Hey, I'm glad this thread got resurrected! I got into these trains because of my five year old son's almost literally life-long fascination with trains!
Like a lot of guys, I was interested in both real and model railroads when I was younger. I played with an old Marx O scale engine when I was little and had a couple Tyco HO scale trains as an older preteen kid. I read Model Railroader magazine and even bought a few how-to books but I never seriously pursued model railroading as an adult. I've dabbled in scale modeling, miniature war gaming and 1/6 scale action figures during the past few decades. I was aware of Plarail because I've been a customer of most of the big Japanese retailers that sell to the West (HLJ, Hobby Search, etc) but it was only after we'd gotten my son his first few Trackmaster engines that I observed the similarities between the two lines. We then bought a Plarail Thomas with Annie, Clarabel and a bunch of track. I was impressed enough that I started buying the regular, non-character engines for him and eventually, Thomas characters as well. About a year ago, I discovered BPT and eventually started buying engines and rolling stock for myself. My three year old daughter started asking for her own trains about 8 months ago, so now 3/4 of the family are into this hobby. We also go railfanning, visit railroad themed exhibits and have ridden the excursion train run by a local railroad historical society.
While the kids mostly focus on Thomas stuff, Daddy's trains started off as almost entirely the "realistic" steam locomotives before branching into diesels. I have a few Thomas engines but they are slated to eventually be modified into non-character locomotives. My railroad actually has a name, an approximate time period and is loosely based on a couple historical regional roads as well as a couple of large railroads (Illinois Central Gulf and Southern) that operated in the area.
Like a lot of guys, I was interested in both real and model railroads when I was younger. I played with an old Marx O scale engine when I was little and had a couple Tyco HO scale trains as an older preteen kid. I read Model Railroader magazine and even bought a few how-to books but I never seriously pursued model railroading as an adult. I've dabbled in scale modeling, miniature war gaming and 1/6 scale action figures during the past few decades. I was aware of Plarail because I've been a customer of most of the big Japanese retailers that sell to the West (HLJ, Hobby Search, etc) but it was only after we'd gotten my son his first few Trackmaster engines that I observed the similarities between the two lines. We then bought a Plarail Thomas with Annie, Clarabel and a bunch of track. I was impressed enough that I started buying the regular, non-character engines for him and eventually, Thomas characters as well. About a year ago, I discovered BPT and eventually started buying engines and rolling stock for myself. My three year old daughter started asking for her own trains about 8 months ago, so now 3/4 of the family are into this hobby. We also go railfanning, visit railroad themed exhibits and have ridden the excursion train run by a local railroad historical society.
While the kids mostly focus on Thomas stuff, Daddy's trains started off as almost entirely the "realistic" steam locomotives before branching into diesels. I have a few Thomas engines but they are slated to eventually be modified into non-character locomotives. My railroad actually has a name, an approximate time period and is loosely based on a couple historical regional roads as well as a couple of large railroads (Illinois Central Gulf and Southern) that operated in the area.
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