Some photos from our recent weekends of Thomas the Tank engine at our Railway Heritage Park.
I set up a small display of Thomas Lionel with the LionChief for the kids to operate trains. A Whistle and some various Thomas sound buttons they could push. Cranky the Crane, Harold the Helicopter with a push button to make him fly on the Lionel Pylon. I reinforced the LionChief remote controls with a second metal bracket and more screws and it worked thousands of kids ran the train and none broke the controllers this time. (In the past they spin the speed dial past the stop and break it)
With the controls mounted to the fence along with the sound buttons fence was perfect height for the kids. I cut off wires to the speakers of some of the stuff that makes sounds and wired in some cheap I pod speakers that make the sound a lot louder so when so many people around can hear the sounds.
I added the Wooden Winston car that sells in the gift shop. Swapped in some plastic O scale wheels to the base and a springy cord to a freight car and he bounced along the tracks very nicely. The middle loop Percy pulled a string of the Lionel animal cars that duck when they go under the tell tales one on each side of the loop. Thomas, James and Diesel pulled various Sodor freight cars and some other animated Lionel Circus animal cars. The trains rain very well all weekend but Thomas and Percy were stalling out occasionally by the final days of the event. Track was well cleaned several times, perhaps time to add some extra centre rail roller pickups for more reliable operation.
Great weekends as always, very busy lots of families having fun. Lots of activities for them.
Click on each photo for a larger view.
And look forward to seeing all the great layout photos each week.