Ideal Christmas first trainset for a 5 year old?

I can second David's suggestion. Our son has played many hours with both his Tomy road & rail sets. A new loco and a couple of trucks can be purchased from Toys R Us for about =A310. One important bit of advice .... get some NiNh batteries ( these have no memory effect and can therefore be recharged without problem ).

158cm x 230 cm is about 62" x 90" !

Chris

"M" wrote in news: snipped-for-privacy@individual.net:

...

That's what my 5 year old son got a few years ago, he loved it, had no poblems using it or assemling track. The only fly in the ointment was that his younger sister stripped the nylon gears gears on teh engine by trying to push it.

To my mind thre's nothing wrong whatsoever in giving a 5 year old an electric train set ... wouldn't bother with DCC though, "DC make engine go" is far easier for a young one to understand.

dmc wrote: [...] Assembling the track isn't a problem (I'm assuming that it's all

[...]

Not necessarily. Rail heights differ somewhat, sleepers may differ in thickness, and so on. And no two manufacturers use the same system for joining tracks mounted on plastic ballast. IOW, there may be enough differences to make mixing brands a problem. Go to a hobby shop, and examine what's available.

I suggest that you go with the sectional track consisting of code 100 flat bottom rail molded onto a sleeper strip. This style of sectional (and flexible) track differs very little from one manufacturer to another.

Have fun!

Here's a complete train set which cost £6.00 in our Be-Wise bargain store at Newton-le-Willows during 2005's Christmas shopping season, ie 21st October! (Be-Wise has since been renamed QS, but sells exactly the same stuff as before)

It is 32mm gauge (0) but the train itself is of no known scale. The loco is an 0-6-0 and its tender and 3 cars run on small but very free-running bogies.

The loco runs off a single AA battery which enabled it to haul all the stock shown in the box over 5 laps of my 180 ft of

32mm gauge Peco SM32 (16mm scale) garden railway.

The track is a 12 track section oval = 1420mm X 870mm, but each section has its own unique style of male and female rail ends. If the odd track end joins were cut off and aligned this track could be pinned down to a baseboard .

See:

Dang that looks like fun, let us know if they have it this year as well please?

My grandson got a remote control school bus for his second birthday last week. There are two buttons, one for forwards and one for spinning around. It was amazing how quickly he caught on to the operation.

Last January on post-Christmas clearance I bought a large box of generic wooden trains and tracks reduced from $40 to $10. I plan to give him this for Christmas, although it is recommended for ages 3 and up. He can start out with simple flat track sections and progress to the inclines, briges, etc. later. He likes to play with my diescast model cars and buses (the sturdier ones) but I haven't shown him my 00 railway layout yet!

I mix Hornby and Peco with US Atlas flextrack (the improved version introduced in the last 2 or 3 years) with no problems. Atlas has a continuous web under one rail, making it easier to get uniform sleeper spacing on curves.

No, its (some) grandparents who have technofright at the sight of DCC. What could be easier than the Bachmann unit, especially if you choose engines with single digit numbers on the side? Find me a 5 year Thomas fan who doesn't know the number on that engine?

Mark Thornton

I also quite like the look of that. The locos while looking a little cheap are styled on Thomas and percy, so for a lad familiar with the thomas stuff they will be familiar, just a little grown up. Add in a GWR pannier tank, (duck) and a J94 (Bill/Ben) and you are well on the way to a grown up set that will look familiar.

Yeah. I think going to go for that if I can find one. Tried the hythe model shop today and they don't stock it (although he could get it for me). Was a little put off by the way he was flicking through the catalogues saying things like "and then there are these digital rubbish. Don't know why they are bothering" etc etc :-)

The "like thomas but a little grown up" is *exactly* what I'm after.

Personally, DCC makes me more interested in model railways - the faff of isolating sections etc etc was a pain!

Each to their own,

Darren

I think you still need to be aware of what you are doing to avoid shorts, but it does seem simpler.

P.

Yeah. I think a 5 year old will find it easier to get his head around though.

Still, popped to East Kent Models in Whitstable at lunch today and picked up a set. Good price and a good deal on a couple of extra bits and pieces. Highly recommended.

I even managed to resist looking at the N gauge stuff too much (I might have to revisit however ;-))

Thanks to all for the advice,

Darren

Here is the URL of a 'quickie' low resolution album of photos I've taken specially to illustrate a complete, battery operated train set offered in the cheap toy stores prior to Christmas 2005.

See:

The track is 32mm gauge, same as O gauge, but the engine and rolling stock are built to no known scale.

The outdoor train scenes were photographed on 31 October 2006, along the track of my 32mm gauge Sankey River Line. The SRL is a garden railway normally operated as a 16mm = 1 foot scale

2ft gauge line.

You can view the pictures either individually or else as a continuous slide show by following the instructions in the top left hand corner of the opening page of thumbnails