Bijomaru's YouTube videos

Let's just say that when I go onto my personal YouTube, the first page is full of recommended Tomy and Plarail videos ? He's taken over my YouTube!

He sure can operate those stations well.

That was worth the wait. I couldn't help but notice you took my suggestion to use some of the shed walls for decoration in one spot, and James' brick built battery cover has been rebuilt. The former made me happy to see, and I hope more of my tips will be considered for future layouts (themed or not). Compared to most Thomas sets from the TOMY era that were sold internationally, I think the Ultimate Set had far better item choices and variety to offer. I hope you still have the motorised station with Harold because it's one of the more interesting parts that came in it. I was somewhat surprised not to see it anywhere given the flight rod is removable and the chimney doesn't spin with it. Now that the layout is intentionally Thomas themed, the trees should definitely be scattered around and not just where the tunnel is. I liked how there were three Troublesome Trucks blocking the track with one being derailed, as if they ran away like they often do. To make the layout feel more like Sodor, you could look at episode screenshots or Railway Series illustrations for scenery ideas. When using the Brendam Docks piece, please don't ignore the blue "sea" part and make sure there's nothing right near it on that side (having no watercraft makes Cranky redundant). The area around it should also look more like a harbour. In addition to the new engines you found, give Elizabeth some company by tracking down the other motorised characters (especially Bertie).

I was half expecting TTTE music to celebrate the occasion (preferrably the Mike O'Donnell and Junior Campbell soundtrack), though some of the "royalty free" alternatives were similar enough to certain ones. There might be auto detection problems with the theme song, but the ones like James' theme or the Repairs Theme should hopefully not trigger the system.

Yep, taking all the suggestions on board and sometimes have to adapt them to our circumstances. All very much appreciated nonetheless. I still have another plan for the shed walls, but will keep it perhaps for another video. For the mountain I was going to use a blanket, as someone else used in their videos (not sure if it was yourself or another member her). But for the lack of appropriately coloured blanket, we've decided to use all the plush toys we have. I thought that will be something different and funny to see

I have to admit that the derailed wagon wasn't intentional, and I only realised halfway through filming but decided to keep it that way. I've been thinking about our builds and video editing before and while all attempts are made to make it as good as possible, those little errors make our builds a little more realistic. I'm not a professional filmmaker, and my son isn't a master track builder (yet), so we just have to do our best while having fun in the process.

I'd love to use some background illustrations and actually had that idea before, but currently have no means of doing that. I'll try to show in one of the videos how I've painted our kids' room when we moved int. It's full of valleys, mountains, forests and a lake, as well as lots of things happening around, but it's around 1.5m above ground level, so can't really use it for rail tracks scenery. But definitely planning to do something on a smaller scale in the future.

I've realised at some point that the blue area is meant to be water, and we even had a boat for it (!), but can't find it right now. Will keep that in mind next time. And definitely on the lookout for more trains and certainly the motorised vehicles, although they seem to be very rare.

I'd love to find more suitable audio tracks that are royalty-free. We're using YouTube's library and tracks that are often used in other similar videos on channels we follow. We'd definitely like to have our own style for the music, but that's kind of difficult in finding good music in that theme.

Next video, this time shorter, of the Tomy Train Your Town set is scheduled to go live today, and I've tried something new there, so hopefully you'll like that too

Thanks for all the feedback and comments!

Here it is!

Vintage Tomy Trains Your Town - Build and play

I love it.

Love the animated stop motion at the beginning.

Absolutely love the stop motion where the scenery moves but the train does not. Amazing.

Love watching your son play especially when he says..."Stop...Stop" brought back earlier memories with my Grandson.

Memories also came back of my Daughter and Grandson sitting on the floor with their legs splayed out like that.

Loved the glimpses of the Engineer in training in the background.

Loved the video Bijo

Honestly, so glad you liked it. When I started making that video it was going to be just a playtime recording. But I thought it would be fun to do a stop-motion animation and just came up with each next bit as I was snapping photos to make sure I cover all parts of the set. May do more of those in the future but they're hard work! Over 200 frames for that short 1 minute animation!

My son loves playing with that set. The station is definitely his favourite, so may need to snap any more vintage pieces like that if I spot any on FB. Once we start building using regular Lego pieces it will be nice to see what he comes up with for the stations.

It's a great set and a nice video, Bijomaru! So vintage! I especially like that old curved track that looks like a little bridge!

Thanks! That piece is indeed quite special. Never seen anything like it in the modern tracks. It will be interesting to use it with faster trains after they come down from a ramp.

They are a neat cuve with culvert. I have 2 of these dark blue ones and 2 of the green ones. The green one came in the 'Thomas the Tank Engine Cruise Set' (2010) and I think at least one other set that I can't think of off hand. Maybe someone else knows any other sets.