Growing up I was always a huge
Lego fan, in fact, last year my Dad sent my rather sizable box of Lego’s to pass it on to my children (when they reach an appropriate age). Along the lines of memorable toys, last Christmas, my wife and I bought the kids a
Thomas the Tank Engine train set and table.
Ever since I’ve spend hours staying up late at night designing new track layouts for them to play with. Last night was one of those nights and this morning when my little girl came up to me with a glint in her eye asking "Dad, did you fix the train last night?" I just smiled and said "Let’s go have a look." Below is last nights track and included are a few other photos of tracks I’ve done over the past twelve months.
It’s funny, when I sat down last night after the kids went to bed all my wife said was "don’t stay up too late". The bulk of the track is from a Thomas
lift and load set and we also have a classic figure eight set and an expansion pack or two. I tend to experiment with different designs including multiple separate tracks, continuous loops and multi-level bridges among others. Many times the design includes a large simple outer loop that surrounds a more complicated multi-level interior layout. That seems to work well for my two year old who likes to walk circles around the outside track and my four year old who likes the bridges and turns and can more easily reach across the table.
It was my daughter who became interested in Thomas the Train well over a year ago and that passion is still there today. It’s been fun to watch her imagination develop and listen to her dream up new adventures for her favorite engines as she plays with the table.
I’ll admit I never thought about the fun I myself would have with Thomas the Train but my kids reaction the morning after building them a new track sort of brings back that feeling of anticipating Christmas morning when I was a kid.
If anyone is interested in larger images let me know.
[Updated: June 2, 2008] Added last track image (below).
[Updated: Aug 4, 2008] Added another image
