My step-Grandson, Jelani, is 5.5yo. For a summer project I am thinking about 'assembling' a 'Dinosaur Train' and or Theme Park. While I have a few concepts am open to suggestions, ideas, gales of laughter, or ? My Thoughts Open top cars such as gondolas and flatcars with small plastic dinos 'chained', (and glued), in place. I can also see maybe a box car with the neck of a Brontosaurus sticking out and an open door showing the other end. Maybe some of the dinos would be covered in a 'canvas'. I think a small steamer would be best but may not have the pulling capacity. For a theme park I was thinking something like a zoo or maybe where the dinos are 'models' and for playing on. So, I'm open to all suggestions / humor / off topic contributions.
I like it!! I think I can get my 5&7 YO grandsons involved. Thanks for the idea. -Steve Sent from my iPhone using Tapatalk
Would this be in N scale? Or a different scale? I'm not sure what is available for dinos which will work in N?
For the dinos themselves, you might find some on Shapeways, and toy stores always seem to have a lot in different sizes. Just as a thought, it might look cool to take the roof off an auto carrier and use that as a kind of extra-tall gondola.
Um, not 'scale' dinos but, yes, some small enough to fit in a gondola / flat or box car. @Eagle2, I don't have any car carriers but you did remind me I do have well bottom container cars. @St Hellen's Steve - My pleasure. Please let me know how it comes out.
Check your local Michael's or equivalent craft store, they often have the bag or plastic tube o' dinosaurs. Amazon probably has some cheapie sets too. If you're so inclined, you could also go more towards a "Noah's Ark" type train and have pairs of animals as freight. I love the idea of the boxcars with necks sticking up. For gondolas or flats, I'd fasten the dino's to a false floor that fit into the car so it wasn't permanent.
Remembering passing by the show while channel surfing and pausing a moment and they do have a PBS website. Just for the heck of it I scrolled through and kept count of the number of featured Dinosaurs. They are an even 100 of the critters. The train appears to be headed by a 4 or 6 drivered steamer. So even with grouping some of the smaller stuff in one car it still would be a long train and strain the capabilities of a small steamer if any grades are encountered. So the theme park probably would be a good choice depending on the number of critters acquired. That would let the train consist be smaller and shorter. However finding dinos that would fit for N scale may be the next issue as most I have seen in sets would not fit in N scale cars.
Being that he's 5yo, you might consider a larger size "toy" train rather than N or HO. Maybe a plastic battery-powered set similar to Thomas with snap together track, something you wouldn't mind cutting holes in car roofs for dinosaur heads to pop out.
Playmobile makes a train that can withstand a five year old. As a matter of fact, ours withstood three kids and is still going strong. It is actually G scale, so adding track and other cars is easy. Playmobile also makes practically indestructable dinosaurs that go perfectly with the train. Now to see if it will hold up to the grand kids. Sent from my GT-N8013 using Tapatalk
You might want to check this out! http://thundermesaminingco.blogspot.com/2013/03/building-dinosaur-gap.html
