new links...

I have added links to my ebay guide and group, also a friends tomy blog and another ebay seller based in Thailand, and to a video on youtube of my latest layout running.

my latest layout....

This is a special track piece I made myself especially for this layout.

and this one too......
they aren't hard to do using some old rails and staples fired from a gun... no need for glue













this layout is made to run a train on three cicuits, which one it goes on depends on which track the auto-3-way points put you onto. from station back to the same station takes 4 minutes for the fastest train I have.

locomotive repairs.........

I have found that the new range of trains are not as robust as the older Tomy ones.
In the rush to make things smaller, cheaper or quicker, quality sometimes falls by
the way-side. The old saying goes "something can always be made a little
cheaper...... and a little worse".





A common problem with the battery driven engines is that when the batteries run out
little hands try to push them along instead. Which is OK if the switch is set to
'off', otherwise the gears and cogs are still engaged and damage can result. This
can quite often be easily repaired by the following method...

first unscrew the two screws holding the motor onto the chassis......... the wheels on their axle will then fall from the clips under the motor.
You will probably find that the little gear cog on the axle shaft will turn on the shaft fairly easily.... which it shouldn't. So you slide the cog along the axle shaft and you can now see the knurled part of the shaft which should hold the cog firm. By forcing the train along when the gears were still engaged has caused the knurling to act like a file and remove some of the plastic cog so that the two no longer hold together tightly.
Slide the cog back and forth along the shaft whilst wiping with a tissue, try to remove all the oil or grease on the shaft, a little alcohol or thinner may help. When clean and dry apply super glue to the knurls and slide the cog back into place on top of the knurled part.
Re-assemble and you should be good to go.....
Trying to teach the 'little hands' is probably a tougher job.

couplings..........

I have found that the original couplings are difficult to 'hook-unhook' and much prefer the old magnetic ones.

A case of over-engineering by Tomy, in trying to make them fool-proof they inadvertantly made them child-proof which defeats the object.

To get around this I've started to 'clip' off a part of the 'thumb' which meets the hook and almost closes it, using a nail clipper or similar. this allows easy hooking-unhooking but doesn't come loose in play (often). The real trucks in the Thomas stories often come undone too... so the kids won't mind.