(02-08-2015, 09:47 PM)George_Gipping Wrote: Whoah! That is an enormous volume of track those guys have acquired. Actually, what I bought from ebay was brown-greyish in appearance, rather than bright blue. I didn't even give it a second thought other than it looking more 'natural' in the garden! Was this a mistake? Is it all compatible?
Have been very impressed by pictures I've seen in the forum of people who have converted Thomas the Tank locomotives to British steam, replacing boiler doors, custom paint jobs, etc. Can't wait to try some of that myself. Has anyone written guides to this - the best paints, how to prepare the body shells etc?
Finally, I'm London (UK) based. Anyone else in the city collecting this stuff? I might benefit from having a gander at other peoples' layouts / collections for inspiration / direction etc.
Anyway, thanks for the advice so far.
George
As an aside, I note some of those trains in those youtube videos are quite long. Are the locomotives capable of hauling long trains without modification? I'd love to run some long, long freight trains around the garden.
Can you double-head?
Plarail makes real trains and THomas trains, and they run on blue track which is only available in Japan. Trackmaster is Thomas only, and it's available anywhere besides Japan. Trackmaster is the brown track you purchased. In 2014 they redid Trackmaster's tracks so that the tracks are colored grey, are thinner, snap together tighter, and the sets are more aimed at stunts and whatnot than pulling basic trains. Most of us don't like the new ones but I personally do. You can't double head unless you modify a loco to have a coupler on the front. All three ranges use the same gauge of track and the same coupling system. There are adapters to connect the plarail track to the original trackmaster track, as well as the old trackmaster to the new. Are you planning on running Thomas in any capacity? Most of these types of plastic trains are Thomas-related. Also, do you want something that can do stunts or a basic model railway?