Miniature Wooden Train - 7 Car Set

25 years ago when my two boys were little I watched a lot of children's shows with them. Funny that after all this time a lot of it is still stuck in my memory. It's weird. I can't tell you where my car keys are but I can name all four Telly Tubbies. Sometimes when I'm preoccupied with a task I'll catch myself humming "Let's get down to business" from Mulan. And when I'm tidying up my workshop I hear Barney the Dinosaur singing the clean up song in my head. Ugh... there's got to be something wrong with me.

While most of those shows were tough to sit through there were a few that I actually enjoyed. One of them was Thomas the Tank Engine. Both boys loved the show too. Heck, who doesn't like trains? At the time I was doing a lot of travelling for work and when I passed through the town of Texarkana I would stop at a book store there. They had a toy section that was stocked with various characters from the Thomas the Tank Engine show and I would buy a couple pieces. Over time we ended up with quite a collection of trains, track, buildings, etc. LOL... I think I had more fun playing with it than the boys did. Maybe not... I think my oldest son may have quietly taken it with him when he moved out a number of years ago.

I've missed that old train set and over the past year or so I've been considering making my own. I was thinking that it would also make a great holiday decoration to place around the Christmas tree plus it seemed like a fun project. And I have several ideas for buildings, bridges, track, etc., and maybe even a battery powered motorized engine at some point. I've got a table full of wood scraps from a bunch of different projects and I figured this would be a good way to use some of that up. I dug around on the internet and found some plans for a train set that looked really cool. I wanted something that wasn't overly complex, impressionistic but not cartoonish, and had kind a classic look to them. I could have just bought the plans but that's not nearly as fun as drawing them myself using CAD software and adding my own personal touch. Plus I had ideas for a couple more cars than what were on the plans. So I went with the general concept and drew up my own set of cars using the ones I saw on the internet as a guideline. It's pretty slick... the chassis for each car is the same and many of the other parts are common between cars as well. Sort of variations on a common theme. And as it turns out it was a GREAT way of using up scraps. The train set I saw on the internet was painted with multiple colors but I used different types of wood to get a similar effect and left the wood its natural color which really stood out when I finished it with teak oil.

I've included full sized templates for some of the parts as well as general descriptions and lots of pictures. But don't get too hung up on exact dimensions. The idea is to use up your scraps. If you have pieces that are maybe a little thicker or thinner or whatever... no big deal. Just use your judgement on what looks good to you. Heck, I didn't even follow my own plans for everything and changed up on the fly when I thought something different would look or work better. I used four different types of wood... teak, walnut, oak, and cherry. I came up with a strategy for which wood to use to sort of maintain somewhat of a common theme between cars but again... use what you've got, do what looks good to you, and have fun with it.

I have a six foot folding table in my workshop that has turned into my scrap table. I don't like to get rid of scraps if I think I might be able to use them for something else. Though the pile of scraps continuously grows which would seem to indicate that I'm not very good at using them. But hey... you never know. So I was quite pleased with myself when I came up with this project and decided it would be made from the stuff on the scrap table. There's teak, oak, pine, cedar, chestnut, walnut, and cherry. I decided to go with hardwoods and went with walnut, cherry, oak, and teak to get a nice variation in color and grain patterns. I did end up using a chunk of cedar for the tank on the tanker car since it was the right size.

Other materials... I used Gorilla Super Glue Instant Gel to bond everything together. Template patterns were printed on 8-1/2 x 11 paper. These were cut out and applied to the wood using Elmers Craft Bond spray adhesive. Paint thinner does a good job of removing the templates from the wood once the pieces have been cut and shaped. Parts were lightly sanded with 220 grit sandpaper and the wood was finished with teak oil. For the coal in my coal car I bought a bag of black aquarium gravel from the local pet store.

Tools included drill press, disc/belt sander, table saw, surface planer, miter saw, scroll saw, hand drill, dozuki, dowel cutter, brad point drill bits, and a forstner bit.

The two larger chassis pieces are used on every car. They are 1/2 inch thick and 1-3/4 inches wide. I glue the template down, cut the piece to approximate length and then shape the front end on the disc sander (or you could cut it on the scroll saw). Here I'm using a couple scrap pieces from a domino box I was making (and messed up). The bottom chassis piece gets a 3/8 inch diameter hole drilled in front and the top piece gets the next bit size up (25/64 inch). 17/64 inch holes are drilled through the sides of the bottom piece to accomodate the axles which are made from 1/4 inch dowel rods. The template provides the proper hole locations. If there is a critical step in the construction of these train cars it's this part. I clamp the two chassis pieces together while drilling to provide a wider base and ensure the holes emerge on the other side in the right place. The smaller chassis piece in the template file is used as is on the train, caboose, and passenger car. It is also used on the crane and the coal car but it is modified for these two. It is not used on the lumber car and the tanker.

The wheels are approximately 1/4 inch thick and are actually pretty easy to make. The hole in the center of the wheel is 1/4 inch diameter. I have a simple fixture to hold the piece while it is shaped using the disc sander. Just take your time and incrementally advance the assembly into the disc sander. Slowly rotate the part a full rotation before advancing a little more. Keep going until you've sanded down to the line on the template. Each wheel requires two pieces. A larger diameter piece and a smaller diameter piece. Each vehicle gets six wheels and three axles. Make sure that you leave a little gap between the wheels and the chassis so that they will turn easily.

