009)

T-Man said:


> Love IT! You can do wonders with a glue gun.
> 
> If you paint the tunnel, Ed will probably by it.





Only if it goes on e bay.:laugh:

You can paint the tunnel with spray paint. Go and buy a can made for plastic.



Some great ideals she is coming up with.

I can see that your box is going to be too small real quick!:laugh:


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## Reckers (Oct 11, 2009)

He will take LED's and illuminate it, though!


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## T-Man (May 16, 2008)

*Train Spotting*

I saw another Thomas delivery.


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## Reckers (Oct 11, 2009)

Coca-Cola bought out the Thomas Line?:laugh:


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## tankist (Jun 11, 2009)

guitar, that's how it starts 

in few years there is cardboard with more precise shape. then paper houses with wooden dowel frame, structures that open up to show interior, scratch built from various wood pieces, matchstick structures and such.

me and my sister had a city of self made paper houses 
one of the most fun things build. can't wait till my little one grows a bit to do that.


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## guitar man (Dec 28, 2009)

tankist said:


> guitar, that's how it starts
> 
> in few years there is cardboard with more precise shape. then paper houses with wooden dowel frame, structures that open up to show interior, scratch built from various wood pieces, matchstick structures and such.
> 
> ...


yep, I remember building things from paper, cardboard and whatever we could find when I was a kid too. My sister and I were hot wheels fanatics and we had our track running through a town we built. 

Im just glad to see her interested on something besides video games and virtual stuff. While all that has a place in this modern world I think too many kids get wrapped up in it and lose sight of what's real. Like this guitar hero thing, if they spent the time learning to play a real guitar that they spent on that game no telling what they could do.

Looks like building operations have been suspended for a while, she's in there running the train, she's got Tinker Bell and a couple of beanie babies on board


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## Reckers (Oct 11, 2009)

When I was little, we were poor---we didn't have paper and matchsticks. We had to build our trains out of dirt. *innocent look*


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## guitar man (Dec 28, 2009)

Reckers said:


> When I was little, we were poor---we didn't have paper and matchsticks. We had to build our trains out of dirt. *innocent look*


Dad, is that you?


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## Reckers (Oct 11, 2009)

*ROTFL!!!* Good one, guitar man!


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## guitar man (Dec 28, 2009)

A little update, we've been putting her ideas (and one or two of mine) into action:

The junior modeler at work





















and a few shots of the layout














































and yeah I did just about all of the painting on the tunnel , but I'm not so sure now she wouldn't have done better lol.


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## T-Man (May 16, 2008)

Tunnel looks great! Try to get some craft/popsicle sticks and make sides and the top of a trestle bidge. A covered bridge would work too.
You have to do a water tower and windmill Too.


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## guitar man (Dec 28, 2009)

Thanks T-man, we are working on the water tower now, hadn't thought of the windmill but I agree it would be a cool addition, the bridge too...


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## Reckers (Oct 11, 2009)

Guitar man, my fiance says your daughter is very talented and wants to adopt her!


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## guitar man (Dec 28, 2009)

Reckers said:


> Guitar man, my fiance says your daughter is very talented and wants to adopt her!


lol I get that a lot, but since she's the only one we've got i think we better keep her


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## Big Ed (Jun 16, 2009)

Buy her some modeling clay too.
I bet she will dream up something to make out of it.

(The tunnel needs a little more paint on the inside. you missed a spot.):laugh:

Tell her I said her layout LOOKS GREAT! Keep up the good work.


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## watchtower78 (Aug 17, 2009)

That's wonderful!


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## guitar man (Dec 28, 2009)

big ed said:


> Buy her some modeling clay too.
> I bet she will dream up something to make out of it.
> 
> (The tunnel needs a little more paint on the inside. you missed a spot.):laugh:
> ...



Dang it, now I have to re-paint it 

I will pass on your kind compliments to her, thanks Ed


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## guitar man (Dec 28, 2009)

Note to parents:

The main reason I'm posting all this is that hopefully parents that want to help their children get into the train hobby that are searching the web might find some or all of the info about what we are doing useful.

A word of caution. If you decide to build a box like the one I have built for my daughter, please, please make double sure that you incorporate a positive, fail safe locking mechanism to lock the lid when it is in the up position where it cannot fall. I cannot stress this enough because the lid/layout board is very heavy and if it fell on a child it could be tragic.

I don't know if it shows well in the pic in the op with the lid up, but there are two padlocks and heavy hasps that hold the lid up, and when those padlocks are locked the lid cannot fall. If the child is tempted to try and bring the lid down, she can't do it as long as they are locked.


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## guitar man (Dec 28, 2009)

Also, the green covering I used on top is a heavy fuzzy felt I found at hobby lobby for about $6 a yard. It was 6' wide so it was around $8 for enough to cover the 4x6 layout. It's primary advantage is that Velcro hooks stick to it pretty well so you can hot glue the hooks to the bottom of the track pieces and whatever else you want to leave on the board when you raise the lid so you don't have to tear the whole thing down every time you open the box.


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## Reckers (Oct 11, 2009)

Great ideas---both the child-proof box and the fuzz/velcro combination. We love the pics of your daughter at work!


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## Big Ed (Jun 16, 2009)

I was going to say that a drawer box would have been better.

But I figured that you didn't have the room for the drawer. 

Then you wouldn't have to worry about gluing everything down as you could move things around ( especially a kid) to "play" with it. As the ideals all ways change.

Saw the locks just like Fort Knox.


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## guitar man (Dec 28, 2009)

I thought about doing the drawer thing but quite honestly I'm not that good a carpenter lol. I'm surprised that the top fits and opens and closes as well ad it does


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## Big Ed (Jun 16, 2009)

guitar man said:


> I thought about doing the drawer thing but quite honestly I'm not that good a carpenter lol. I'm surprised that the top fits and opens and closes as well ad it does


I think it came out nice.

But having a drawer you wouldn't need to glue anything and she could move stuff around.

I just thought that you didn't have the room to do that.

Maybe you could modify the top so that instead of a hinge you could just pick up the whole top level and lock it in place when up.
You shouldn't have to lift it up more then a foot to get at the contents in the box.

It's still a great toy box layout you made her.:thumbsup:


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## guitar man (Dec 28, 2009)

Hey I like that idea of having it come straight up, I may see if I can figure out how to modify it. In the meantime, everything just gets a little dab of Velcro on the bottom to hold it in place.


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## guitar man (Dec 28, 2009)

Our water tower nearing completion. The top is a spray can lid and the bottom is part of an old vacuum cleaner hose attachment.


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## guitar man (Dec 28, 2009)

A little update, finished the water tower, added some trees and found a little log house and a couple figures from her little plastic train set that she had before. Also added some trim to cover the staples around the edge.


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## Reckers (Oct 11, 2009)

The tower looks gread, but the three images in the last post failed to come through.


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## guitar man (Dec 28, 2009)

Reckers said:


> The tower looks gread, but the three images in the last post failed to come through.


oops, fixed it,i hope


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## badman55 (Dec 28, 2009)

hey guitar man! That looks good. I have the set with Percy pulling the troublesome trucks in HO, I also have an N scale set made by Tomy, which has Thomas pulling Annie and Clarabel. A plastic mat with scenery is included with this set. My son, who is now 13, used to be a Thomas fan. He still likes to watch the videos every now and then.


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