Questions about plastic rail from a newbie

Hallo everyone!

Very glad I've found this forum - it appears to be rather new? I'm George, I'm very new to the world of battery powered trains so I thought I'd introduce myself.

I'm so new to this I haven't actually got my hands on any track or rolling stock yet - have ordered a couple of pieces that took my fancy on ebay and they should be arriving in the next give days or so. I knew straight off the bat that I'd want to do some modifications so I did a spot of googling around and that brought me here.

So - why I'm suddenly looking at plastic trains.

I'm getting married soon, and in a fit of good humour my wife to be joked wouldn't it be good fun if we ran a railway around the garden for our guests to play with.

Anyway, I'm sure she wasn't serious but it certainly got me thinking on the cheapest possible way one could lay a railway, if only for testing purposes, and after looking at all the options it seems to me that plastic rails of the Thomas the Tank Engine / Trackmaster type was very good value for money. Wagons for a few quid, engines for less than a tenner, and track packs on eBay for not too much money.

I suppose I ought to ask at this junction, am I barking up the wrong tree? I'm sure there's no reason why one shouldn't snake plastic track through the flower beds and across the lawn, especially if it's only temporary.

As much of a fan as I am of Thomas the Tank Engine (no doubt we all enjoyed the Reverends excellent books in our childhoods) I'm certain I'd like to run a more prototypical railway - with boiler doors rather than faces, etc! Is there anyone who makes such engines? Or would I be best getting out my hacksaw and modifying the trains? Does anyone else do this?

Anyway, I'm going to have a read of the forum and see what I can find. Maybe I'll answer some of my own questions. But any suggestions of where to start out and where to look are welcome. Especially interested in what the best means of acquiring large amounts of track very cheaply is - it's a fairly large garden and I'd hate for the lady to clock me around the head for spending £££ on railways.

Looking forward to hearing your thoughts. I'm already getting excited at the prospect of building a girder bridge between one raised border and the other...

George

[Super]

Hello George

LOL...you have come to the right place. First let me welcome you to our community and congratulations on your pending nuptials. Lucky man, not necessarily because you are getting married but because you are apparently getting married to a lady who likes trains...priceless.

Many members here have good luck finding lots of tracks and accessories at second hand stores or charity resell shops. Here in the states there are lots of deals on Ebay for large bundles of used tracks to. It wouldn't take but a couple of purchases to gather all you need or at least a good start. The Japanese have lots of layouts outside using these blue tracks. There are quite a few YouTube videos to watch a couple of my favorite are below. Of course you wouldn't leave the engines outside all the time but everything else can take the punishment of weather. However, like most plastics, there is a tendency for sun discoloration due to the UV rays when left outside for long periods. As far as the non-Thomas trains (trains without faces) Tomy/Plarail makes a whole line of them so you may find what you want without the modifications or, like some of us here, take a stab at making a train personal and one of a kind.

Browse around our Forums as we have much to offer from our many experts and novices alike. And they are always ready to help.

[Ucwepn]

Welcome! Plastic track is very hardy indoors or outdoors, though with extended periods outdoors (months+) it can discolor.

When I want outdoors inspiration I turn to Megatropolisinertia on youtube

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?

There are also some people who travel the world and set up the trains at famous outdoor landmarks.

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George you can double head, just requires some modification. Like my thomas,    
and the blue track is plarail/Tomy. It was just the older style, and the Trackmaster (brown) is the newish version and was replaced with grey track that is not worth purchasing. Tomy/plarail is tougher than Trackmaster in some criterias and they are both compatable. The Tomy/plarail line has real trains and thomas trains. I prefer Tomy, but which line you choose is up to you.

Hello, I'm from England too, but not close at sheffield, if you want faceless trains you can buy new ones from Japan they are the plarail range and I find them to have the best drive units quiet, strong and sometimes quick, here are a few examples

C61 - http://pages.ebay.com/link/?nav=item.vie...584468535
C56 - http://pages.ebay.com/link/?nav=item.vie...762083941 (one of my favourite)
C57- http://pages.ebay.com/link/?nav=item.vie...584468535 (this one is tender driven)
D51-http://pages.ebay.com/link/?nav=item.vie...585429606
C12- thee don't appear to be any on eBay at the moment

The only problem with these is that they are all Japanese trains, most of trains sold in the UK are trackmaster and are mostly thomas characters, which ones do you want to deface? They are all relatively easy to do with a Stanley knife, a lot of the thomas characters are black around the smokebox door so some humbrol black enamel covers it, When I've defaced engines before I usually measure the old face then buy a 00 gauge hornby smoke box door that best matches the size, cut the fixings flush then glue it on. The advantage to converting Trackmaster thomas characters is that you get UK engines to run on your train set, I've defaced salty, Gorden, James and Neville so far I fancy doing a Spencer but don't want to spend the money on it!!!

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



Hope it's some food for thought,

[Ucwepn]

The brown track is more natural looking and made very well, its downfall for me is the lack of being double sided like the blue track and the small range of pieces available whereas the blue track has all sorts of double track pieces and almost anything else you can think of.

To run blue track with brown track you will need some adapter pieces.

brown tracks are wasier to connect as bithe end of thracks have the same connector where as the blue tracks usuallt have one male connector and one female connector at the other end. Blue tracks have more switches to play with such as the double crossover.

brown tracks are wasier to connect as bithe end of thracks have the same connector where as the blue tracks usuallt have one male connector and one female connector at the other end.  Blue tracks have more switches to play with such as the double crossover.

Hi George

I usually have track and engines available cheaper than E-Bay . I try and have the full range of the Tomy Thomas engines available ( us customers love them ) and a huge stock of the blue and brown track . Based in the UK and besides being web based we are doing 5 major model rail exhibitions this year starting on 14th Feb  in Milton Keynes .