I posted this in another thread last week and got several e-mails about what a good idea it was, requesting a bit more detail about the conversion. . . .
My two-and-one-half year grandson required about three seconds last holiday season to figure out how to run remote Thomas, after which he was inseparable from the train or the remote for the next week. With his big sister's help (she loves Thomas, too), he can even put Thomas and Clarabel, etc., back on the track when the inevitable, frequent de-railing events occur.
But neither child really mastered the couplers - all through the holidays last year there were constant interruptions for Daddy or Granddad to "fix the train." Constant. On the third morning I got up early and converted Thomas and three cars to ball-type magnetic couplers from Learning Curve wooden Thomas trains. I literally cut them off some spare wooden train rolling stock and made the coupler mountings shown below. In order to have sufficient "pull" for the larger O-gauge, I had to augment their magnetic power by placing small neodymium magnets behind the ball magnets to increase their power, as shown below. They work well and my grandkids already knew how to work them and had no problems. Far fewer interruptions.
I made a set of seven couplers like that shown below.**** Enough for three cars and one Thomas. They fit where the originals did, using the original screws, and I have saved the original couplers so I can re-installed them if I ever want to . . .
This season we will have Thomas - and Percy - around the tree, in a double-rail loop so each kid can have a train. I will make another seven couplers for Percy.
***If you do this make this modification, make sure you epoxy or superglue those added magnets in place as I have here: small neodymium magnets are considered a potential infant choking hazard by our government. Although I personally think that is overblown (they are nearly impossible for small fingers to get off even if not glued down and even difficult for me to detached, they hold so firmly) I went ahead and glued them in place.
