help me sort this out

Kevin, buying plarail (what Japan calls Tomy) is the best thing you could do if you aren't buying them off of eBay. I find Amazon a lot cheaper for the "regular" trains (thomas, percy, Diesel 10 etc.) and overkill in quality. And once you start working on mods, you become hooked to these trains like superglued lego bricks get stuck together: once they're together, they don't come apart.