All Aboard.......

For Kierans first Christmas, we got him a Hornby Thomas the Tank Engine trainset - we knew he was too young for it at the time, but it was a bargain, and for the past couple of years I have been promising to build him a trainset - At last I bought the materials needed and have indeed started work on it.

First of all though, I had to plan the layout and size of the trainset - I settled for a nice 6ft by 3ft - not too big, but at the same time still a reasonable size for Kieran to play with (and yes, it will fit in his bedroom!!!). I used a fantastic little program called XTrkCad to design the track.

I popped down to our local Homebase store here in Evesham last Friday and bought the bits and pieces needed to put it all together - the wood, screws, joints, etc.

I couldnt get one large sheet of wood, so I had to settle on three 3ft x 2ft boards.

The next thing I started to do was lay the track (with the help of Michelle). Fortunatly I was able to purchase tons of extra track and track-ballast from Ebay several months ago.

Now, in the two days since I started work on the trainset, here is what it looks like now :-

Ignore the bottles of wine - I've been using them to prop things up (like the tunnel portals), and to show me where certains things are going to go.

Kieran absolutely loves it even in its unfinished state - I can't wait to see his face when it is finally finished.

As I progress with the project, I will post here new pictures.