Tips for Building Wooden Railway Layouts on a Train Table
Most people who are entering the world of wooden railway building start out building layouts on the floor. This is great in many ways - you have lots of room to spread out. This is especially good for the youngest builders who tend to build long lines of track. Children love to crawl around on the floor driving Thomas the Tank Engine or other engines around and around the tracks they have built. Building on the floor can have some disadvantages, however. It can be heartbreaking for a young builder to have to take apart his masterpiece when playtime is over. Layouts on the floor are also vulnerable to stampeding toddlers or pets and get broken apart easily. For this reason, many families of wooden railway fans often decide to invest in a train table, where they can leave layouts put together when playtime is over. Building on a table also brings the layout to the perfect level for little engineers who love to spend hours driving their trains on the layouts. For some, the best beginning table solution is Learning Curve's 2-in-1 Grow With Me Playboard, with one side of the board having grooved track layouts built right into the board. When the child gets older, the board can be turned over for a traditional "flat" building surface. (The Thomas Train Table is sold separately).
The biggest challenge to building on a best train toysis the lack of space, you can't really spread the layout out as much as you may be used to for building on the floor. This can be frustrating for young children who aren't experienced builders, usually beginning builders just like to build long tracks that go "nowhere". The key for successful building on a playtable is to use tight curves.
There are two track pieces that I definitely recommend having on hand for building on train or playtables. First, have lots of short curve track pieces (3.5-inch curves). These allow for much tighter curves than the longer 6-inch curve pieces. Second, T-Switch tracks are great space savers for building in tight spaces. The best way to learn is to get building! If you need inspiration, there are lots of layouts available on the web to study or duplicate. Try Googling "Thomas Wooden Railway Track Layouts" for some layouts that are designed to fit on playtables. Don't worry if you don't have every bridge or destination shown in the diagram - it's fun and easy to substitute with regular track or other destinations.