Kids and model railroading

I too had been thinking of trying to recreate Sodor for my Nephew.  Though if the pictures at this site are anything to go by, Sodor is 150 miles wide.  I only have a limited space, and I had thought about being all topographical like this picture http://www.pegnsean.net/~railwayseries/map-1959-sodor-clayh.jpg but then decided to try this approach http://www.pegnsean.net/~railwayseries/map-1992-sodor-big.jpg but this wouldn't work either.  As he is 3, and the only set I have in my house for him is a mixture of the Tomy and Tomika blue plastic track that runs the battery operated trains, I have decided on this map for my representation of Sodor http://www.pegnsean.net/~railwayseries/map-sodor-tvseries-hit.jpg and add hills, rivers etc to it.  I have watched many of the dvds for inspiration but am at a loss as there is no scale for this set, so building tunnels, bridges buildings etc is near impossible.  (I'm such a perfectionist)

 My only gripe about this is that there is no true scale from which to scratch build anything from, so it is mainly from measuring the doors and windows of the coaches, and counting the bricks that I can see in some of the buildings.  I don't like the tunnels etc that come in the series so would like to make my own. 

 Using the last map, I intended to build Knapford, a couple of signal boxes, a couple of the stations so as to enhance what he has.

 Would love to know how you get on with building your set.

Sorry, forgot to say, if you're looking also for inspiration for some of the layouts that roughly follow the TV series you can look here http://www.legacystation.com/ThomastheTankLayouts.htm I know they are for the wooden set, but any track from HO to Tomy blue could be used.

I hope the info in this and the other message are of use.

http://www.legacystation.com/ThomastheTankLayouts.htm

It has the wooden and electric sets.

The layouts are for the wooden sets, though I had my nephew at the weekend, had printed off a couple, and we built them up the best we could using the blue tomy track.  Seemed to work, though we don't have the tiny corner pieces that are available for the wooden track.

At Hamleys they have the tomy set built up as a layout for display only, which he enjoyed looking at.  There was also the wooden set built up so the kids could play with it, and both me and my better half were not impressed by the quality in comparison to tomy.

 On Monday we collected a huge box of tomy road and rail that I bought on ebay (wasn't delivered on Saturday because it was too heavy), unfortunately my nephew went back up north on the Sunday so he never got the chance to play with it.  Now I have most of the pieces that I was wanting the tunnel etc in order to try and build extra stuff from like buildings, tunnels etc to work from, and it's payday tomorrow, I can now start to make a serious start on building a permanent Sodor layout for him and he still has enough track left over to make a good 3 or 4 of his own imagination.

 If anyone is able to help re scale, I'd be much appreciated.  I have been watching the dvds and trying to get decent screen captures to work out buildings using the counting bricks technique.  I had figured on trying to build Knapford station, Tidmouth sheds a couple of signal boxes.  A tunnel or two, couple of bridges, have the road for Bertie and instead of having the trains going from one end of the island to the other, having them go round in circles and meeting up at Tidmouth.

Hi do any of you really like thomas of just saying it for the little guys

My 2 year old son has a ton of the wooden Thomas,and the Tomy and Trackmaster trains.

I collect and run the Bachmann HO scale Thomas stuff,and I'm 38 years old.

 So I guess you can say I'm a fan of Thomas and friends.

Carl T.

Indeed,

He has his charm, that little blue bugger. But, I should think that the older you grow, the lesser you would be interested in Thomas, or at least you'd be more anxious to hide the fact you like Thomas.

He's okay I guess. Thats what got me started on trains, but I won't be the first to raise my hand and say I like it. Especially with the way the series has been going as of late. I'm sure the Reverend is turning over in his grave right now.

Cheese

Hmmmmmmm, No.

First of all I would like to make one thing quite clear: I never explain anything.

However, I will make an exception just this once. I find computer friendships with a person you have never met personally to be worthless and a waste of time. And its not possible to hang with someone you have never met through the computer. Its just plain senseless.

I am flattered that you asked though, but again i must say Thanks, but no thanks.

Yours,

Cheese

One thing to keep in mind - although it might not make much difference - is that I beleive the Thomas characters available in the US are actually OO scale not HO. Both run on HO track, but OO's linear scale is 4mm=1ft whereas HO is 3.5mm=1ft.

OO is the most common scale by far in the United Kingdom, you can find many kits for buildings and many UK style figures available in OO scale if you search around online. British equipment is about 1/8th smaller than their US counterparts, and back many years ago British model makers found the smallest motors then around were too big to fit in British outline engines in HO scale, so they increased the scale so the motors were fit, but kept the HO gauge tracks.

WJSTIX IF I READ YOU RIGHT, SINCE 00 SCALE IS A BIT LARGER THAT H0 SCALE, THAT WOULD MAKE THOMAS THE TANK ENGINE A NARROW GAUGE RAILWAY.

NOW IF H0 SCALE TRACK IS STANDARD (4' 8 1/2") FOR AN H0 SCALE ENGINE, WHAT WOULD THAT MAKE AN SLIGHTLY LARGER 00 SCALE ENGINE RUNNING ON A NARROWER H0 SCALE TRACK? 48"?

MARK.