You will notice that there are NOT templates for EVERY piece of the cars. I figured that simple rectangular parts didn't really need a template. I'll just provide the dimensions for what I ended up with. Again, here's where you can make changes based on the scraps you have on hand. For instance, you can make the roof parts a little thicker/thinner/wider/shorter/whatever based on what looks good to you. No big deal. Most of the cars are super easy to make and only take a couple hours from start to finish. No fancy joinery and not a whole lot of parts to put together. The steps are simple as illustrated in the pictures provided. Hopefully there's enough information but if something is not clear then please ask in the comment section below. I will be happy to respond!

The sides are 3/8 inch thick material, the roof is 1/4 inch thick, and the decorative roof panels are 3/16 inch thick. In general, I would make the roof overhang about a quarter inch on all four sides of the car or in the case of the train and crane... a quarter inch over the cab on all four sides. The size of the rooftop panels depended on the scraps I had on hand and just went with what looked good.

The dowel used to link the cars together is 3/8 inch diameter and 1-1/8 inch long. It is glued into the 3/8 inch diameter hole in the bottom chassis.

The caboose is very similar to the passenger car and goes together about the same. Not much explanation is required here. Just follow the steps in the pictures. When I finished the caboose I felt like it needed a couple more decorative roof tops so you don't see those pieces in the parts accumulation picture. Which is a good example of my mindset during the entire building process. Evaluate your work as you're going along and change things to suite your taste!

The crane was fun. This was one of the cars that is my own design. The boom goes up and down while the entire cab rotates around. The base for the boom is made from one of the cutouts from the cab sides. The hole is 1/4 inch. The dowel through the end of the boom arm is also 1/4 inch. You want the fit to be snug so that it stays in place. I used a short piece of bamboo skewer for the dowel at the top end of the boom. Be careful to only glue the 1/4 inch dowel to the boom arms and not the base (unless you don't want the boom to move). Similarly, the 1-3/4 circular turret and the cab should not be glued to anything and should rotate freely around the 1/4 inch dowel. The 3/4 inch circular cap is glued to the end of the dowel (and only to the end of the dowel) to hold everything in place. The cable is black nylon twine. The ball on the end is a 1/2 inch diameter wooden bead that I bought from Joann's and the hook is a little (3/8 inch dia) screw eye.

Another super simple build. Here's one of the places where the chassis base piece is modified. It is cut shorter to accomodate the two end pieces. Just double the thickness of one of the end pieces and that's how much to cut off of the base.

The coal that fills up the car is black aquarium gravel from the pet store. It's simply poured into the car for now... I really should glue all the pieces down. That doesn't sound fun so maybe later.

The engine turned out to be my favorite (right ahead of the crane). It has the most pieces (43) of all the cars and of course takes the longest to build (about 5 hours). I didn't cut all of the pieces ahead of time on this one. Instead, I kind of fiddled with the shape of the parts as I built up the car. The dowel in the first couple of pictures is not glued yet. It's only used to help with alignment while the sides are glued.

The smaller headlamps are glued in and are a bit oversized. When the glue cures the lights are ground to finished length on the disc sander. Same with the large headlamp. I made the smokestack top the same way as the wheels except that I canted the work table to end up with a taper. The dowels are 3/8 inch diameter for the smokestack and the piece behind it. The dowel in the cab is 1/4 inch diameter.

The easiest one of all. No special templates required. It's just a base glued down to a chassis. This is also a good place to use up a bunch of small scrap pieces to make "lumber". Looks like we have a nice load of walnut, teak, and oak. Each piece of lumber is 1/2 x 1/2 x 6-3/8 inches. The base is 1/4 x 3 x 6. Nylon twine straps the lumber down to small (3/8 dia) screw eyes. I put a drop of glue on each knot to make sure it doesn't come untied. This car is so simple but it's still really cool!

Another one of my own designs that was fun to build. The tank is made from a big chunk of western red cedar that I had left over from a 4 x 4 and turned down in a similar fashion as my fly rod case. Details here. In this case I modified an old dowel rod jig I had made many years ago. The diameter of the tank is 2-5/8 inches and the diameter of the cap on top is 1 inch. If I had to do it over I'd make the tank 2-1/4 inches in diameter so the overall height of the car is closer to the others. It feels a little too big overall... or maybe I'm just too picky.

I have to admit it... I had way too much fun hooking all of the cars together for the first time. LOL. Wow! Super pleased with the result! I'm going to declare the project a success. It is definitely the look I was going for. Classical, not too complex, but with enough detail to make it interesting and fun to look at.

The 7 car train is about 51 inches long so each car contributes about 7-1/4 inches to the overall length. Keep that in mind if there is a particular length you're interested in. Just out of curiousity I weighed a few of the cars... they range anywhere from half a pound to just over a pound (not that it matters). By selecting which type of cars to build you could come up with different looks. For example, if you wanted to make a passenger train then omit the crane, tanker, and lumber car and make more passenger cars. And now that you see how the cars are built you can come up with your own designs if you'd like. Lots of options!

It certainly does not take a high level of skill to complete the train set and it's definitely in the range of the average woodworker with a good set of tools. Having good tools REALLY helps. Beyond that... careful work and attention to detail will yield good results.

As always... comments are welcome and I will be happy to answer any questions about the project. If you do build the train please post pictures! I'd love to see your work.

I'm very happy with my train cars. I think they turned out great and I'm sure they'll look amazing around the Christmas tree. But now what? I would like a set of tracks and I have some ideas on how to go about making those. That may turn into a pretty big project all by itself! I even have a vision for a whole miniature Christmas town to set up. We'll see. But dang it... my workshop is really messy now! I guess I should tidy everything up before I start a new project. Oh well... queue Barney:

Clean up! Clean up! Everybody... everywhere...

Clean up! Clean up! Everybody do your share...