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The Thomas Chronicles
Book 1: Planning An Island of Sodor Demonstration Railroad Project In early 2007, I was asked to demonstrate Garden Railroad construction for an arboretum near Cleveland, Ohio. The sponsor wanted something that would attract families with children, so after some discussion, the demo railroad was destined to have at least some "Thomas the Tank" content. One problem was that I hadn't seen any Thomas videos or read any Thomas books for years, and  the other was that I didn't have any Thomas the Tank equipment that could run outside. Another problem, though less critical, is that Lionel discontinued the Large Scale Thomas equipment in the 1990s, so anyone who gets REAL excited about what I'm doing with Thomas will ALSO have to scrounge for equipment like I did. But I was hoping to get folks excited about Garden Railroading in general, so I forged on.
 Over eBay, I found, ordered, and payed a little too much for one James, one Thomas in great condition, one Thomas with a little damage for backup, one pair of Annie and Clarabel coaches, and one Troublesome Truck. I serviced the locomotives and put them up. I also examined the Troublesome Truck. It's NOT based on European prototype, but rather American prototype. In fact the AristoCraft 4-wheel gondolas I already owned are nearly the same width and height, so they look fine behind it.  So if I determine that one "Troublesome Truck" is not enough, I MAY just get out the gray primer. . . .
To reconstruct the Isle of Sodor itself, I checked several videos out of the library, and watched them, looking for landscaping details and building styles.
 I discovered to my surprise that most of the buildings are based on Pola and Piko kits that were made to go with LGB trains, so that they actually look more German than English. I put a bid on a couple of the original buildings on eBay, but didn't win them so we'll see. I also fast-forwarded through "Thomas and the Magic Railroad" DVD looking for anything remotely useful, but was disappointed in the lack of scenery shown. Still, the "solar" windmill that WalMart is selling in its lawn & garden department will probably make a decent stand-in for the windmill that Alec Baldwin stands in front of for a quarter of the movie. Now for the viaduct, which is next to the windmill in the earl videos. Carved and painted styrofoam comes to mind.
 Back to the buildings, I've already spent more money accumulating Thomas trains than I should have for this project, so I may figure other ways to give the effect of Thomas' surroundings, versus accumulating buildings I can't use for anything else. . . Besides the whole thing has to be portable, since I'm bringing the whole railroad to the greater Cleveland area, not once, but twice.
Other logistic issues, not related to the Thomas subject matter, will include bringing enough track, lumber, power supplies, trees, groundcovers, tools, and other materials to build two railroads twice on two different weekends. The arboretum agreed to pick up the bill for these supplies, but the logistic issues remained. 
Overall, though I thought it would be worthwhile to record our discoveries and experiences, in case any readers are ever interested in similar projects. I also asked several friends for help and advice, and will include their comments as appropriate. The first helpful message came from Bruce Jahn, whose club sets up "modular railways" at train shows and other events.
Bruce Jahn writes
. . . I feel obliged to extend some "lessons
learned" from the BAGRS ShortLine module group...we run Thomas a lot.
Lionel didn't do us any favors when they failed to plate Thomas' wheels. Hence the
wheels "goop" up really quick. In fact we have two sets so one engine used to always be
"in the shop" with wheel cleaning duty. To eliminate this boring duty, we've replaced the
wheels on Annie and Clarabell with LGB bearing'd wheel sets with power pick up linked to
Thomas and removed the wipers on Thomas' wheels. With this arrangement, the trailing
cars pick up the power and Thomas' wheels only drive the consist saving the operators
lots of frustration and sad children.
A couple other thoughts (lessons learned):
- There are after market faces available
showing Thomas with various facial expressions; ie sadness, frightened, dismay etc. If
you really want to see children cry, install one of these faces.
- Never, I mean
NEVER, place Clarabell in front of Annie (that same crying children thing).
- Thomas
runs much faster than almost every other train on the market, so you either need to have
'him' on a track by himself or install a diode or two to slow him down.
- Get rid of those undependable hook and loop couplers...we've replaced them with simple
Marx style flat hooks.
Other Notes:
- After about 130 shows, those eyes still continue to swing back and forth.
- We've never lube'd those exposed drive gears and have never had a problem. Last word
of knowledge on this subject...running a module display for the public and not including
Thomas would be like selling a car to a friend and keeping one of the wheels.
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