When I became a parent I swore I wouldn’t let my child watch hours of television, I would feed him what we ate and I wouldn’t over schedule the hell out of him. So far I’m 3 for 3. Pretty good I think. I haven’t over indulged on character stuff. Although we do have a ton of Dr. Seuss books. We don’t have an entire collection of Elmo paraphernalia. Our child video collection is quite limited and I personally don’t buy clothing with licensed characters. I leave that to the grandparents. I may not buy it, but I’m certainly not one to pass up free clothing.
For the boy’s first Christmas we purchased a Learning Curve train set from Target. At a baby shower we received a small Thomas the Tank train set. This last Christmas the trusty in-laws bought that giant train table that came with a bajillion pieces. Needless to say we have quite a bit of train stuff. And I don’t mind. It stays fairly contained in on or around the table and is fun to play with. I like a good puzzle as much as anyone. What’s better is I like a good pre-designed track layout so I don’t have to think and can skip to the playing part. I have long lost the layout for the track that came with the table. It has one of those spiral deals and a mountain and all kinds of cool stuff. I just can’t remember how to put it together. I’ve searched the internet, but no luck.
One day I thought surely there are track layouts on the internet somewhere. They must be hidden in Thomas the Tank branded sites. Off I went in search of Thomas the Tank track layouts. I hit a gold mine of layouts. I printed out several and we pieced together a few. Of course I’m always short one 3 1/2″ curve or something.
I did some browsing at the layouts they had and I clicked on this one. Holy Mary mother of Thomas. That thing is flippin’ sweet. Of course I’m short every single building, all of the stacking riser, the ascending risers and the majority of the track pieces. This is where I lose it.
Hello, my name is Elle. I’m an Ebay junkie. Every last piece I need to build the Ultimate Island of Sodor is on Ebay. I just have to shell out the money for it. To build the ultimate it would cost over $730 retail or on sale on the internet. That’s just the stuff I could find available. There are pieces you have to get as part of a whole set, like 3″ straight track. With ebay I can get it for 1/3 that price.
I have become obsessed with finding the parts to build this Ultimate Island of Sodor. It is a sickness really. So bad that charts have been created. Is there a Thomas the Tank 12 step program out there?
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I just won one Ebay auction for a lot of miscellaneous pieces and the water tower for $20.01.? With shipping it came to $29.51.? If I bought the lot online (without shipping) it would have been $72.93.? God Bless you Suzanne and your bidnapper.com.
Elle…you are not bad…you are a mom and every once in awhile we gooooo waaaaay off the deep end…it is OK…step back and watch him enjoy it…
I closed out that PDF file fairly quickly, because if I studied it very long, I would have been doing the same thing. Clyde is crazy about Thomas the Train, and he would flip his lid over something like that.
All I can say is wow. double, triple wow. That’s going to be the most amazing train set. Lucky, lucky boy.
And yeah… eBay is an addiction. And there is no 12 step program.
You should check out http://www.woodentrain.com. This is a great little handcrafted train shop near us – all compatible with Thomas and BRIO. We have an arsenal of the stuff – right now my toddler is clutching his locomotive in one fist and his sippy cup in the other as we fight bedtime – and it is really durable and nice quality. We’d be happy to send you some if you found what you need but I think they ship all over. If this is your worst parenting vice you are doing great!
ebay is crack for collectors of ANYTHING.
Oh, you are such a good mom! That layout was awesome, when can I come over and play?
This is exactly why I have loads and loads of DUPLO for the kids. And eventually I hope to have boxes upon boxes of Legos for the kids, the jury is still out if I’m capable of sharing my own Legos with the kids.
I’m scared to check out the link Jen suggested though … we have a lot of BRIO trains too and I never got any wooden trains as a kid, henceforth my kids get lots of that.
gotta love ebay
Elmo/wiggles addicts over here….but the only character shirt (elmo) was bought by Conor on a guilt ridden business trip. We watch tv. But we do eat the same thing and are getting better at reading…now if I could find harold and the purple crayon book in the house!!!
Score on the train pieces!
Um, that train set is beyond my ability. So glad I’m not an engineer/mother of a train set loving boy right now. hehe.
ps – I am proud to see that you aren’t a huge junkie of tv and character clothing. I can’t stand that crap! Just one of the many rules the grandparents will be getting when we adopt. (I know, I know – that sounds like a
bridemotherzilla… tough!) lol.bidnapper is awesome, isn’t it. So glad to be of help.