Questions about plastic rail from a newbie

Okay, good advice everyone so far, thank you.

Tootally Thomas - would be great to catch up with you at a fayre at some point, what others are you doing? I think spending st. Valentines day buying model trains would probably get me in some trouble, so this Saturday is off...

That having been said - you say you can do track cheaper than ebay, that's great. I think I would quite like to buy some long straights in bulk. Can you do a good price?

My parcels have all now arrived and I've bought some new C cell batteries, so looking forward to putting it all together tonight. Quite excited actually! I'm reliving my childhood, clearly.

Quite like the Murdock I received in the post this morning. Looking forward to putting a Hornby smokebox door on him. May fashion one out of black card in the meanwhile... how best to take him apart? Just the screws on the bottom?

[Super]

Here's a video of some of my sons trains running,

Thanks Tramp, it was nice to re-visit all your videos again. Its been a while.

[Ucwepn]

yes screws on the bottom for Murdoch, I'm not sure if the face is installed or molded on Murdoch (I can't remember)

Thank you Super, I've not made any videos in a while, but I havnt really been modding much in that time either, I'll try and make more effort to get playing this year, I did suggest a celing level train set in my sons room but the wife didn't like that idea, although I thought it would have been great!!!

Totally Thomas, is there a canadian variant of this site? As I see a few products I would like to purchase

Hi Rock

I happily ship worldwide ( last I checked Canada was within the boundary ...just ) and don't look to make money on shipping . If its under 2kg then the website will give shipping when ordered if its over 2kg then I will need to get courier quotes and invoice once I have exact weight and size.

Order away

Steve

[Super]

I did suggest a celing level train set in my sons room but the wife didn't like that idea, although I thought it would have been great!!!

Whaaaat?
That is a great idea. Also let her know that you plan on cutting tunnels through the walls so the ceiling train can pass from room to room. I am sure that will turn her opinion for sure

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

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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?

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

I disagree with you, they sell the blue track all over the world under the Tomy brand, I bought the hyper city stater set from a shop in England, so it's not Japan exclusive, although you don't get the full catalogue range, wheras in Japan it's a big thing and there are a huge number of home market specials,

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

I disagree with you, they sell the blue track all over the world under the Tomy brand, I bought the hyper city stater set from a shop in England, so it's not Japan exclusive, although you don't get the full catalogue range, wheras in Japan it's a big thing and there are a huge number of home market specials,

Toy R Us in Canada still sell Tomy trains and blue plastic tracks but not a lot of variety.